Poetry News

Presidential love poetry for Valentine's Day

Originally Published: February 11, 2011

The Christian Science Monitor has a primer on the love poetry of US presidents, or rather the love letters that could be construed as poetry. A lovely dovey POTUS top ten, including:

6. John Tyler. Though his decision to annex Texas led to the Mexican-American War, Tyler had a poet's sensibilities. After his first wife died early in his presidency, he courted the much younger Julia Gardener via verse. In a poem he wrote for her, he contemplated giving love a second chance:

"Shall I again that Harp unstring,
Which long hath been a useless thing,
Unheard in Lady's bower?"

Tyler and Gardiner were married in 1844, in the first wedding for a sitting US president.