Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), long-time resident of neighboring Conway, MA, studied English at Yale and Law at Harvrd. After service in Europe during the first world war and some time in magazine journalism, he accepted the job as Librarian of Congress, at the suggestion of his Harvard classmate Felix Frankfurter. That places him at the beginning of the impressment of poetry into the executive department of the federal government, which would be a good thing so long as Americans only elected poetry lovers to the presidency.
Mr. MacLeish was present at JFK’s last major speech, at Amherst one month before Dallas. The President quoted this line from his poem Invocation to the Social Muse: There is nothing worse for our trade than to be in style.
Among the many accomplishments that distinguish him among the fellowship of American poets celebrated here, he is the only one to have collaborated with Bob Dylan, on a project that failed to come to fruition, however. (He wanted to transform his play JB into a musical)’ Here is the opening stanza of his famous poem Ars Poetica:
Poetry by Archibald MacLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.