I want a president, 1992/2018

In 1992, poet and queer activist Eileen Myles announced that she was running for the presidency of the United States as an independent candidate against George H. Bush and Bill Clinton. The decision proved significant in expanding the capacity for representation and implementation of truly inclusive policies for feminist and LGTB+ groups. In response, Zoe Leonard wrote the poem I want a president. Published as a text-manifesto in an LGTB magazine at a time when social networks did not yet exist, the poem was photocopied, distributed and shared by feminist groups and support groups for people affected by AIDS. In 2016, after the rapper and activist Mykki Blanco read it in public, it began to circulate widely again. A few days before the presidential elections of that year, High Line Art reproduced it on one of the pillars that support The Standard Hotel, on the High Line, the elevated park in Manhattan: a fact that went viral on the networks, turning the poem into a call to action.