Reading the 2013 Inaugural Poem, “One Today”
Imagine writing a poem to order – for the President!
By Carol Jago
James Dickey wrote that, "A poet is someone who stands outside in the
rain hoping to be struck by lightning." Fortunately, Richard Blanco, the
poet President Obama chose to compose a work for his second
inauguration, met with clear skies.
Not being struck by lightning doesn’t mean Blanco wasn’t awed by the
presidential invitation. In an interview with The New York Times he spoke
of the challenge:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/books/richard-blanco-2013inaugural-poet.html?_r=0
WASHINGTON — From the moment Barack Obama burst onto the
political scene, the poet Richard Blanco, a son of Cuban exiles, says he felt
“a spiritual connection” with the man who would become the nation’s 44th
president.
Like Mr. Obama, who chronicled his multicultural upbringing in a bestselling autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Blanco has been on
a quest for personal identity through the written word. He said his affinity
for Mr. Obama springs from his own feeling of straddling different worlds;
he is Latino and gay (and worked as a civil engineer while pursuing poetry).
His poems are laden with longing for the sights and smells of the land his
parents left behind.
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Now Mr. Obama is about to pluck Mr. Blanco out of the relatively obscure
and quiet world of poetry and put him on display before the entire world.
On Wednesday the president’s inaugural planners will announce that Mr.
Blanco is to be the 2013 inaugural poet, joining the ranks of notables like
Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.
“Since the beginning of the campaign, I totally related to his life story and
the way he speaks of his family, and of course his multicultural
background,” Mr. Blanco said in a telephone interview from the rural
village of Bethel, Me., where he lives with his partner. “There has always
been a spiritual connection in that sense. I feel in some ways that when I’m
writing about my family, I’m writing about him.”
Presidents have the right to choose whether or not they want a poem read
as part of the inaugural ceremony. They do not, however, have control over
the weather. John F. Kennedy invited Robert Frost to read “The Gift
Outright” at his inauguration http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/
237942 suggesting an alteration to the last line. At the President’s request,
Frost changed, “Such as she was, such as she would become” to “Such as
she was, such as she will become.” Frost wrote another poem “Dedication”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/inauguration/frost_poem.html and
planned to read it as a preface to “The Gift Outright,” but glare from newfallen snow blinded him to the words on the page. On the spot he recited
“The Gift Outright” from memory.
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It wasn’t until Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in 1977 that another poet was
included in the ceremonies. James Dickey read “The Strength of Fields”
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171428 at the Kennedy Center
gala following the inauguration.
President Bill Clinton commissioned Maya Angelou in 1993 http://
www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178949 and Miller Williams in 1997 to
write and read from the dias. In a PBS interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june96/
williams_1-16.html Williams spoke about the challenges of writing a poem
on demand:
“It's hard partly because in a case like this, considerable attention attends
the situation, and it's been a little bit difficult to find the time to hide away
as much as I'd like to, to let all this poem come together. But I don't really
mind … because I truly believe that when one accepts an appointment like
this, the Inaugural Poet … to an important degree, enters the public
domain. A part of me belongs to the American people.”
The practice of commissioning occasional poems is nothing new. In the
past, poet laureates in England were charged with writing poems to honor
milestones in the lives of the Royal Family. In 1981 former laureate John
Betjeman wrote “Ode on the Marriage of Charles and Diana,” and in 2005
Andrew Motion wrote a poem for the wedding of Charles and Camilla
Parker-Bowles called “Spring Wedding” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
uk_news/4427239.stm. Though the current British Poet Laureate, Carol
Ann Duffy, is no longer required to write poems to celebrate royal
occasions and was widely expected to decline to comment on the wedding
of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, she surprised everyone by
publishing “Rings” http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/23/
wedding-carol-ann-duffy-poetry, explaining that “It seems time to renew
the unbreakable relationship between love and poetry.” Her poem does
not, however, mention either Prince William or the Duchess of Cambridge.
In his poem for the second inauguration of President Barak Obama,
Richard Blanco echoed the themes laid out in the President’s inaugural
address. Titled “One Today,” the poem describes a country under “one sun”
and “one light,” where people toil on “one ground, our ground.”
Reminiscent of Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago,” the poem celebrates the
common work of uncommon individuals. Blanco calls out for special praise
his own mother who rang up groceries for twenty years “so I could write
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this poem” and his father who cut sugar cane “so my brother and I could
have books and shoes.” This is a poem both personal and grandiloquent.
It seems to me that the best occasional poems take their cue from the
inimitable Emily Dickinson who recommends,
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --
Discussion questions for Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem
1. Watch the video of Richard Blanco reading “One Today” (Please insert link to
video), and then read the poem underlining what you think are its most important
words. Explain why you think these particular words and images are important to
the poem’s meaning.
2. In the first and seventh stanzas, the speaker makes reference to geographical
places. What do these places suggest? What do they mean to Americans?
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3. Throughout the poem we find many references to labor and work. Identify these
lines and phrases. What kind of work does the speaker in the poem honor and
respect? What are these lines saying about America and Americans?
4. This poem was first read on Martin Luther King Day in Washington, D.C. Explain
the allusion entailed in “the ‘I have a dream’ we keep dreaming”?
5. The sixth stanza begins “Hear” and goes on to catalogue the ordinary sounds of a
day. What do the multi-lingual versions of “Hello” suggest about the America
Blanco is describing? Why do you think he calls out “buenos dias / in the
language my mother taught me”? What do these lines suggest about the poet’s
relationship with that language?
6. In 2006, then-Senator Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on
Reclaiming the American Dream offering a vision of how a united nation could
tackle our common problems. Richard Blanco writes in the poem’s concluding
stanza, “hope – a new constellation / waiting for us to map it, / waiting for us to
name it – together.” Relate these lines to the notion suggested by the title of
President Obama’s book.
7. Identify lines in the poem that reflect the occasion for which the poem was
written. How do the lines you have chosen suggest issues surrounding the
inauguration of a president?
8. Read the poem again selecting a line or phrase that struck you as luminous or
beguiling. Write for 5 minutes about what the line caused you to think. Turn to a
partner or small group, read the poem aloud once more, and discuss the selected
lines.
Lesson Ideas
•
How are Richard Blanco’s comments in The New York Times article reflected in
the poem he wrote for President Obama’s second inauguration?
•
Read Robert Frost’s poem “The Gift Outright” and discuss how the alteration of a
single word in the last line affects the poem’s message and tone.
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•
Read Linda Pastan’s poem “Remembering Frost at Kennedy’s Inauguration”
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/237668 How does Pastan contrast the
president with the poet? Invite students to do a close reading of the photograph
from 1961 as they discuss Pastan’s poem.
•
Watch the video of Maya Angelou reading her inaugural poem “On the Pulse of
the Morning” http://dev.history.com/videos/maya-angelou-recites-clintoninaugural-poem#maya-angelou-recites-clinton-inaugural-poem and compare her
performance with Richard Blanco’s in 2013.
•
Discuss Miller Williams’ assertion that an inaugural poet “belongs to the
American people.” How might this belief determine the content of inaugural
poems? To stimulate discussion, have students read Francis X. Clines’ essay,
“Inaugural Poetry: The Ode Not Taken.” http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/19/
weekinreview/inaugural-poetry-the-ode-not-taken.html
•
Read Michelle Alexander’s poem “Praise Song for the Day” http://
www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html written on the
occasion of President Barak Obama’s first inauguration. Compare her poem with
Richard Blanco’s.
•
Visit Richard Blanco’s website http://www.richard-blanco.com/ and listen to other
poems he has written. How does his 2013 inaugural poem reflect themes present
in his previously published work? For further study, go to the Poetry Foundation’s
Richard Blanco page http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-blanco.
•
Listen to the Boston Public Radio interview with Ilan Stavans, professor in Latino
American and Latino Culture at Amherst and editor of the Norton Anthology of
Latino Literature and journalist Maria Hinojosa discussing the significance of
President Barak Obama’s selection of Richard Blanco as inaugural poet http://
www.wgbhnews.org/post/poet-richard-blanco. View Jeffrey Brown’s PBS
interview with Richard Blanco in which the poet describes his process of
composition. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2013/01/friday-on-thenewshour-inaugural-poet-richard-blanco.html
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•
Have students create a readers’ theater script of Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem,
dividing the poem for individual voices and choosing lines to be read in chorus
for emphasis. Perform the poem.
•
Invite students to write an occasional poem of their own commemorating an
important event or moment: a friend’s birthday, the anniversary of a day to
remember, a moment in history, the birth of a sibling, etc.
•
Ask students to review the poems they read over the course of this lesson and to
select one that particularly appeals to them. Then have students write an essay
analyzing the poet’s use of imagery, syntax, and diction.
Carol Jago has taught high school English for 32 years in Santa Monica, California and
directs the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. She is past president of
the National Council of Teachers of English.
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