White House Poetry Jam

Tonight President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will host a White House poetry jam. Yes, you read that right.

The event has been described as “an evening celebrating poetry, music and the spoken word in the East Room of the White House.”

The poetry jam, which will be streamed live beginning at 7:45 pm ET at http://www.whitehouse.gov/, will feature James Earl Jones, novelist Michael Chabon, jazz singer Esperanza Spalding, pianist Eric Lewis and Lin-Manuel Miranda, star of Broadway’s “In The Heights.”

With the event the Obamas will make good on a promise to “open up the White House and remind people this is the people’s house.”

Do you think the poetry jam is a good idea or does it come off as insensitive and wasteful in the midst of the recession?

Via the New York Times, here is a poem by President Obama that was published in the Spring 1981 issue of “Feast,” a 51-page student literary journal of short poetry and fiction collected from the Occidental College community.

POP

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I’m sure he’s unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he’s still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He’s so unhappy, to which he replies…
But I don’t care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I’ve been saving; I’m laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shrink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; ’cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop’s black-framed glasses
And know he’s laughing too.