Barack Obama's early poems

Like many of us, I've been fascinated by the rise and rise of Barack Obama. I wanted to find out whether there was more than a personable young politician who (according to many in the media) had a facility for speaking a brand of hopeful-sounding rhetoric. The figure I watched on television seemed to have further dimensions: a peculiar grace, a sense of being easy in his skin, a degree of diffidence which occasionally borders on superiority or arrogance, an exceptional directness and honesty - in other words, a much larger and more complex figure than the standard press descriptions. Since the beginning of the elections and caucuses for the Democratic nomination, I've been suggesting to anyone foolish enough to listen to me that he would overtake Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination, even though at the time he was trailing her by more than twenty points.

I also predicted that McCain would win the Republican nomination. But if the two end up fighting for the Presidency, I have absolutely no idea who will win. I suspect it will be an extraordinary contest. Both are independent figures capable of appealing to non-aligned voters and what is sometimes called the centre ground.

Over the next couple of weeks I intend to post two more items on Barack Obama, the first, on his literary ability, will be called CAN OBAMA WRITE? and the second, considering his political ideas, CAN OBAMA THINK?

Here, meanwhile, are two poems published when Obama was nineteen.  In my opinion both are highly promising, but Pop is by far the more powerful and complex. Obama's father, a Kenyan, left when Obama was two years old, and Obama had little further contact with his absent father while a child (though it seems he re-established contact later with both his father and his father's family). Meanwhile Obama's mother re-married, this time to an Indonesian. For a number of years Obama lived in Indonesia with his mother and step-father. When both the political environment (the tyrant Suharto had come to power) and the domestic environment began to deteriorate (it seems Obama's stepfather, out of fear, refused to even discuss the political situation) Obama was sent to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents. His mother joined them after a year. 

Obama's relations with father-figures are therefore complex, to say the least. He lacked the presence of a biological father, and his relations with his Indonesian stepfather appear to have been limited, if not minimal. In his book The Audacity of Hope he admits that he experienced a strong sense of adolescent rebelliousness and his relations with his maternal grandfather were strained. In certain respects the poem Pop seems to reflect a child's complex yearning for a father figure. Given the youth of the writer, it seems to me a remarkable achievement.

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 shink*, 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.

* ("Shink" may be a typo, but the poem is reproduced as published.)


UNDERGROUND

Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.