Poems by Presidents: the First-Ever Anthology

This first-ever anthology features poems by eleven US presidents, providing unique and fascinating insight into their biographies and American history. Through good times and bad, presidents turned to poetry to express themselves. Selections include George Washington's teenage romantic yearnings, Thomas Jefferson's death-bed adieu, John Quincy Adams's sonnet memorializing his father, John Tyler's poignant elegy for his daughter, Abraham Lincoln's mockery of the Confederacy, Woodrow Wilson's humorous limericks, Warren G. Harding's steamy love poems to his mistress, and Ronald Wilson Reagan's existential reflections. Appendixes explore additional presidents who wrote poetry, misattributions, prose formatted as verse, and fondness for poetry.