Abstract

“Words/Matter” is a reflection on Barack Obama’s status as both a writer and politician through an analysis of Obama’s representation of self and his use of narrative in his memoir, Dreams from My Father. The essay asks the central questions: Can the writer and politician coexist? How might involvement in one role inform or deform the other? In the United States, the gap between politicians and writers dates back to the nineteenth century. But in the twentieth century, a vibrant Atlantic tradition of poet-politicians emerged. The essay turns to a sustained comparison of the literary and political work of Obama and Aimé Césaire. Césaire’s successes as a writer often spring from articulating complexity, ambiguity, and suspicions about language, qualities which he struggled to translate into the political realm. His example might offer an inverted mirror for Obama. Or perhaps Obama manages to confront the great “doubt” that writers must face: that words are “just words,” that their meaning is so fraught with complications—contextual, political—that any hope of poetry-engendered politics is doomed. A co-written piece, “Words/Matter” draws the distinct perspectives of the two authors into dialog about Obama’s memoir and about the differences and distances between writing and governing.

pdf

Share