Mike Chasar posted an interesting piece (originally published in the Iowa City Press-Citizen) on his Poetry and Popular Culture blog regarding Barack Obama’s relationship with poet Frank Marshall Davis.

“Of the potential father figures in Barack Obama’s autobiography Dreams from My Father, one of the first—and most mysterious—is a poet whom we only ever know as ‘Frank.’ Dreams from My Father credits Frank with being the sole older black man in Hawaii to take seriously the teenage Obama’s search for identity, and the poet thus becomes a major touchstone in Obama’s life. Nearly every time Obama reflects on his role models, the memory of Frank comes up. . . . ‘Frank’ is Frank Marshall Davis, a poet, journalist, and activist.”