To conclude her essay, Zadie Smith discloses: “In this lecture I have been seeking to tentatively suggest that the voice that speaks with such freedom, thus unburdened by dogma and personal bias, thus flooded with empathy, might make a good president” (192). However, she rejects this claim by advocating for the many-voiced role of the poet. The difference between the rhetoric of a president and the rhetoric of a poet is that a president can be a complete hypocrite. For example, he knows about the problems the country is facing and says they will be fixed in a specific amount of time, but nothing ever gets fixed. The voice of a poet, however, goes one way, but can be interpreted by an outsider in many different ways. What can be a very melancholy poem may be viewed in a sense of happiness by another reader. As stated in many previous blog posts, it all depends on the perception.
Zadie Smith does not really suggest that there should be a difference. Everything is going to have a little bit of bias hidden in its shadows. It is up to the outside viewer to take that bias into consideration or offense, depending on the perception. As for the president, he needs to be real or else the country will fall to pieces. A piece of poetry, however, has bias hidden between the lines, but in order for an interpretation to be "right," it is all about perception.
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