Inauguration On-Line
Inauguration On-Line
Want to watch the inauguration online? Check out these web sites:http://www.uspolitics.america.gov/uspolitics/government/inauguration.html is sponsored by the U.S. State Department and http://www.pic2009.org is sponsored by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
The Presidential Oath of Office: A 34-Word Promise
The Presidential Oath of Office is found in the United States Constitution (Article II, Section 1, Clause 8) and simply reads:
I do solemnly swear [or affirm] I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Inauguration Day Official Scheduled Events
The United States Marine Band, the San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus perform
Sen. Dianne Feinstein gives the Call to Order and Welcoming Remarks
Rev. Rick Warren gives the Invocation
Aretha Franklin performs
Vice President-Elect Joseph Biden is sworn into office
John Williams conducts Itzhak Perlman, on the violin and Yo-Yo Ma on the cello
President-Elect Barack Obama takes the Oath of Office
Poet Elizabeth Alexander reads her inaugural poem (see Elizabeth Alexander below)
Civil Rights leader, Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, gives the Benediction
The United States Navy Band “Sea Chanters” sings the National Anthem
Scheduled performers include:
Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Herbie Hancock, Jon Bon Jovi, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, U2, Usher and Stevie Wonder.
For more details and a complete list of official inaugural events, go to:
http://www.inauguration.dc.gov/events.
The Inaugural Poet: Elizabeth Alexander
Inaugural Poet Elizabeth Alexander was born in Harlem in 1962 but raised in D.C. She is a teacher with degrees from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. As a poet, she has been published pretty much everywhere from the Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, The Village Voice, and The Washington Post. Her work has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as been nominated for a Pulitzer.
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
by Elizabeth Alexander
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said
“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
