The Obamas held a poetry jam at their big White House last week. James Earl Jones was there, and Poetry Slam Champion Mayda de Valle. And yet, despite Obama’s frequent emails to me, I didn’t receive an invite. How could he have left me off the list? I mean, he even wrote me the evening he was elected, saying: Dear Maxine, I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first. We just made history. And I don’t want you to forget how we did it. You made history every single day during this campaign …I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next. But I want to be very clear about one thing… All of this happened because of you. Thank you, Barack…

I swear to God that is, word-for-word, what came through  to my hotmail from Obama (ie: his publicity team) about ten minutes before he walked on stage.

The only possible explanation for me being left off the readers list is that Michelle saw my serenade to her husband, and got insanely jealous…Still, as a poet, it’s heartening to know the high emphasis the ‘leader of the free world’ and our ‘orator in chief’ puts on words. God knows, they got the man to where he is today. May he never forget that.

This entry is cross-posted here