Emilio de Armas

Like Great Birnam Wood Emilio de Armas

Like Great Birnam Wood is an anti-inaugural poem for the commencement of the 45th President of the United States, set for January 20, 2017. The text was conceived as a review of the five previous inaugural poems written by Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, Elizabeth Alexander, and Richard Blanco, respectively dedicated to presidents John Kennedy (1961), Bill Clinton (1993, 1997), and Barack Obama (2009, 2013). Following this chronolgy, Like Great Birnam Wood challenges the President-Elect of the United States not from a political point of view, but from the side of American poets and the different ways in which they have envisioned the history and future of their country.