Lorine Niedecker “After the Bay of Pigs”

Abstract

Ostensibly an oblique commentary on the Bay of Pigs invasion, Lorine Niedecker’s brief poem “J. F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs,” first published in 1967, also serves as a reflection on the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath. The poem’s elliptical content is indirectly elucidated by its distinctive form, which pivots around a quotation implicitly attributed—though never directly traceable—to Kennedy himself. Performing a close reading of Niedecker’s poem, this essay situates “J. F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs” in its literary, historical, and political contexts while also drawing upon speech act theory in order to gain a better understanding of what is at stake in Niedecker’s “quotation” of Kennedy.