It’s an exclusive club that may add to its members every four years: inaugural poets.

There have only been six in the history of the United States, starting in 1961 with Robert Frost reciting his poem from memory at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration . The latest was Amanda Gorman in 2021 , the youngest poet of the bunch who, at 22, performed at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Richard Blanco, inaugural poet for President Barack Obama’s second term, said he couldn’t believe it when he got the call from the White House about joining the ceremony.

“That’s not a call you expect ever, right? I mean, you’re just a poet, going about your business, teaching or whatnot. So I thought it was a joke,” Blanco said. “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And the person finally said to me like, ‘No, like Robert Frost and Maya Angelou.’ I still thought it was one of my friends pulling a practical joke on me or something like that. The call was on December 12th, 2012: 12-12-12. And I had three weeks to write three poems to be on that stage on January 21st at 8 a.m.”

Each inaugural poet prepares three poems from which the incoming president chooses the one that will be performed at the inauguration. President Obama chose Blanco’s poem, “One Today.”

Adrian Matejka, editor of Poetry Magazine, said inauguration poetry is unique both in terms of form and content. An inaugural poem is an “occasion poem” — written specifically to commemorate a day or event — and its purpose is to uplift community and unify while reflecting the times during which the poem is performed.

“When you look at Maya Angelou’s poem , and you look at Richard’s poem, and you look at Amanda Gorman’s poem and Elizabeth (Alexander) and Miller Williams , all of their poems talk about the citizenry and talk about the people of the place in a way that invites communion with our neighbors,” Matejka said. “Each of the poems is asking, being asked and answering a different question.”

Blanco said finding the right tone for the poem was also a challenge — not too critical, but also not overly positive and cloying.

“One of the hardest things about writing the poem was you don’t want a Hallmark poem,” Blanco said. “But you still want a little bit of critique and tension while at the same time having hope. So the idea of the poem, thinking about community as a more perfect union also implies that we’re not perfect quite yet. And if you read in between the lines of my poem, it’s sort of, ‘We’re supposed to be all one today, but we’re kind of not quite connected. We’re still not quite there.’”

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