American Quartet and America 250

How long it has been since I made a new edition of the Latest News!

A great deal has happened in the last year (and a half), but none more exciting than my commission to compose poems in honor of the two-hundred-fiftieth anniversary of the United States of America. American Quartet, which is a sequence of four poems as well as a separate bit of children's verse, titled "Life, Liberty, and Happiness," has been included in the National Time Capsule; it is a gift to the nation on behalf of the State of Alabama. I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to recite the poems -- in three separate performances -- on the National Mall, as part of the American State Fair celebrations. The poems have been sent to more than 90,000 American schools, for their use in studying and appreciating the history of our country. Several television and radio stations are in the process of discussing the poems and playing recordings of them.

I am hopeful that the beautiful commemorative edition, photographed above, will make its way into the homes of thousands of my countrymen. The organizations that commissioned the sequence want it to become "America's Poem," a way to commemorate our present anniversary and to renew our understanding of the distinctive, providential qualities of the American Founding.

Below, please find links to each of the poems in the Quartet or, in one case, an image of the poem itself. At the very bottom of this page, you will find links interviews with Deal Hudson on the Church and Culture radio program and Wyatt Goolsby with Guadalupe Radio about American Quartet. If you are interested in making use of the poems, in formal or informal celebrations of the Fourth of July, please feel welcome to get in touch on my Contact page.

"1776"

"The First of Modern Nations"

"An Errand into the Wilderness"

"George Washington at Philadelphia" in "Religion and Liberty" magazine.

An Interview on American Quartet with Deal Hudson