Friday, October 24, 2008
Cast A (Less Important) Vote
Election time draws nigh.
Did you know George W. Bush excluded a reading from a poet at his inauguration? Alert the media. I enjoy this fact, because it is his one offense that most would agree with him in not caring about.
Frost's reading at Kennedy's inauguration is somewhat legendary by now. God bless you, Bill Clinton, you had Maya "Caged Bird" Angelou read at yours. James Dickey even threw down for Jimmy Carter in '77.
So what's your vote? What poet should read at the 2008 presidential inauguration?
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4 comments:
Carter had James Dickey, and Clinton had Angelou. I guess this has something to do with the fact that Carter won a Nobel Peace Prize and Clinton got a blowjob.
I am trying imagine Simic getting up there while a president is being inaugurated and shouting "I'm crazy about her shrimp!," but I could get behind Mark Doty. Frank Bidart would just terrify and confuse everyone. Billy Collins is probably the obvious choice, if any poet is even invited, but when I read him I just want to draw a bath and maybe eat a hard boiled egg in silence, nothing pioneering.
Assuming it's Obama, it'd have to be someone with an epic voice--Micah?
I don't know if you all have seen this, but I found two articles on Obama and the poetry he wrote when he was 19.
Story on the poems
Harold Blooms comments on the poems here.
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