Inaugural Poem

[bigtree]

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.


--composed and recited by Elizabeth Alexander




(I loved it. Very inspiring.)

[justsomeguy1973]

1. Weak at best. C-

[Ava]

2. i thought it sounded was horrible

but i also thought it could have sounded good if it were properly recited. the delivery was horrible imo.

[bigtree]

I remember Maya Angelou's poem as it hung in the frozen air

It took a few years years for me to appreciate it as I read it in an hardback volume of my mother's and reflected on the time past.

I've been thinking about importance of communicating with each other in the past few days. She captured my feelings that our 'noises', our individual 'songs' that we choose to sing or are compelled to sing to each other and ourselves are integral to our ability to work, persevere, and get along. In all of that, 'love' is the mightiest word.

[BobRossi]

3. Lost me at spoons and boomboxes.

The occasion deserved much more.

[CTyankee]

5. Great poets often use homely references. Emily Dickinson, our greatest American poet,

did it all the time. Here she talks about inconsolable grief at a funeral:

Ample make this Bed-

Make this Bed with Awe-

In it wait till Judgment break

Excellent and Fair.Be its Mattress straight-

Be its Pillow round-

Let no Sunrise' yellow noise

Interrupt this Ground-

[Orrex]

4. I found it kind of pedestrian

And the recitation didn't wow me, either.


But I'm not exactly condemning; I don't know if I'd want to recite my stuff in front of 1.4M.

[Dr. Strange]

6. Here you go:

Welcome Obama.
Welcome back America.
Now let freedom ring.

:patriot:

[Peregrine Took]

7. I liked it. For me, it reads better than it sounded but I had no problem

with her delivery.

[EFerrari]

12. I could hardly listen to her for the adrenaline.

It reads very well.

[EmilyAnne]

8. Wow. I loved it. Maybe it was too heavy on imagery for some?

[XemaSab]

9. I don't mind imagery

but instead of building to something it just jumped around. :shrug:

[EFerrari]

11. Part of the subtext is about focus, moving from disorder to order.

It builds to the moment Obama walks off the podium as president. So, you're right. It does jump around and then gathers itself up to a liminal moment. To a threshold.

[EmilyAnne]

15. I guess that's hat I mean. Too hard to follow because the images are too obscure or confused.

Maybe it was the delivery, like some have said. I really liked it, but probably has a lot t do with my mood and the fact that I teach poetry to kids. I may be too forgiving?


:hi:

[ColbertWatcher]

10. Don't forget she will be Dr. Colbert's guest tomorrow on The Report! n/t

[nolabear]

13. I have respect for the task but it's all over the place

I write poetry and know better than to get cocky. Now that I've read it, my criticism is that it doesn't seem to quite know where it's going. There are a few sharp images and some fine uses of language, but I don't know if I'm hearing ancestors walking a road, praising, standing on a brink, or what. Ah, me.

GOD I hope Ted Kennedy's okay. And apparently Byrd too.

[EFerrari]

14. You mean, this poem for a new presidency that doesn't quite know where it's going

doesn't know where it's going.

:)

[nolabear]

21. You may have a point

I'll give it some thought.

[anigbrowl]

19. The poem's not so bad, but the delivery was

I knew while listening that I would like reading it better than hearing it. Maybe she was put off by the microphone echo, or nervous, but her delivery sounded like she was trying to wrestle the thing to the ground,a nd destroying its natural rhythmic movement in the process.

Oh well, I liked the chamber music that preceded it. Can't win them all.

[OnyxCollie]

22. Yeah, the microphone echo probably screwed up her delivery.

It's not like she had an opportunity to say, "Check, check. How's everybody doin' out there?"

I noticed the musicians had ear pieces. Did anyone see if she wore one? I can't tell from the pic.

[marions ghost]

16. this is a poem

that works fine when you read it silently but not so great for an oration. She's going for a Walt Whitmanesque singsong style and reference, but it falls flat. She needs to realize what might work better under such difficult conditions...this was a bit abstract for the occasion. People couldn't get a fix on it quickly so they didn't get much out of it.

I could have edited this same poem to make it work better for this occasion, but I wasn't asked...;-) Also she needs coaching in delivery.

Oh well...the sentiments were appropriate

[OnyxCollie]

17. She lost me at "All about us is noise."

It's a phrase I would neither expect nor want to hear in an inaugural poem. Plus, the delivery was flat. Weak.

It reads better, though.

[undeterred]

18. Sorry, not a poem.

[book_worm]

20. My sister the minute it was over said, "That was crap" and I'm no poet

so I really didn't know if it was good or not, I do know it didn't keep me all that interested. But the woman probably worked hard on it and was nervous and did a better job than 99% of us would have.

[RadiationTherapy]

23. That poem made me think of Charles Bukowski.

He stayed inspired during his unpublished years by knowing he was better than most of the shit that was being published and praised.

This piece of non-poetry gives me hope for my own poetry.

[Call Me Wesley]

24. It sure wasn't the highlight of the inauguration,

but then, she was very nervous, too. She looked at the crowd before she began reading and was probably overwhelmed by the masses in front of her. Should have looked at the sky above. And then, there are only a very few writers and poets I recall actually being good with recitations. That's the reason why mostly actors do their audio books and not the authors. Can't have both sometimes.

The poem itself is way too packed and obviously written for this day, so it deals with just too many images or symbols boiled down in a few sentences. And, but perhaps that's my European heritage, I don't really know why always the dead have to be remembered, since they were once living people. Not the dead brought us here, but the ones who lived and worked for it. Of course, now they're all dead, but that's how it goes. It was what they did when they still where alive.

Anyway, it was great to see this tradition coming to life again. Mind you, Bush never had a poem read to him or the people he thought he lead. And for this, it was great and honorable!