The Best American Poetry

Inaugural Poems in the News

Three Flags, 1958, Jasper Johns  

 In early December Nancy Benac of the Associated Press phoned me because she was working on a piece about the coming inauguration and she had read "A Poetry-Free Presidency," which I wrote for Salon on January 19, 2001. Would Obama ask a poet to deliver an ode for the occasion, as Kennedy and Clinton did, or would he follow in Bush's footsteps and shun the practice? And if the former, whom would he choose? This was days before the President-elect settled the debate and tapped the poet Elizabeth Alexander for the inaugural ceremony. Yet there remained much for an AP reporter to write about. What could a poet add to the occasion? How had previous inaugural poets fared? Have American presidents in the past been responsive to poetry?

In her excellent AP piece , Nancy Benac mentioned that The Best American Poetry website blog was staging a challenge for the best inaugural ode. Our rules were arcane enough to assure that contestants would invest time and thought into the project. To be eligible, a poem had to consist of four quatrains, had to include at least three words from a prescribed list (honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power), and had to lift a line from "The Best American Poetry 2008." Nearly fifty poems came our way. All were read anonymously. Mark Strand, a former guest editor of The Best American Poetry, served as judge and chose Gerald Greland's "This Is the Dream" as the winner. R. S. Gwynn came in a strong second with "An Inaugural Prayer." Valentina Gnup and Michael Schiavo took home third-place honors.

In a subsequent phone conversation, Nancy Benac asked me if I would consider writing my own poem for the inauguration. She told me she was asking an array of other poets -- among them Julia Alvarez, Billy Collins, Bob Holman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gary Soto, and Alice Walker -- to try their hand at it.  I love a challenge, so I said yes, and I thought it only fair for my effort to comply with the rules we had established for the BAP inaugural ode competition. A week later, Bonny Ghosh of the Associated Press came to my apartment with cameras and sound equipment and taped me reading my "Poem for Obama."

Ten of these inaugural poems have been posted here and in some cases there's a video of the poet reciting his or her work.

-- DL

Congratulations Gerald Greland, Winner of the Inaugural Ode Contest

Last month, we announced our third Best American Poetry Poem Challenge, for which poets were invited to write an inaugural ode.  We received many strong poems and thank all of the poets who took time to compose a poem and enter it here.  Our winning poem "This is the Dream," comes to us from Gerald Greland of Bronxville, NY.   Of Greland's poem our judge Mark Strand writes, "The overall elegance of "This Is a Dream," its formal grace, the subtlety of its argument, seemed to me exceptional and certainly worthy of first place."   Congratulations, Gerald, and thank you.

This Is the Dream

At the creation of the new, there is always
a myth of division – day from night, light
from dark, dawn delivering from the threat
of shadows disrupting rest. True exchange

would turn away from the “from” of malaise
or discontent toward an “and” of hope to unite
this fractured land. We must form anew, forget
what we have feared, honor the entire range

of our American experience. Integrity lays
in a whole greater than its parts: one bright
blazing union forging ahead without regret
or rancor. Today, let us move past estrange-

ment and distrust. We hold within us new ways
of seeing each other, working as one to ignite
a reaction across this great nation, again to set
our spacious skies shining by this sea of change.

          -- by Gerald Greland

Line from a poem in the Best American Poetry 2008: From “Threshing” by Louise Glück: “This is the dream.”

You can hear Greland read his winning poem and David Lehman read R.S. Gwynn's "An Inaugural Prayer" on Boston's WBUR radio here: Download Hereandnow_1225  Or follow this link.

The Inaugural Ode Contest: And the Winner Is . . .

But first, the runners up. Last month, we announced The Third Annual Best American Poetry Poem Challenge, for which poets were invited to write an inaugural ode, suitable for reading aloud on January 20, 2009. It had to consist of sixteen lines broken into four quatrains, rhyme scheme optional. Furthermore, the ode had to include one line lifted from a poem in The Best American Poetry 2008 or from the book's foreword or introduction, and also include at least three of the following words: honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power.   Poet Mark Strand selected the winner and runners up.

Yesterday, we announced third place winners Valentina Gnup and Michael Schiavo.  Read their poems here and here.

Now we are pleased to announce the second place poem.

An Inaugural Prayer comes to us from R. S. Gwynn of Beaumont, Texas.  Thank you, R.S. and congratulations!

An Inaugural Prayer

Lord, Whom we may not mention
By name, Great Undefined,
Lend us one dimension
Of Thine awful mind.

The words will come--faith, power,
Integrity, and change--
To be bartered in this hour,
And may those words estrange

Us from our friends and neighbors
In long-drawn arguments
Till the fruits of our labors
Ripen to common sense.

Let no vote be decided
Save when we disagree.
A nation undivided
Never can be free.

                    -- by R. S. Gwynn

(The first four words of line 5 are taken from R. T. Smith's "Pentecost"; the second word of line 13 is line 6 of Charles Bernstein's "Ku(na)hay," and the first word of line 15 is line 19 of the same poem.)

The Inaugural Ode Contest: And the Winner Is . . .

But first, the runners up. Last month, we announced The Third Annual Best American Poetry Poem Challenge, for which poets were invited to write an inaugural ode, suitable for reading aloud on January 20, 2009. It had to consist of sixteen lines broken into four quatrains, rhyme scheme optional. Furthermore, the ode had to include one line lifted from a poem in The Best American Poetry 2008 or from the book's foreword or introduction, and also include at least three of the following words: honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power.   Poet Mark Strand selected the winner and runners up.

Tied for third place with Valentina Gnup is this fine poem, Morning Gown, by Michael Schiavo, of North Bennington, Vermont.  Congratulations, Michael, and thank you for your poem. 

MORNING GOWN

let’s open this door together

             cherry blossoms stir

                           you are mine & I am yours

the water is on fire

             cherry blossoms blur

                           my power comes from you

every mind on fire

             now we do our do

                           all I am is you

faith in our strange ways

             as we do our do

                           to change tomorrow today

have faith in our strange ways

             three hundred million doors

                           change tomorrow today

this thing we do is ours

             -- by Michael Schiavo

“The water is on fire.” is from James Galvin’s poem “Girl without Her Nightgown.” The Best American Poetry 2008

The Inaugural Ode Contest: And the Winner Is . . .

But first, the runners up. Last month, we announced The Third Annual Best American Poetry Poem Challenge, for which poets were invited to write an inaugural ode, suitable for reading aloud on January 20, 2009. It had to consist of sixteen lines broken into four quatrains, rhyme scheme optional. Furthermore, the ode had to include one line lifted from a poem in The Best American Poetry 2008 or from the book's foreword or introduction, and also include at least three of the following words: honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power.   Poet Mark Strand selected the winner and runners up.

Tied for third place is this fine poem, American Meditation, by Valentina Gnup, of Portland, Oregon.  Congratulations, Valentina, and thank you for your poem. 

American Meditation

Your father wakes, kisses the soft curve of your mother,
rises with faith in the man who will collect his garbage,
the woman who will deliver the mail. His America
was always a train whistle, the honor of going to work.

The sky’s light behind the mountain changes from red
to blue. He walks beside a Walmart and Starbucks—
those make-believe Americas. At 81, his shoulders hunch;
he forgets to look up—the way we all forget to look up.

Your father rests beside a river as wide as hope—gold
maple leaves roil and churn in the cold foam, floating
like the faraway war dead we forget as soon as the news
is quiet. America is that river, those golden leaves too.

On his porch, any old man in a Dodgers sweatshirt,
he stares back at the last century, unable to recognize
the one he walks through now. Across the driveway
his neighbor calls out, It’s warmer today, a little warmer.

                        -- Valentina Gnup

The sky’s light behind the mountain—from Louise Glück, “Threshing”
The Best American Poetry 2008 p. 39

Inaugural Ode Contest in the News

The Associated Press reports:
Poets see Obama Inauguration Possibilities

John F. Kennedy was the first American president to include a poet in his inauguration, and Bill Clinton was only the second. Now, poets and poetry lovers around the United States are hoping that Barack Obama, known for his own skillful use of language, will be the third.

"Speculation is rife in the poetry world," says Tree Swenson, executive director of the Academy of American Poets. "Given that he is so eloquent himself and so tuned to words, the assumption is that, of course, he will have a poet at the inauguration."

Continue reading here.

-- sdh

Announcing the Third Annual Best American Poetry Poem Challenge

THE CHALLENGE:  Write an Inaugural Ode

Write an inaugural ode, suitable for reading aloud on January 20, 2009. It must consist of sixteen lines broken into four quatrains, rhyme scheme optional. The ode must include one line lifted from a poem in The Best American Poetry 2008 or from the book's foreword or introduction, and it must also include at least three of the following words: honor, integrity, faith, hope, change, power.  Find details on prizes and how to enter here.

The contest will be judged by a former Best American Poetry guest editor whose name will be revealed when the winner is announced.

The deadline for entry is midnight, eastern standard time, December 5, 2008.

"She Who Disbands Armies" by Amy Lawless

This poem was ruled ineligible for the BAP challenge because the poet left out a letter of Louise Gluck's name and the resulting poem was one line short. Nevertheless "She Who Disbands Armies" so impressed us with its comic vitality and high spirits that we happily post it here. -- DL

She Who Disbands Armies

“‘Haven't you ever heard of Lysistrata?’

‘Yeah, isn't that a mouthwash?’”

                                                    —Gilligan’s Island

Lysistrata blue balled soldiers with names like

Ulysses and Kinesias by holstering her half-inch clit—

instead of unsheathing, their swords were cockblocked.

(Suggest the need for hookers, less freedom.  Suggest Jennys rubbing against

each hand peacefully for the cause.)  The gunners return to war; now

gleeful to cooperate with those camel-fuckers.

Looser this time, nothing to lose.  Calendars without Caesarians.

Über this cloud is no watching God—just more frustrated men.  Finally, man

claims his own humanity.  Pressing against his canvas, advancing.

Kickback some green to Nietzsche. He was right: no one slept last night.

-- Amy Lawless

"As the Underworld Turns" by Sally Cook

Sally Cook's cleverly titled "As the Underworld Turns" was named one of two runners-up in the recent BAP Poem Challenge judged by Paul Violi. It's a charmer! Here it is:

AS THE UNDERWORLD TURNS

Like her sis, Persephone

On fair Adonis set her sights.

Underworld talk had it that she

Interfered with sister’s rights.

So, old Zeus ruled there’d be seasons!

Earth’s year went, two-thirds, to ladies.

*

Goodness knows, Zeus had his reasons -- 

Life stayed sweet in the Cyclades.

Under, next to Hades’ furies

Cabbage and anemones,

Kissed to life, were blessed by Ceres.

-- Sally Cook

"Komposition X" by Amy Allara

After she correctly translated "Hit the Lump of Rich Seal" into "The Triumph of Achilles" and identified Louise Gluck as that book's author, Amy Allara wrote this flowing acrostic poem that (to paraphrase Stevens) approaches prose but turns back into verse at the last possible second, the end of each line. The challenge called for a two-stanza poem; Allara makes the unconventional choice of breaking the lines into asymmetrical units of eleven and two.   -- DL

“Komposition X”

Left only with a motley assortment of objects

or with a series of flimsy hypotheses to explain what might be an

underpinning of what had just been there,

it doesn’t seem at all proper that one should just take leave

so unceremoniously without notification, without so much as an

exit that made sense or even a sound or with a

going that could invite an easy rationale.

Latching onto these inert items seems hazardous and certainly his copy of

Über Psychoanalyse cannot transmit much warmth to the wrecked bed

        linens —

Can a return to collect be counted on or is that stark and enigmatic

Kandinsky now hooked onto my wall for good.

-- Amy Allara