Whereas, As America's storyteller, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  helped to create American national identity through his portrayals of historic events and characters, as in "Paul Revere's Ride," "Hiawatha," "Evangeline," and "The Courtship of Miles Standish"; and,

Whereas, As the poet of the people, Longfellow was the most widely read poet in the English-speaking world for more than 100 years, memorized by citizens from all walks of life, and generations of children learned to enjoy poetry through Longfellow's carefully composed verse; and,

Whereas, As a citizen of the world, Longfellow, a professor of modern languages at Bowdoin and Harvard, produced the first American translation of, among other works, Dante's Divine Comedy and was the first American poet to command lasting respect in other countries and is the only American poet memorialized by a bust in Poets' Corners in London's Westminster Abbey; and,

Whereas, Longfellow championed multiculturalism before the term was invented, writing sympathetically about ethnic and religious minorities and combining stories and forms from many literary traditions; and,

Whereas, As an author of lasting influence, hundreds of libraries, schools, and other public places in the United States are named for Longfellow; and,

Whereas, February 27, 2007, marks the 200^th birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; and now therefore be it,

Resolved, That I, Jennifer M. Granholm, Governor of the State of Michigan, do hereby proclaim February 27, 2007, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Day.