Text and meaning in Robert Frost's Dedication: For John F. Kennedy (part 1 of 2) - by Aberjhani

        Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy greet poet Robert Frost. (photo by Reuters)

During observations from November 16 - 22, 2013, of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, various news commentators noted a history-changing event of a different kind involving the four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Frost.

When invited by President Kennedy to become the United States’ first presidential inauguration poet, Mr. Frost dutifully composed for the occasion a 77-line poem frequently referred to as “Dedication” and now published in his collected works, The Poetry of Robert Frost, as: “For John F. Kennedy, His Inauguration, With Some Preliminary History in Rhyme.” However, when attempting to read the poem at the ceremony on January 20, 1961, the glare of sunlight reflecting off snow made it impossible and Frost instead famously recited from memory the much shorter 16-line poem titled “The Gift Outright.” 

With Kennedy’s assassination, Americans witnessed how human beings sometimes force upon history reference points defined by horror. With Frost’s move to adapt to unexpected conditions by reciting a shorter poem in place of the one he had written specifically for his president and country, onlookers witnessed how history sometimes leaves humanity no choice except to respect the nature of that reality known as change.

Politics and the Literary Arts

Just a few decades before President Kennedy handpicked the poet Frost to join him in making history, another president in the form of Franklin Delano Roosevelt had helped ensure the survival of poets and authors during the Great Depression with the creation of the Federal Writers’ Project in 1935. Through it, writers such as Sterling Brown, Claude McKay, and Richard Wright of the Harlem Renaissance also added to the historical substance of the literary arts in the United States. 

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Text and meaning in Robert Frost's Dedication: For John F. Kennedy (part 1 of 2) - National African-American Art | Examiner.com