Poetry and major events

Here is a sampling of events that inspired poetry or were marked by it:
April 1945: Poet Carl Sandburg wrote "When Death Came April Twelve 1945," a moving elegy on the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
January 1961: New England poet Robert Frost wrote "Dedication" for the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, but was blinded by the glare of the sun on the Capitol's snow-covered grounds. He recited a poem he wrote years before called "The Gift Outright" instead.
April 1968: While speaking in Indianapolis about the April 4 assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Sen. Robert F. Kennedy quoted Greek playwight and poet Aeschylus.
January 1993: Poet Maya Angelou was asked to write a poem for the swearing in of the nation's 42nd president, William Jefferson Clinton. She penned "On the Pulse of the Morning."
September 2001: The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon in Washington spurred thousands to write poems that were posted online and in Lower Manhattan. Poetry.com, for example, has devoted a special section on its site for the more than 55,000 submissions from around the world.
April 16, 2007: Many also turned to the Internet to express their feelings via poetry in the aftermath of the mass shootings at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
April 17, 2007: University Distinguished Professor Nikki Giovanni closes the memorial convocation at Tech with a poignant poem about the strength and pain of the Hokie nation. It garners worldwide attention.

 

Research by Charles Saunders, Times-Dispatch library director