Word: poetes
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...schoolchildren while bells ring from coast to coast. This time the Clintons rejected a suggestion that five-year-olds build a Tinker Toy bridge to the 21st century--too frivolous, they decided. The President spent hours sweating the details of Monday morning's national prayer service and handpicked Arkansas poet Miller Williams to muse at the swearing in. "The President and First Lady wanted it to be less of a megillah," said a West Wing official. "Simple" and "elegant" are the terms Clinton officials want applied to it when it's over...
There is no evidence, I'll admit, that I was under consideration for Inaugural poet in the first place. The White House headhunters could have missed the long narrative poems in this space about each of the political conventions. They might have been unaware that perched on another soapbox, I have long provided weekly verse so focused on current affairs that I've rhymed Dole with "liberal mole" and "preppie troll" (during the Forbes challenge, of course) and, in reference to his delivery of the Republican reply to the President's State of the Union message, "as limp as sauteed...
...wife said complaining about not being picked could be misunderstood as criticism of the poet who was chosen--Miller Williams, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, whose work, from what she'd heard from discerning literary friends, I might like very much if I ever took the trouble to read...
...feel it only fair, though, to point out to my wife that many people may underestimate the difficulty of writing verse that must include the names of whichever politician a fickle electorate happens to thrust forward. It takes a toll on a poet to go to his desk every day in the full knowledge that he'll never find a rhyme for Moynihan...
...Mall to witness this celebration of American self-government. Though this Inauguration was a smaller, less lavish affair than Clinton's Hollywood-style blowout in 1993, the crowd seemed jubilant, buoyed by the gospel choir, Jessye Norman's powerful rendition of "America the Beautiful," and the verse of Arkansas poet Miller Williams. During the day that is set aside every four years to celebrate Democracy's peaceful transition of power, tensions that have plagued Washington momentarily disappeared. Speaker Gingrich led a delegation of GOP leaders in helping escort Clinton to the podium, then praised him good-naturedly in the President...