After President Biden’s farewell debate, I had a problem. It was evident that Donald Trump would win. I fantasised that he would offer me the post of Poet Laureate, and I wondered if I would accept. After all, Washington D.C. is hot and muggy, and it is across the country from my home in Los Angeles.
On the other hand, it would be a signal honour to be tapped; and, more importantly, a chance to partially fulfil a debt not only to my country, but to Mr Trump and those who’ve stood up in its defence.
I was reminded of the story of the Shadchan, the traditionally Jewish matchmaker. He comes to the Goldbergs’ house and asks if they would entertain an offer in marriage of their son, Shmuel, from Princess Margaret of Great Britain. The Goldbergs go into conference. “Yes, she is not Jewish, but on the other hand, her family is quite religious; yes, she is older than he, but they tend to live long…” And so on.
Eventually, they come back to the Shadchan and announce: “Yes, we would entertain an offer for our Shmuel from Princess Margaret.”
“Great,” the Shadchan says, “my job is half done.”
Now, after Mr Biden was deposed, I was saddened by a third alternative: that Mr Trump would be defeated, and I would be deprived of his proposition.
What does a Poet Laureate do? I don’t know, but I suspect the job might entail a semantically supportable fulfilment of its title: to sing the country’s praises, or present the work of those who have. And since it would be unbecoming to flog my own works from an official pedestal, I’d have to confine myself to endorsing the working of others.
My problem is this: what passes as American poetry leaves me unfulfilled. That represented, of old, to school children is largely drivel — Walt Whitman and Robert Frost’s work would not be out of place on greeting cards. Whitman’s grand but unfortunate contribution to the genre was the abandonment of rhyme, form and rhythm. Whitman heard America singing, and he sang about it himself; but poetry would have been better off if he’d limited his singing to the shower.
By contrast, there I would be, on Day One of the Restoration, on the podium in my ceremonial robes, all dressed up with nothing to say. But, in my fantasy, I had a job to do, and my job was to do it.
Who, then, were the poets? For certainly, there were many who could both write and praise our country. I name: Huddie Ledbetter, Hank Williams, Randy Newman, Johnny Mercer, Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, Carol King, Leiber and Stoller, Bob Dylan and Lead Belly.
The poets above wrote the American Songbook, which is the soundtrack of our lives. It was said that 80% percent of the kids born between 1950 and 1965 were conceived to the music of Frank Sinatra, much of which was written by Johnny Mercer. The poetry of Sandburg, Emerson, Whitman, and so on, is icky. Who needs it? Not I.
But, you might object, the songs above, most of them derivative of the Blues, are sad. Indeed they are, and life is sad. And the Blues are the spark of the soul in that sadness.
Tragedy is that celebration of life as God-given sorrow, and the possibility of finding strength and dignity within it. And the American Experience is, finally, tragic. Not because our country is evil, but because it is a country. It is the vast conglomerate of separate groups with not only different opinions but with irreconcilable differences. And yet, the differences must be reconciled, and however much effort is expended towards that goal, there will still be injustices, tragedy, crime, and error.
Our country was named for the cartographer Americus Vespucci. Amer in the Romance Tongues means bitter. The word comes from the Hebrew, Marab.
Moses was prohibited from entering Canaan because of his actions at Marah. God told him to address a rock and waters would pour forth. Moses, instead, struck the rock, twice. The incident was not mentioned until Moses stood on the heights overlooking Canaan. God told him he was not to enter, because of his disobedience.
But, mythologically, he was not punished; he was instead spared the experience of his people living in freedom. At the conclusion of Deuteronomy, Moses sings a song of leave-taking, and presentiments of blessings and peace. He was quite mistaken, as was proved when his charges crossed the River Jordan into Canaan. The Song was continued, here, by the Blues.
God Bless America.
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Source: UnHerd Read the original article here: https://unherd.com/