The inauguration ceremony for the 44th President of the USA takes place on Tuesday, 20th January 2009.
It's a very tough time for someone whose campaign was so full of hope and promise to be taking office, in terms of both domestic and foreign policy.
So, it's perhaps a good time to re-savour the elation of his election, captured in these poems featured on the Over The Edge blog. Well worth a read, as the contributors list is as follows: Gary King, Eva Bourke, Susan Millar DuMars, Dave Lordan, Aidan Hynes, Maureen-Eilish Purcell, Gemma Marren, Michael Conneely, Desmond Swords, Marie Cadden, Susan Lindsay, Kevin Carmody, Deirdre Kearney, Gary Beck, Eileen Byrne, Rosanna Guneratne, Steve Ely, Lucie Kantorova, Kevin Higgins & Trisha McKeon.
8 comments:
What a fascinating collection. Now I'm trying to imagine a feverish outbreak of verse on the inauguration of a British premier. Nope - it's just not happening...
No laureate here , should we habve a poet for President and a bard for Biffo? I'm up for it, after all there's complete totalfeckineejits running da country ,why not one writing about it?
Oh yeah, now that Obama's elected, everything will be peachy forever and ever.
guys i'm certainly not celebrating the coronation of the new emperor, as i hope the poem reveals
dave lordan
Dave--
Yours didn't come across rose-colored, to your credit. But really, there was a slightly fatuous tone in many of the pieces.
Quincy
Dick, I agree: more likely to be the realm of satirists.
TFE - there's enough eejits writing about it in the papers every day ;)
Quincy, Dave, I did say it would be 'interesting' to look back at what people thought then, compared to now... thanks for dropping by.
Hi Barbara, Dave & Quincy,
Hope all is well with you all. About the poems: they are not really (as a collection) poems to celebrate Obama's election or inauguration, but poems that respond to it in some way. When we sent out the call for poems, we specifically said that the poems could be written from any political point of view and that's what we've done. Inevitably there is an occasional quality to many of the poems, as there will be with any collection of poems responding to a public event. The idea, as with most things we do with Over The Edge, came from an organic place (oh dear, what a very hippy dippy thing for me to say!). Gary King had a poem on the issue, written this time last year. Then Susan wrote one after we were in St. Louis in November, just after the election. And then we thought, why not put out the call. And I also made it a task in the poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre. Anyway, there's the background. But in terms of 'celebrating' the coming of Obama; yes, most of the poems are, I think it's fair to say, favourably disposed towards his arrival. But if we received a poem saying that he was a pawn of evil capitalists, we would have published that too. And if we received a poem on the issue from a supporter of George W. Bush, we would have published that. The free exchange of ideas makes life so much more interesting. And more than that: it's the only way to go, all the best, Kevin
Hi Kevin, thanks for swinging by and elaborating on the call for and publishing of the poems responding (okay, next time I will be careful) to Obama's election and the new period just undertaken in US political history. If nothing else, at least we are talking about poetry, so these are not out there in a vacuum... and it's good to know that all poems, from whatever POV would have had a fair go. Thanks once again!
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