The innately ambiguous connection between poets and those in the political realm was transformed when Robert Frost recited a verse at John F. Kennedy’s presidential inauguration over six decades ago.
The power of the spoken and written word sparked the beginning and also the abrupt ending of the dramatic relationship between the aging man of letters and the nation’s newly elected young leader.
When the lives of these two 20th century American icons briefly intersected, history was made.
While he was known as a poet of New England, Robert Lee Frost was born in San Francisco in 1874, nine years after the end of the Civil War. His father, a Confederate sympathizer, named him after the general who led the South in the conflict. After his Dad’s death, 11-year-old Robert, his younger sister and mother moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Here, he completed his secondary education.
Frost studied at both Dartmouth and Harvard but did not graduate. Subsequently, he spent nine years on a farm in Derby, New Hampshire. “Frost lived in a corner of rural New England among farmers and small villagers whose speech fascinated him and whose difficulties became material for his poetry,” according to author Alfred Kazan.
During this time, Frost only had a few verses appear in a local paper. This all changed when he traveled to Great Britain in 1912 where his initial book of poetry, “A Boy’s Will,” was published. Back in America three years later, he began his remarkable career as an author, teacher and orator.
Over the next four decades, Frost taught at a variety of universities, received 40 honorary degrees, four Pulitzer prizes and a Congressional Gold Medal. For years his summers were spent in Vermont and winters in Florida. His home in the sunshine state was called “Pencil Pines” because Frost said, he had never made a penny from anything that did not involve the use of a pencil.”
Frost had a penchant for politics.
Although he developed friendships with liberal Democrats, he distrusted abstract labels saying, “I never dared to be radical when young, for fear it would make me conservative when old.” Historian Andy Moore writes: “His basic political philosophy was rooted in his intense belief in the individual, believing every person must make up his mind for himself.”
At his 85th birthday celebration in March 1959, Frost broke his long-standing custom of avoiding any direct political action. In response to a question about the decline of New England, he quipped “the next president of the United States will be from Boston. He’s a Puritan named Kennedy.”
Massachusetts’ junior senator, who had yet to announce his presidential candidacy, was pleased with the early endorsement. Frost continued to praise Kennedy as he traveled around the country. JFK reciprocated by using the final stanza of Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” to close his campaign stump speeches: “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
Frost proved to be an excellent prognosticator of the 1960 election.
In appreciation of his early support, Kennedy extended an invitation to him to become the first poet to participate in a presidential inauguration. He accepted saying, “If you can bear at your age the honor of being made president, I ought to be able at my age to bear the honor taking some part in your inauguration … the arts, poetry, are now for the first time taken into the affairs of statesmen.”
The president-elect wanted a new poem for the occasion, but Frost rebuffed the idea. Kennedy then suggested a reading of “The Gift Outright” — the poet agreed. The ode is a 16-line blank verse about American exceptionalism that Frost originally read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of William & Mary on December 5, 1941, two days before Pearl Harbor.
Despite his earlier reluctance, Frost decided to compose a fresh work titled “Dedication.” On the ride to the Capitol with Congressman Stewart Udall, Frost told him about the new lyric that he was going to read before reciting “The Gift Outright.” Udall cautioned him to be brief.
It was a bitterly cold clear January day. Frost shivered for nearly an hour before he was called to the podium. He stumbled while reading “Dedication” because the sun was “too bright for a pair of 86-year-old eyes.” Abandoning the new verse, he firmly recited “The Gift Outright” from memory. The audience enthusiastically applauded.
Two days later, Frost had a genial visit with the new president at the White House. The following year their relationship soured.
In August 1962, JFK authorized a cultural exchange with Russia in which Frost, accompanied by Udall, would promote friendship through the arts. The two had an affable meeting with Soviet Premier Khrushchev at his Black Sea vacation home for five hours over two days.
On his return, Frost publicly misrepresented Khrushchev’s position about his cooperation with the U.S. by using the wrong words to characterize the Russian leader’s conversation. Kennedy felt embarrassed and betrayed by the poet’s widely reported comments.
JFK never contacted Frost again even when he was hospitalized just before his death on January 2, 1963. But in a quirk of history, the 35th president’s last major speech on October 26, 1963, 27 days before being assassinated, was about Robert Frost.
After Udall ameliorated Kennedy about Frost’s Khrushchev blunder, JFK accepted an invitation to speak at the dedication of Amherst College’s new Robert Frost Library. Author Robert Strong notes “the tables were turned, the president was the guest speaker to honor the poet who helped him celebrate his inauguration.”
JFK’s remarks about the role of the artist in the nation were a fitting tribute to Frost who like Kennedy often “took the road not taken.”
Jonathan L. Stolz is a resident of James City County.
