Poetry Criticism | Angelou, Maya - A. R. Coulthard (essay date 1999)

A. R. Coulthard (essay date 1999)

SOURCE: “Poetry as Politics: Maya Angelou's Inaugural Poem, ‘On the Pulse of Morning,’” in Notes on Contemporary Literature, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1, January, 1999, pp. 2–5.

[In the following essay, Coulthard argues that “On the Pulse of Morning” is a bad poem, sloppy in construction, and hackneyed in content.]

Since Maya Angelou delivered her Clinton inaugural poem, she has shot onto the bestseller list, performed in a film titled (ironically enough) “Poetic Justice,” and, if a mind-boggling news snippet is correct, reported 1995 earnings of 4.2 million dollars. “On the Pulse of Morning” recently was set to music and performed by the Winston-Salem Symphony as testimony to its enduring fame. When I ask my literature majors to nominate the best living American poet, Ms. Angelou always gets several enthusiastic mentions. Never in the long course of literary history has so much been...

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