The Full Text of the Inaugural poem
13 comments on “The Full Text of the Inaugural poem”
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Is it just me or has not the poetry portion of the inauguration program spiraled down to where it is just another demographic pandering mechanism allowing political personages to seem sophisticated and erudite as they provide a venue to showcase the work of lousy writers who can’t rhyme?
Now a series of good limericks. I could go for that.
Dilbertnomore, I heartily concur!
T
Certainly a very political and afro-centered poem. Without doubt, an homage to “change,” if not to “Anything Goes.” That’s certainly the meaning of the ending reprise. Who knows, but American and English lit. profs may one day look upon January 20th as having unleashed the tide in African letters which swamped everything many of us grew up and thrived upon. The death of, say, Chaucer, or Dickens? I don’t know, but I think textbook publishers had better look to their offerings. Judging from all the adoring young faces I’ve seen at Obama events, mere “diversity” won’t get it anymore!
Good grief. Robert Frosts are not a dime a dozen, you know. This is no worse than most “state poetry” – which is rarely a memorable category.
Sherri2, my point is if there is nothing but low quality foolishness available to spout under the guise of poetry at a presidential inauguration, why not save the all the thousands of attendees five more minutes in the biting cold and just drop that ‘feature.’ At times it is better to be silent and be thought a fool that to speak ones piece and remove all doubt.
Well, as someone who loves poetry and who doesn’t find this a grand example, but not utterly abysmal either – I don’t see the harm in inviting a poet to compose a poem and read it at the inauguration. Poetry has never been a “popular” form of art in the U.S., but I don’t see a problem with having a bit of it – just five more minutes for people who had been there since before daybreak? – at an inaugural.
I hesitate to call this collection of word ‘poetry’. Prose is more like it.
As a kid growing up in the 60s, it became obvious that fewer and fewer people could actually write poetry. People could not (or would not) express their thoughts with words that rhymed. Now, the art has been dumbed-down so much that any collection of words can be called a ‘poem’.
I think writing poems for events is difficult. Even for those who have mastered the craft.
I thought it was a good poem, but not her best. She has written some excellent work.
Mmmm … Now; here’s an interesting thread – not least as it reveals so much … hesitation, a reluctance to allow that “anything can be made, any sentence begunâ€. Notably in this blogging medium we use, have to use, “words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsiderâ€.
For surely rhyme is not the only nor perhaps the key feature of the poetic. Rhythm and assonance, and dissonance too, all cast their necessary spell. At the heart of poetry, may I humbly suggest, is something akin to all discovery, a glimpse of Adam’s naming of the animals, that archetypal form of human being, language:
A dissonance/ in the valence of Uranium/ led to the discovery
Dissonance/ (if you’re interested)/ leads to discovery
(WC Williams, [i]Paterson[/i] IV, On the Curies)
With apologies to TS Eliot for not citing his own desire “to make†constantly either “ends†or “beginnings†by means of “wordsâ€: the reference is to perhaps the finest poem of the English language, [i]Four Quartets[/i]. Oops; now there’s something to start a thread …! Enjoy!
It’s embarrassing. Couldn’t they have made Seamus Heaney a citizen for a day? Or had someone read Joseph Brodsky.
Amen TWilson! Seamus’s [i]The Spirit Level’s[/i]
“Errand” would have done the trick to be sure …
I think that the poem did a reasonably good job of shifting the attention away from a speech that was not very accessible either.
Drivel.