A poet at the inaugural? What does it matter?
Following is the full text of an essay by Linda Simon, professor of English at Skidmore, published today in a shorter form by the Albany Times-Union.
The economy is tanking, the Middle East is erupting, polar ice is melting: what does it matter that our new president is a best-selling author? What does it matter that, for only the fourth time in the nation?s history, a poet will read at his inauguration? ?There are things that are important beyond all this fiddle,? Marianne Moore once wrote about the enterprise of poetry. We all know that. And yet, many of us for whom words, literature, and the arts are central to our lives?many of us engaged in offering a liberal arts education?see Barack Obama?s presidency as cause for celebration.
In his speeches and autobiographies, Obama has proven his mastery at communicating
not only clearly but eloquently; not only in full, grammatically correct sentences
but in fresh, precise, and cadenced paragraphs. He inspires us with language that
reflects the richness of his ideas. Those ideas respond to immediate pressures (his
plans, for example, on reviving the economy) and to larger, more transcendent, and
equally urgent questions: questions about the viability of a vigorous democracy. ?Democracy
is on its trial, and no one knows how it will stand the ordeal,? the philosopher William
James wrote just over 100 years ago. What threatened democracy then? Small-mindedness.
Corporate greed. Poor leadership. The newspapers of Europe, James noticed, ?are already
drawing Uncle Sam with the hog instead of the eagle for his heraldic emblem.? Democracy
can thrive, James warned, only if citizens are able to participate wisely. To develop
that ability, he said, they need to be educated in the liberal arts.
Literature and the arts are more than luxuries, especially in hard times. They animate our sense of possibilities. They develop our capacity to weigh one idea against another, and to think pragmatically about the consequences of ideas. They develop our capacity for empathy, for close and deliberate attention to what words really mean, and for imagining multiple perspectives. What does it matter that we now have a president who counts among his favorite authors Toni Morrison and E. L. Doctorow? What does it matter that he is thinking about an ?artists? corps? to sow seeds of imagination? For many of us, having a leader who treasures literature, who will begin his presidency with a poet?s words: this matters deeply. In poetry, after all, as Marianne Moore told us, we find ?a place for the genuine.?