Venus Hottentot and the Irony of Science

One of the other good choices made by Obama's inaugural planners was inviting Elizabeth Alexander to compose and deliver a poem. It's not a well-established tradition. Only two other Presidents have featured poets at their inaugurations: John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. And, of course, the mere mention of "poetry" gives folks an opportunity to burnish their anti-intellectual credentials by pulling excerpts out of context and proudly proclaiming that they don't get it. Ta-Nehisi Coates reprints Alexander's best-known poem: The Venus Hottentot (1825). The title refers to Saartjie Baartman, an African woman who was brought to Europe in 1810, where she was exhibited in circuses and at private salons for the wealthy.