What does it mean to know a poet? Does it count if you could write a letter off the top of your head introducing a friend to the poet’s work? Do you have to have entire poems or at least some lines committed to memory?
The political advertisements in Georgia are such an assault on my sensibilities that I was trying to imagine whether any of the candidates read poetry. If so, which poets do they know?
It seems as if that would be telling — a good thing to know.
That question led me to Elizabeth Haball’s essay about a dozen U.S. presidents who read poetry.
Jimmy Carter was a fan of Dylan Thomas. He lobbied to have a memorial installed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Abraham Lincoln was a fan of Robert Burns. People knew that invited the president to make a toast at a dinner honoring the poet. Lincoln declined, saying he could say nothing worthy of the poet’s genius.
Harry Truman carried some lines from Tennyson’s poem “Locksley Hall” in his wallet. The paper with the copied lines kept wearing out, and Truman kept recopying — 20 or 30 times.
Truman’s devotion to a poem strikes me as admirable. His choice of poem strikes me as creepy, meaning it’s telling. I’m not sure I’d vote for a candidate who had the sensibilities needed to love that poem.
• Source: Elizabeth Harball, “Poetic Presidents: We’ve matched 12 commanders-in-chief with the poets that inspired them”; Poetry Foundation, Oct. 31, 2012. It’s here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69875/poetic-presidents
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