[Martin Elster]

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.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

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.

[Martin Elster]

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

[John Riley]

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

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

[Mark McDonnell]

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.

[Mark McDonnell]

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

This one breaks the oratory mold.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

I watched the videos Martin linked to. 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 crowbar 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 but 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. Yes, it uses "poetic techniques": alliteration, metaphor, chiasmus etc but so do political speeches. It fails as poetry for me in the sense I get that it already knows and is giving its audience exactly what they 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.

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.

[Mark McDonnell]

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.

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.

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.

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.