An Evening of Poetry at the White House

May 11, 2011
7:14 P.M. EDT
Remarks by the President at Evening of Poetry at the White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/11/remarks-president-evening-poetry-white-house

The power of poetry is that everybody experiences it differently. There are no rules for what makes a great poem. Understanding it isn’t just about metaphor or meter. Instead, a great poem is one that resonates with us, that challenges us and that teaches us something about ourselves and the world that we live in. As Rita Dove says, “If [poetry] doesn’t affect you on some level that cannot be explained in words, then the poem hasn’t done its job.” Also known as, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing...

But as a nation built on freedom of expression, poets have always played an important role in telling our American story.

It was after the bombing of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 that a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key penned the poem that would become our National Anthem. The Statue of Liberty has always welcomed the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Soldiers going off to fight in World War II were giving -- given books of poetry for comfort and inspiration. And whenever our nation has faced a great tragedy -– whether it was the loss of a civil rights leader, the crew of a space shuttle, or the thousands of Americans that were lost on a clear September day -– we have turned to poetry when we can’t find quite the right words to express what we’re feeling.

So tonight we continue that tradition by hearing from some of our greatest -– as well as some of our newest -– poets. Billy Collins, who is here with us, calls poetry “the oldest form of travel writing,” because it takes us to places we can only imagine. So in that spirit, I’d like everyone to sit back, or sit on the edge of your seats, and enjoy the journey.

A Haiku on Olympiad preparation

Green wheels and grey bodies.

SECME, Ignite Minds through STEM!

Silver swoosh from Sun.

A Hauki on banner creation

Blank but for stray hairs;
To ignite the mind, first you
Graft grid to canvas.

A Hauki on Technical Report Writing

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See you next Wednesday!

Sir Isaac Newton

by David Arns

Under a spreading apple tree,
The village genius stands;
His mind conceives of wondrous things,
He writes them with his hands;
His fame goes forth to all the world--
He's known in many lands.

A tiny babe on Christmas Day
in 1642
Was born to Mrs. Newton
while outside, the cold winds blew.
And on the farm, through childhood,
precocious Isaac grew.

And after chores, he built devices
to see just how they worked,
To see what laws of nature
underneath the workings lurked.
(When people called them "toys," that's what
got Isaac really irked.)

His mother saw he was no farmer,
sent him off to school;
He quickly showed at Cambridge
that he was nobody's fool:
He began to bring to light the laws
that all of nature rule.

In one chapter in his story
(though apocryphal, it's said),
An apple, falling from a tree
impacted on his head,
Which drew his thoughts to gravity,
and we all know where that led.

He wondered if, by any chance,
the self-same gravitation
That pulls an apple to the ground,
affected all creation:
The moon, the planets, and the sun. . .
Thus went his cogitation.

He determined that the gravity
of earth indeed controls
The orbit of our moon, as 'round
the earth it ever rolls.
Now, describing it mathematically
was one of Newton's goals.

He discovered that the math you need
to show the laws of nature,
Surpassed the knowledge of that day;
the cosmos' legislature
Required new math, so Newton wrote
his "fluxions" nomenclature.

He talked of falling bodies
and his famous Laws of Motion,
And of colors seen in bubbles
and the tides upon the ocean.
And his crowning jewel, "Principia,"
created great commotion.

Yes, Newton's brilliant mind, it was
a trunk with many twigs--
His mind branched out in every way
(right through his powdered wigs).
His greatest contribution, though,
was cookies made from figs.

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer & Sky

The 2009-2010 SECME theme is "Igniting Minds Through STEM Education." As you read the two poems below, contrast the poet of "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" with the poet of "Sky." Which poet has a mind ignited by STEM education?

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts, the diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the learned astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

Poet: Walt Whitman (Books by Walt Whitman)
Poem: 5. When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer.
Volume: Leaves of Grass - 15. Songs of Parting
Year: Published/Written in 1900

--------------------

Sky

See the wonders of the sky--wondrous sky!
Astronomic marvels everywhere do meet the eye!
They are waiting, waiting, waiting
for us just to take a glance,
And behold them in their splendor,
Filled with awe that they engender,
as we gaze in dreamlike trance;
And we stare, stare, stare
through the icy winter air,
And are dazzled at the glory
of the heav'nly inventory
Of the sky, sky, sky, sky, sky, sky, sky--
At the heav'nly inventory of the sky.
See the mighty galaxies--galaxies!
Twinkling at us shyly through the branches of the trees.
How they shimmer, shimmer, shimmer
(or it so appears to us),
But their distance is enormous,
So astronomers inform us:
Some, a billion light-years plus.
But they shine, shine, shine,
with a radiance benign,
That belies the brilliant, blinding,
awful glare that we'd be finding,
Were we near, near, near, near, near, near, near--
The glare that we'd be finding, were we near.

Think about exploding stars--dying stars,
Throwing through the heavenlies their luminescent scars.
See them glimmer, glimmer, glimmer
with a wispiness of light
From their tendrils filamental
Made from gases elemental
in the darkness of the night,
Reaching out, out, out,
on their interstellar route
Leaving light-years far behind them
where the gravity confined them
In the stars, stars, stars, stars, stars, stars, stars--
In the fusion-heated centers of the stars.

Or think about our neighborhood--our neighborhood!
We have asteroids and planets to explore (and yes, we should).
They are spinning, spinning, spinning
as they orbit 'round the sun,
And their paths, which are elliptic,
All are close to the ecliptic
As they make their annual run.
They go round, round, round,
Yet, in vacuum, make no sound,
But continue their rotation,
their precession and nutation
Through the years, years, years, years, years, years, years--
They continue their rotation through the years.

Poet: David Arns
Poem: Sky
Volume: March 1998 issue of "The New Zealand Science Monthly", March/April 1999 issue of "Quantum Magazine".
Year: 1997

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)