The Presidential Inaugural Poem: Calling Us to Our Touchstones

                                                                    “When power corrupts, poetry cleanses”

        ~ John F. Kennedy

 

Amanda Gorman captured the nation with her recitation of “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s inauguration last month. The Presidential Inaugural Poem is a relatively new thing in the United States.  There have only been six in our history, and they have all occurred in my lifetime.  The first inaugural poem, “The Gift Outright,” was recited by Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. I may have seen it – our family watched the inauguration on TV. At six years of age, I cannot claim to remember it, but I do remember that it was my first realization that there was a president of the United States and that it is a pretty big deal.

I can say that I have eagerly tuned in to hear each inaugural poem since. There was no poetry at inaugurations after Robert Frost’s 1961 poem until Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. Clinton said that when he decided that he wanted a poem, he knew right away that he would ask Maya Angelou, who grew up in Stamps, Arkansas not far from his hometown of Hope. Miller Wiliams read a poem at Clinton's second inauguration. After that, there was another hiatus of poetic voices until Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 when Elizabeth Alexander read “Praise Song for the Day.”

That first inaugural poem by Robert Frost began with an embarrassingly bumbling beginning. Frost was famous in the American literary field and his work was known by every school child. Kennedy had asked him to read “The Gift Outright,” unless he wanted to write one for the occasion. Mr. Frost did, indeed, compose a new poem, “Dedication,” and went to the podium to read it. The blustery wind and the bright sun that day made it impossible for the 86-year-old poet to make out what he had written. Finally, he put the paper aside and recited from memory “The Gift Outright,” and the bumbling grandpa then rose to his full poetic stature.

Because it has been so important for me to hear these inaugural poems, I wanted to bring them all together to hear again what the poets spoke to the nation. I wanted to place myself again in that liminal space where poetry can enliven, or as John F. Kennedy put it in his address at the dedication of the Robert Frost Library at Amherst:

When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment.

I have assembled each of the Presidential Inaugural Poem events here for your viewing. If you take the time to watch and listen, you can get a sense of the role of the poet in the public square and you can see how that poetic voice has changed over the years, reflecting the dynamic interplay between poetry and society. We can also see what JFK described as “the richness and diversity of [our] existence.”

First, there is Robert Frost, the aging poet who honored the nation’s youngest president with a poem that in retrospect is perhaps a vestige of the patriarchy that went unquestioned from the time of our “founding fathers” to the new day that would be heralded by a young JFK (who still referred to “areas of man’s [sic] concern”). Then we see Maya Angelou opening up the national vista to reflect the growing awareness of the diversity of people who inhabit our land.

By the time we get to Amanda Gorman’s bright poem, we see a poet in her youth celebrating the inauguration of our oldest elected president. Her poem exemplifies how spoken word artists have influenced the way poetry is delivered to the public.

If you want to read the texts of each inaugural poem, you can go the compilation at TheLiterary Hub. 

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Photo credit: Gorman Photo by Alex Wong (Getty Images) Frost photo is from a Los Angeles Times File Photo

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Here are the Presidential Inaugural Poems in order of occurrence:

1961 Robert Frost, "The Gift Outright"

1993 Maya Angelou, "On the Pulse of Morning" 

1997 Miller Williams, "Of History and Hope" 

2009 Elizabeth Alexander, "Praise Song for the Day" 

2013 Richard Blanco, "One Today" 

2021 Amanda Gorman, "The Hill We Climb"

 

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November 22, 1963

This was the day, back in 1963, when there was a great shift in the mood of our country as the USA shared the grief and tragedy of the death of a president. I half-facetiously sometimes say I don’t trust anyone who can’t tell me where they were on this day in 1963.

In the small elementary school I attended in Alabama, the children often reflected what was heard at home.  I often heard classmates scorn President Kennedy (much as we hear some Tea Partyers scorn President Obama today). Also at the time, school milk cartons carried the faces of American presidents, with a short bio. Some of the kids cut them out and collected them. Occasionally, someone would find a milk carton with JFK’s picture on it and ceremoniously stomp it into the ground. This was reflective of the animosity felt in the South toward Kennedy. On that fateful day, shortly after the lunch period at school while we were in recess, someone came with the news that the President had been shot. The initial reaction of some was to think it was a joke. I saw kids dancing and celebrating, thinking they were acting out that same old ceremony of stomping a milk carton into the ground. Then when we realized that it was no joke – this was actual fact, a somber and fearful mood settled over our third grade class.

We came late in learning of the potential we held in our nation, embodied by the man who called upon us to “bear any burden and pay any price;” who set our sights on the moon (literally), and who laid the groundwork for civil rights and equality.  This day, even now, stands as a cautionary tale. That we can aspire to the highest good, then disregard the treasure in our midst. We can hope for a better world and then turn around to be mired in petty squabbles, unable to move forward toward the common good.