Elizabeth Alexander’s poem for Obama’s inauguration refrains from addressing “folks” directly but strives nevertheless for the plain, the non-pretentious, the anti-intellectual note that folks who boast of being plain folks might appreciate; others might call it fatuous, empty, bathetic. Some might even describe Praise Song for the Day (Graywolf Press) as a cringe toward the utterly mundane, though it’s not clear what else an inaugural poem can be. Certainly the blatherings of Maya Angelou and Robert Frost written for previous inaugurals are no more stimulating than those of Alexander, who asks—rhetorically, we presume (but who can be sure?): “What if the mightiest word is love?”