You can tell a lot about a leader from the poems they quote, as the president’s speech to US air force personnel proved this week, writes Zoe Williams
I woke up the other day to a load of Americans arguing in my Twitter feed about Joe Biden’s speech to US air force personnel. The president, landing in Suffolk for the G7 summit being held in Cornwall, addressed the troops and their families stationed at RAF Mildenhall with a large number of thoughts. In precis: “Hey, everyone, America is normal again.” And a quote from WB Yeats: “The world has changed, changed utterly / A terrible beauty has been born.”
The crux of the debate: was this poem going to wind up the British, and if so, did Potus choose it on purpose?
Continue reading...