At the risk of blowing my cover, here's the passage that this poem comes from (Paul Johnson, <u>A History of the American People</u> (Harper Collins, 1997; pp.712-713):
"...when Vice_president Coolidge was summoned to the White House in August 1923, he was at his father's farm, spending two weeks of his vacation helping to get in the hay, swinging a scythe, handling a pitchfork, and driving a two-horse 'hitch.'...The scene when the news penetrated to Plymouth on the night on August 2 that the local boy was not the thirtieth President was indeed arcadian. There was no phone at the farm, the nearest being 2 miles down the hill. The Coolidge family were awakened by a Post Office messenger pounding on the door. He brought two telegrams: one from Harding's secretary gving official notification of the President's death, the second, from the Attorney-General advising Coolidge to qualify immediately for the office by taking the oath. So the oath was copied out and Coolidge's father, being a notary public, administered it by the light of a kerosene lamp, for there was no electricity at the house. It was just a tiny farmhouse sitting room, with an airtight wood stove, an old fashioned walnut desk, a few chairs, and a marble table on which stood the old family Bilble, open. As he read the last words of the oath, the younger Coolidge placed his hand on the book and said, with great solemnity, 'So help me God.'"
The poem came from these "facts." As I found out more I changed some things--Plymouth to Plymouth Notch for instance (and I will change nine o'clock to one o'clock to reflect that they were propably roused early in the morning of August 3). Some of the other details were under dispute, or not completely accurate; for example, the two telegrams were not both from Washington as I had presumed, one, at least, was from San Francisco, and the Coolidges had gone to dinner that evening, not simply gone to bed after a long day haying. Johnson, writing what seems like three, 2000 page books a month, is probably not the most reliable source for every last detail, but I decided to keep the poem mostly as it was--a faithful rendering of what I imagined from what I first read. That certainly wouldn't fly if I was writing history, but am I allowed a certain latitude when creating poetry? Does it really matter where the phone was as long as it wasn't in the Coolidge's house? And I don't ask those questions defensively. They are serious questions.
I guess it comes down to what the reader and I are comfortable with--the poem is only partly about Coolidge anyway.
--Robert Crawford
[This message has been edited by RCrawford (edited March 29, 2004).]
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