While watching the local news last night, something caught by attention. Our local news channel usually plays a small song, or something of the like, about Tennessee, along with small segments of local areas in Knoxville and the Smoky Mountains. For the past few weeks, they’ve used the poem, Oh Tennessee, My Tennessee. It’s quite a powerful poem, but the history of its author makes it more meaningful. Naval Admiral William Lawrence composed this poem while enduring a 60 day period of solitary confinement in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. Lawrence, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, spent a total of six years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. It was adopted as the official state poem of Tennessee in 1973. I thought it would be appropriate to share with all who love Tennessee. 

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