The poetry of optimism, the triumph of political management

At the Invesco Field at Mile High, I asked The Nation magazine columnist and poet Katha Pollitt to tell me if there had been any moments of poetry at this Democratic convention.

We were in the press box overlooking the rows filling-up with more than 75,000 Democratic faithful. On the Mitsubishi viewing screen in front of us, 96 feet by 27 feet, we could see the projected image of the speakers, mostly older white men, speaking in support of Barack Obama. Above the screen was the statue of a giant white bronco rearing in the air. Under the horse’s hooves were the tiny figures of two secret service agents standing with rifles and binoculars.

“There is poetry in Michelle Obama’s voice,” Pollitt said, “it’s very rich and powerful.” Pollitt felt that the woman who might be America’s next First Lady could be saying anything and it would sound good.

“It’s that beautiful contralto,” Pollitt explained.

There was also a lot of poetry, Pollitt felt, in the old refrain of family, home, and the nation. None of it had been very moving because it appeared that a lot of people were delivering the same message. The repetition was hardly surprising, because the Obama campaign has vetted each speech except for the truly brilliant one delivered by Bill Clinton.

Of course, the Democratic nominee has been widely noted for his lyrical gifts. In his memoir, in lines chosen almost at random, Obama writes about his reading the autobiography of Malcolm X: “His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer of will.”

And yet, it is this gift for extraordinary eloquence that has also appeared a failing in Obama when people ask whether there is anything substantial behind the soaring rhetoric.

This might be one reason why Obama’s speech at Invesco Field presented, beneath the fluttering penants and sails, the ballast of policy statements. “As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power… And I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy-wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels...”

Over the course of the Convention, I found that in the degraded landscape of television culture, poetry emerges only in the form of election slogans and put-downs. Weak alliteration and weak rhymes are especially prized. “Yes We Can. And Yes We Will.” “That’s not a maverick. That’s a sidekick.”

... contd.

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