THE DAILY BLADE: The Poetry Corner
Regular readers of this blog know that The Stiletto is a poetry lover, and these three items caught her eye this week:
† At his first post-arrest press conference to address allegations of influence peddling, IL Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) said:
I am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing ... I intend to stay on the job ... I will fight this thing every step of the way. ...
I will not talk about this case in thirty second sound bites on “Meet the Press” or on the TV news. Now, I’m dying to answer these charges. I am dying to show you how innocent I am. And I want to assure everyone ... that I intend to answer every allegation ... in the appropriate forum, in a court of law. And when I do, I am absolutely certain I will be vindicated. Rudyard Kipling wrote:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating ...
The Wall Street Journal's "Washington Wire" blog notes that the first stanza’s last line was omitted: “And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.”
But while Blago didn't quote "If" in its entirety, his combative stance signals that he plans to live up to at least this one manly virtue enumerated by Kipling (the last two lines of the third stanza):
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
Meanwhile, Blago’s attorney, Ed Genson, plans to “challenge the lawfulness of court-ordered wiretaps at the heart of federal corruption allegations against [his client],” reports The Associated Press, suggesting he cannot make allowances for anyone doubting his client’s innocence. But then, that’s what he’s paid for.
† The Washington Post reports, “[P]oetry is returning to the inauguration of the American president. … It is the first time that ‘poetry's old-fashioned praise,’ as Robert Frost called it, will be featured at the ceremony since 1997”:
The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced today that Elizabeth Alexander, a prize-winning poet at Yale University who grew up in Washington, will read at the swearing in next month of President-elect Barack Obama. …
Alexander, 45, would be only the fourth poet to read at a swearing-in after Frost, who read at John F. Kennedy's in 1961, Maya Angelou, who read at Bill Clinton's in 1993, and Miller Williams, who read in Clinton's second inaugural in 1997, according to government officials.
"Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner, overhear on the bus, G-d in the details," Alexander wrote in a poem entitled, Ars Poetica #100: I Believe. "Poetry (here I hear myself loudest) is the human voice, and are we not of interest to each other?"
Alexander, a professor of African American studies, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005 and winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize last year.
She is the daughter of former secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander, who made appearances on Obama's behalf during the campaign. She grew up on Capitol Hill and attended Sidwell Friends School, which Obama's children will attend. She is also a former neighbor of Obama's in Chicago.
The WaPo quotes several prominent poets who agreed that Alexander was given a plum assignment no poet can refuse, but that it’s a tricky to write a poem for an occasion of state, because you can only hope that inspiration will strike at the right time.
† For the first time since 1998, “Greetings, Friends!,” Roger Angell’s year-end rhyming recap of people and events is gracing the pages of The New Yorker magazine. The 88-year-old, who’s been an editor at the magazine since 1956, had stopped writing the annual poem because he didn’t think he had it in him anymore, but after “a few flashes of inspiration while on vacation in Maine” he just kept going after nailing down several lines. Here’s a snippet from a New York Times article that gives a history of the much beloved holiday poem:
Carla Bruni, comment ça va?
Et Georges Cluny — connais pas?
So ha’r you doin’, George F. Will,
Drew Gilpin Faust, and Dr. Phil?
The Times has one small quibble, however:
The names in this year’s poem — Tina Fey, Bobby Jindal, Bristol Palin, Lou Dobbs, Miley Cyrus and Barack and Michelle Obama among them - mostly feel right on, though there are occasional off notes. As wonderful as she is, did Mr. Angell really need to bring up, in 2008, Teri Garr - even if he rhymed her name with that of David Carr, the reporter for The New York Times? (What was wrong with Bob Barr, John Lahr or Car Czar?)
For his part, Angell’s colleague Calvin Trillin, who writes political verse for The Nation tells The Times: “It was very shrewd of Roger to get his poem done before Rod Blagojevich had his spot of bother.”
Maybe it’s not quite as difficult as looks at first blush:
Bernard Madoff’s pyramid plot
Cost Arpad Busson quite a lot.
Can Carl Shapiro still be rich?
No one can afford Blagojevich.
OK, that was hard. It’s the number of syllables in “Blagojevich” that’s the meter killer.
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