It began with an old poet saluting a young president. Sixty years later, it was a young poet saluting an old president.
Robert Frost, 86 years old in 1961, spoke at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, 43 years old. Amanda Gorman, 22 years old, sparkled at the inauguration of Joe Biden, 78 years old. The two are bookends in a tradition that includes Maya Angelou and Elizabeth Alexander, and together they speak to Kennedy's notion that "when power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations."
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