[65 years
ago Tuesday, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated
as President. One of the most famous parts of that January 1961 event was Robert
Frost’s powerful poem, so this week I’ve AmericanStudied that text
and other occasional poetry from American history. Leading up to a first for
this blog, a piece of my own creative writing!]
I could go on and on, and perhaps a free-verse epic would be
required to really do justice to where we are in late January 2026. But that
would be neither a challenge for me nor something y’all would likely want to
read, so I decided on a sonnet (Shakespearean,
natch):
I try to
avoid language that’s rash;
AmericanStudies
demands our nuance.
But honesty
is ripe for a renaissance,
And I gotta
say things have gotten pretty fash.
Don’t
believe me—believe your honest eyes:
Our troops
in Caracas, Minneapolis, even freaking Nuuk?
It’d be
enough to make our Founding Framers puke,
And all because
he didn’t get a Nobel Prize.
Of course
that’s just the tip of the melting ice:
This nation
I love is overrun with ignorance and hate;
Folks are
looking for artificial intelligences to date;
And like
eggs, sanity comes at an increasingly steep price.
I know this
sonnet’s supposed to end with a turn,
But
hard-won hope’s something we’re gonna have to earn.
Next series starts Monday,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Occasional poetry you’d share, including
your own?
