Arts: Can Richard Blanco Write a Great Inaugural Poem? Can Anyone?

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Brow Beat Can Richard Blanco Write a Great Inaugural Poem? Can Anyone? By Katy Waldman Posted Wednesday, Jan 09, 2013, at 08:32 PM ET Occasional poems, or poems crafted for a particular event, are notoriously tough to pull off. Inauguration poems might be the trickiest of all, requiring a kind of ringing, triumphal, sentimental tone that seems at odds with the evasions and double-backs of so much good poetry. Take John F. Kennedy's suggested revision to "The Gift Outright," by Robert Frost, which Frost recited in 1961 as the nation's first ever inaugural poet. The original last line, voicing an unrealized dream for America, read, "Such as she was, such as she might become." But a buoyant Kennedy proposed replacing "might" with "will," so that the line became the more assertive proclamation, "such as she will become." It's a small detail, but one that tips out a dram of the verse's subtlety and hints at why inaugural poems can be such bears to write. It's no wonder that criticizing them after the fact has turned into something of a national pastime. So who gets to groom the rough beast that is the inaugural poem for U.S. President Barack Obama's second term? On Wednesday the Obama camp announced that they've picked Cuban-American writer Richard Blanco, a child of exiled parents who identifies with the president's multicultural roots and relishes his message of inclusiveness. "Since the beginning of the campaign, I totally related to [Obama's] life story and the way he speaks of his family," Blanco told the New York Times. "There has always been a ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate A Ringing Defeat for Stop-and-Frisk and a Huge Win for Civil Liberties The "Obamacare Repeal" Fade About That Overpopulation Problem	Advertisement
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