Amanda Gorman
 

I loved the inherit/repair it rhyme in "The Hill We Climb," and I appreciate (whether or not I share it) the optimistic vision that sees the U.S. not as a "broken" nation, but simply an "unfinished" one. After the inaugural poet's performance, I look forward to reading her poem in the paper tomorrow. Like most occasional poetry, it may have smacked more of occasion than of poetry in spots, but I admired it more than I had anticipated.

How did it strike you?

That's eloquently stated, Chris. I agree with you that if we're going to evaluate such a poem at all, it's appropriate to be generous.

I was confused by her being introduced as "the first national poet laureate." Did I mishear? Did the introducer misspeak? What I imagine to be the case is that she was appointed "poet laureate" of the inauguration, and that that hasn't been done before.

I think she is considered to be the nation's first youth poet laureate.

The general reaction on social media among the poets I follow has been quite positive. I'm thinking, though, that many people loved it because of the occasion. The glorious end to the Trump Administration even made me think for the first time that Jennifer Lopez is a fine singer. When we come down from our high, I suspect that the poem and Jennifer Lopez won't be as impressive. I think the poem might have worked better if it had been a bit shorter. But I'll reserve final judgment until I read it.

I heard an NPR piece on Ms. Gorman and was looking forward to hearing her. She seemed in that interview and in her poem to be an impressive person. I watched her in the company of my middle school students, who thought she was amazing. Certainly, her poise and delivery were strikingly strong for such a young person (22). The NPR piece suggested one thing that might've drawn Biden to Gorman--besides her status as the nation's first-ever youth PL--was their shared experience of overcoming a speech impediment: Biden's stutter and Gorman's inability to sound the letter R until quite recently.

As to the poem, I like what Chris said about occasional poetry. And Gorman does seem to come mostly from the "spoken-word" corner of our big tent, which may not be my corner. BUT I did appreciate that she was playing with sounds--alliteration, rhyme, etc.--throughout, and I will read the poem eagerly.

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Here it is. She nailed it.

Definitely a bit of hiphop/rap-style rhyming, definitely echoes of Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Rise Up" from Hamilton.

My first impression is that she's the real deal. And a gifted reader with great presence.

This is a very good day.


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Editing back in to share this...

Here’s Maya Angelou’s inaugural poem “The pulse of the Morning” she read at Clinton's inauguration.

Here’s Robert Frost’ at JFK’s 1961 inauguration. His inaugural poem was entitled, “Dedication” but when the time came to read it he couldn’t see it on the paper due to the wind and sun. So instead, he recited by heart another poem: “The Gift”.

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Here is the transcript:

The Hill We Climb

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished
We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division
Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promise to glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It's because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves
So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright
So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

Honestly, while normally I would pooh-pooh an inauguration poem, I was very struck by this one. Sure, there were some trite cliches, but I was impressed by the quality of the wordplay, the way most of the rhymes felt natural ("just is" / "justice" was a treat), and the earnest delivery. A lot of poets might have fallen prey to so-called virtue signalling and pandering...but I buy the sincerity of the words, and certainly appreciate the craftsmanship here. Turns of phrases like "even as we tired we tried" jumped out to me as being both meaningful and clever, which is a combination most poets probably aspire to achieve... I could critique the self-references dotted in, and like Roger says, the poem may lose a bit of its sheen once the euphoria of having a new president sworn in wears off, but ultimately I think the poem works well, and I'm glad to see that tons of high-profile people are talking about it. If nothing else, it shows that good poetry still has value, albeit "occasionally."

There are some inspired phrases and sentences in her poem. A few things, besides what Shaun pointed out, struck me:

There are two sentences that are what is referred to as a chiasmus.

For while we have our eyes on the future history has its eyes on us.
we - eyes - future/history - eyes - us (i.e., we)

how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe ... how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

And here is another rhetorical figure where she repeats the last word of one line to start the next line:

If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right ...

Not to mention the wonderful alliteration throughout the whole poem. There is also great use of anaphora near the end: We will rise from / we will rise from / We will rebuild etc.

And the form is tighter than it at first may appear. Like the way the beginning image comes back at the end:

Beginning: When day comes we ask ourselves

Ending: When day comes we step out of the shade

Yes -- a great point about Gorman's chiasmuses, Martin, and I couldn't help but notice that Biden also used that device to great effect in his speech when he said "We will lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example."

I thought it was skillful rhetoric, which is what the occasion calls for. And she presented it well. To quibble over its status as a poem is beside the point. Nobody expected a poem. Nobody should feel let down.

I guess you could say it's more like a speech than a poem, though, aside from the rhetorical figures, she does use some imagery at the beginning and the end, and the alliteration and rhyming are quite skillful. So I agree with Sam. Besides, who knows what a "poem" really is nowadays anyway!

Well, it was clichéd and on-the-nose and had that weirdly ubiquitous spoken word 'slam' cadence (though slow and stately for the occasion) where the voice rhythms seem less concerned with the meaning of the words than with emphasising the placement of the rhyme and doing that odd, lilting 'speeding up at random moments' thing. To me, that voice always sounds vaguely insincere and forced in its approximation of some sort of poetic rapture and it's as formulaic by now as a staid traditional sonnet reading. And it went on too long.

But, she delivered it well and despite everything I just said, I was moved by the occasion.

The thing is, I get the impression that poetry as an art form is actually more popular with young people than it has been for years and, like it or not, this is exactly the kind of poetry that is popular. And really, a bit of feelgood, inspirational, inclusive sentiment was probably necessary and deserved after four years of basically being trapped in an abusive relationship.

And she was young, beautiful and inclusively optimistic. So it was like watching a personification of "The Opposite Of Trump" for five minutes. Which was nice.

Edit: I think US inaugurations always feel a bit showbiz from over here. In England, the new PM goes to see The Queen, in private, who presumably says, "Right, your turn now. Try not to cock it up". And that's it.

It was ultimately just right for the occasion. A lot of far better poets would have mumbled and droned and bored everyone in sight. She, however, seemed to go over quite well.

I agree with Sam. It seems an impossible to task to compose something that is anodyne enough to be OK'd by the administration (there is no way it wasn't read ahead of time by the powers that be), simple enough for most people to understand just by listening, and vaguely poem-y enough to be considered a poem by non-poets. Frankly, Frost's was no better. I think she did a decent job.

She's pretty good.

Too bad they couldn't find someone who would be good at running the country to be part of the event too.

Oh dear. Occasional poetry, like a graduation speech, is its own punishment. On the one hand, an occasion like this is as much about visuals as about any verbal message, and in that sense Gorman did very well. She was young, attractive, energetic, talented, heartfelt, poised, and forward-looking. Those are all good things for an occasion like this, symbolizing the hopes of the country. It sent a positive message of renewal and of valuing communities--women, people of color--who have been devalued by the previous administration. I admired Gorman's use of wordplay and soundplay, and she may well mature into a poet of depth and vision. But I don't think that anyone expects a 22-year-old to have the kind of perspective and wisdom to produce a poem that is going to be memorable as a poem. So we got a reasonably appealing pep talk. I wish her well. I don't know her other work, but it will be interesting to see what she can do without the constraints of having to participate in an inauguration.

Susan

What Susan said,

and Kevin, take a long nap, and then try to wake up. Yes, Kevin, there is reality.

[duplicate]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Rainbow https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/image...s/viewpost.gif
She's pretty good.
Too bad they couldn't find someone who would be good at running the country to be part of the event too.

"On his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed more than a dozen executive actions, some of which reverse decisions made by his predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Several executive actions will make changes to the U.S. response to COVID-19 and try to ease some of the financial strain on Americans resulting from the pandemic. Other executive actions directly target and undo Mr. Trump's actions on the environment, immigration, the U.S. census, and regulatory changes.

Mr. Biden signed three executive orders in the presence of reporters — implementing a mask mandate on federal property, increasing support for underserved communities and rejoining the Paris climate accord."

That strikes me as a pretty good start at running the country. But I'm afraid that poor Kevin still hasn't realised that he's no longer in Kansas. Perhaps someone should tell him "It's over, Rainbow."

100% What Susan said. And yes, Max, the person (Sen. Roy Blunt?) who introduced Gorman did err in not saying "youth" before "poet laureate."

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Last night, near the end of the two-hour inaugural celebration activities that were streamed and broadcast on TV networks, Tom Hanks (the MC for the event) introduced Lin-Manuel Miranda to recite a passage from one of Seamus Heaney’s poems that is one of Joe Biden;s favorite poems. It was the poetic highlight of the day for me — in what was surprisingly a very poetic day. Here it is (Ignore the poor quality and strange table of medicine bottles, etc. in the foreground — it’s all I could find). If you haven’t seen it, be sure to see it through to the end.

(And Here is Biden reciting the passage by himself and used in one of his campaign commercials.)

I think Mark's bird's eye view characterized the poem and the occasion best. Sam and Susan, too, put the poem, the poet and the occasion in perspective.Amanda Goram shows bright promise. Time will tell.

Mark, as you well know, for lack of any semblance of royalty here in the States, the presidency/first family is our disposable equivalent of that. it's our version of a crowning/coronation. It generally turns me off because it is covered/presented like a major sporting event. But yesterday's inaugural was like a long-awaited (and nearly stolen) springtime for us who have endured and overcome the withering winter storm that was the Trump administration. It was a surprise, though, to feel a tangible lifting of the heaviness of the past four years. It really caught me by surprise.

Whoever was responsible/credited with the production/decision-making/ orchestration of the inaugural events of the day (and night ) deserve the highest praise. All the others were actors in the performance who played their roles beautifully. But it was the script they developed and produced (along with the backstory we all lived through) that made it unique among presidential inaugurations. It caught me by surprise. It was like getting a gift when you least expect one.

—And no Balls! No Balls! But it was a ball to watch events unfold. As I said, I usually don’t pay much attention to ceremonial events like this. I don’t like parades or fireworks either. But yesterday was different. It hit the spot where others always miss, imo.

It is back to reality today. Back to figuring out how the hell we rhyme hope with history. Ha!
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It was oration, rather than poetry. The prevalence of rap, seeping into poetic circles, has blurred the line between the two. Oration is an art form in itself, but it is not what I consider to be poetry. She was an excellent orator, her delivery was clear and confident. My only misgiving, is that people will confuse oration and poetry so thoroughly that poetry will be eclipsed further and further: for poetry has no object the way that oration does.

Yet the eclipse of poetry can play in its favor, keeping its objective ephemeral, ambivalent, an inexplicit thing of the shadows, of reverie rather than utopian reason.

Both stir the soul, but in different ways.

Nemo

"Amanda Gorman Is Giving Americans Hope"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNZfYnBsEdM

Colin Ward's take.

Colin Ward's "[c]rap lyrics" is a racist pseudo witticism that severely diminishes his credibility as a commentator on any black poet's work.

At least, though, Ward is discussing the issue of whether "The Hill We Climb" is a good or bad poem. That's a discussion worth having. The question is one on which experienced poets and readers can differ intelligently. But I see no point in proclaiming that the piece isn't a poem at all, that it has to be saved to some other file in our minds. Defining poetry is usually a thankless endeavor, and it seems to me there would be a lethal dose of soulless mumbo jumbo in any definition carefully crafted to distinguish "poetry" from "oration" while excluding Gorman's work from the former category.

We lay down our arms

So we can reach out our arms

To one another.

We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

The double meaning of “arms” and the rhyme “arm(s)/harm/harmony” is brilliant.

I also like the point she makes generally in the poem about America not being perfect but a work in progress.

Added in:

Amanda Gorman, National Youth Poet Laureate at Summer Academy 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMbCbKR1Lew&t=216s

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman Performs At The Forbes Women's Summit | Forbes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZojzZ-BivEQ

Amanda Gorman, Activist and National Youth Poet Laureate | Amanpour and Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpR7iELvVrI

Her voice in the inauguration poem was musical with a nice cadence. What struck me the most was how she rarely paused or took a breath between lines or sentences. It kind of reminded me of those YouTube videos that are edited and spliced so that the speaker never once takes a breath. You’ve heard those I’m sure. It doesn't give the listener much time to digest and reflect on the sentence before the next one comes.

It also reminded me of how some clarinet players can do what’s called circular breathing, where they can play long passages without stopping.

PS - In the above videos, Amando does take pauses between sentences.

Her words are acting in the world at the end of a series of events that toyed with opening a door to a more murderous ideology than we may ever fully realize. The nation has always been a mess of unlived promises and unexamined violences but something more openly hostile with more freedom of movement was trying to be born. That all just seems to close to find any taste for analyzing the moment. It felt good to me in all senses of the word and it was good in the most important sense.

Her poem felt good to me, too.

Amanda appears in this video from 2017, when she still had a hint of a speech impediment.

Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith Inaugural Reading

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HaDoAq0XPI

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-c...rm=TNY_Fiction

Maybe that was the point and not gaining the approval of some internet poets?

I watched the videos Martin linked to in post #27. I found the one at the women's summit at Forbes magazine quite uncomfortable to watch. I really don't associate (or want to associate) poetry with corporate events where the poet seems to have been contractually obliged to shoehorn the name of the corporation into the poem a specified amount of times, which is what seemed to be happening here. The ostensibly feminist nature of the event didn't really redeem it for me. Isn't Forbes the magazine that basically exists to make uncritical lists of the world richest people, like a kind of capitalist soft porn?

What she writes, and this type of writing in general, seems to be in the business of speechifying around a number of already established safe, liberal talking points. It's designed to be inspirational and to tell people what they want to hear and is ultimately comforting rather than thought provoking or challenging. And nobody standing in front of a giant Forbes banner can claim to be challenging any kind of status quo.
So, yes, it uses "poetic techniques": alliteration, metaphor, chiasmus etc but so do political speeches. It fails as poetry, for me, in that I get the sense it already knows, and is giving, exactly what its audience want to hear.

That doesn't mean it fails as an effective thing. On this occasion it was just right. What the audience wanted to hear, after four years of Trump, was an inspirational, inclusive message of "we can be better than this". Which is true, of course, but also a very low bar. Genuine poetry and party politics don't really mix, but this kind of poetry and party politics mix perfectly.

https://womens.theharvardadvocate.co...for-my-sisters

This one breaks the oratory mold.

Yeah, and now that she has taken up so much space, there is no room for all our genuine poetry we have that challenges the status quo. I dunno, Mark. Something about this kind of thread just pisses me off. I get what your saying but we have had so much shit here from morons and thugs plus the half million dead bit. I just think there are times and poets and dynamics when threads like this make sense. This ain't one. My two cents. Nothing personal here.

Erm...since I didn't say or remotely suggest this, I don't understand what the sarcasm is directed at. There is infinite room and space for all kinds of poetry and all kinds of audiences, I was just giving my take on the sort that Amanda Gorman mostly seems to write. Because that's the topic of this thread. I think it's a kind of inspirational, feelgood poetry and so it was perfect for the occasion. (She may well have more range than this, as I pointed out in my last post). It doesn't do much for me, but I completely understand your, and America's*, need to simply 'feel good' right now, at least for a bit. You've had a lucky escape and are probably still delirious, like when you almost fall off a ladder and then don't.

Bit confused. Are you saying it's in bad taste to say anything less than entirely complementary about Amanda Gorman's poetry right now? I assume you also think any criticism of the work of Garth Brooks and Lady Gaga is to be similarly temporarily frowned upon.

Sorry if my contribution pissed you off, Andrew, but there's no personal offence taken at my end. I've come to accept the fact that I'm 'tone deaf' (I think that's the phrase) and try to embrace it.

*Apart from the 74 million people who voted for Trump.

That is exactly how I feel. Here, by the way, is Robin Helweg-Larsen’s take on Amanda Gorman’s poem.

Form in Formless Times
Political poem: Amanda Gorman’s ‘The Hill We Climb’, excerpts

https://formalverse.com/2021/01/23/p...limb-excerpts/

Here's a sestina Amanda Gorman wrote.


[Sorry, I now see that Mark already posted this]

Thanks, Roger. I read that poem earlier today after seeing Mark's post #32. She has a remarkable inventiveness with language and imagery.

Definitely not a cheap headband she was wearing -

https://www.farfetch.com/ca/shopping...CX9sQAvD _BwE

Would it have been more "authentic" for you if she was wearing rags? Or an ill-fitting hand-me-down dress? Or perhaps chains?

Your implication that Gorman's ethos is undercut by her wearing of an expensive headband to an inauguration viewed by hundreds of millions of people is ridiculous, and is just the kind of not-so-subtle false equivalence that somehow manages to willfully blind a sizeable subsection of the right to the scale of things that actually matter.

If peddling outright lies doesn't work, peddling misleading half-truths will work in a pinch. Shameful.

Well, you know how black women are with their hats and whatnot. Don’t worry, nobody’s going to think you’re a racist troll for joining a discussion of her poetry to offer an ad hom attack on her wardrobe.