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Nordette is a freelance journalist, published fiction writer, poet, and the mother of two children. She is also a BlogHer.com Contributing Editor an...
 
 
 
 

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"Praise Song for the Day" Reloaded (Attack of the Inaugural Poem)

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With most Americans, I watched the inauguration ceremonies of President Barack Obama last Tuesday. At times I wept. At others, grinned like the Cheshire cat. And, being a poet, I paid attention to Elizabeth Alexander as she recited her poem "Praise Song for the Day," written for the inauguration. I paid attention, but knew I'd have to find the video and text, sit somewhere, and be still before forming an opinion.

Preparing to write this post, I sifted through critiques of the poem, most of them so negative that I considered entitling this post, "Why Y'all Be Hatin' on a Sister?" The content of the post would have been a list of review links with notations beside each link: He a hater; She a hater; Not a hater; Idiot; Look, it's a suck-up! (the last designation reserved for gushers who say things like, "It's a masterpiece, the best poem I've ever read in my life!")

In addition, I procrastinated on reading the reviews for a few days after I saw some of the firsts. I dreaded knowing too much because I'd want to tell it all, which is why I'm glad to have come across Joel Dias-Porter's blog. After you finish this post, if you want to dive deeper, he's your man.

Here's a taste of the kind of detailed analysis you'll find there.

Being familiar with her work, I know that Alexander is a poet of both great skill and care, thus it was not surprising to note that the poem is comprised of forty-three lines, loosely in iambic pentameter (mostly 9, 10, and 11 syllables) and arranged into 14 tercets, plus one final orphan line. That the body of the poem is 43 lines is no coincidence, since Alexander is smart enough to know that while Obama is the 44th President of these United States, he is the 43rd person to serve as such. This is due to Grover Cleveland serving two non-consecutive terms as the 22nd and 24th Presidents. (Joel Dias-Porter)

This kind of detail fascinates me, but I know most people don't care about form, meter, couplets or tercets, significance of line count. While poets and critics debate whether "Praise Song for the Day" is a poem or prose, the average person is screaming from the corner, "Yeah, but what the hell did she mean?"

At Slate, Salon, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, I've read comments like, "WTF?" or "That was not a poem." and "What was that, an Affirmative Action poem?" "Walt Whitman, she ain't."

Regina Hackett, art critic for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote:

The daily-life banality of her poem was disheartening, but that's not the real problem. Her delivery was flat. She sounded as if she were ordering pizza on the phone.

But that's not the problem either.

The problem is, by no stretch is her poem a poem at all. While as a stilted monologue it had a suggestion of lean appeal, far better than the greeting card goo Maya Angelou cranks out and insists on calling poetry, Alexander's effort is the product of a limited imagination, an academic approach to rhythm and an anorexic understanding of imagery. (Regina Hackett at SeattlePI.com)

Hackett's so wrong, but I applaud her for posting with her critique an example of what she considers to be a good poem, Rita Dove's "Exit," chosen at random, says Hackett. Critics quickly will tell you something is bad, but move as arthritic old men giving examples of what they call good.

Hackett voices a common complaint about Alexander's poem, its delivery. I think some people thought she should speak like Maya Angelou or be more like the poets at poetry slams, the kind you see on HBO's Def Jam. Some folks think a poet is only one thing, a spoken word performer like Sandra Kay, for instance, entertaining with mad dramatic skillz. Others think a poet is a British-sounding man in a coffee house, bemoaning lost love with lofty words.

And then there's the rhyming thing. Hackett understands poems can be poems and not rhyme, but many Americans still believe words are only poetry if they fall within the definition of poetry learned in elementary school--pretty turns of phrase in near-even lines, ending in rhyme.

Others, taking pride in being poetry connoisseurs, don't necessarily believe poems must rhyme, but still call Alexander a hack who writes not only poetry poorly but prose badly as well.

No Social Function:

I didn’t

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Nordette Adams 11 pts

Thank you for that point, Kim. Some poems are more to be read than heard.  I think you're right about this one.

It is neatly finished. I'll have to go back and watch the video of hear delivery and pay attention to how she ends it spoken.

Thank you, and I hope your colleages enjoy the read.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Very kind of you. Thank you, Norma.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Thank you for sharing these links on Denby's book Snark.

What Denby's really talking about is consciousness, the idea that
writers, thinkers, commentators ought to have a point of view. This
seems obvious enough, but it tends to get lost in the noise of constant
conversation, all the commenting and cross-posting, the tiny feuds and
insignificant disputes. (Baltimore Sun article)

I like also how in the audio discussion he distinguished between wit and snark, that wit, while it may often have bite, uses language in a creative way. There's a full idea behind satire or using a word for the sake of irony.  

Actually, a lot of the negative criticism of Alexander's poem is quite snarky.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Hi, Norma.  I suppose while you were writing this response, I was adding more information to my first response to you, which caused the system to lock me out and post the update, done only seconds later, as a second comment from me to you. Scroll down and you'll see the expanded comment with a link regarding the word, "hater."

Within the context of this forum only, it could sound like I was being rude to you out of the blue. But you know and I know that we've had other exchanges in political forums, usually about the use of words, in particular Rush Limbaugh's words ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2009/01/vintage-limbau... ).

Consequently, I don't see your comments here only a comment on the poem, but your obsession with tit for tat.  Yes, that was a pointed use of the word satire, but not to make you feel stupid. I simply hope you can lighten up.  However, as you can see from the edited response, which is below this one, I think, and which got locked out of the system when you responded so quicky (and so did not update as an edit but as a new comment),  I thought better of using the word "satire" twice. 

I mean you no harm.

Have a good day. Go to a spa or something. I'm praying for you.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Jill Miller Zimon 9 pts

This link's for you if you want to talk about defining "mean" - just because you don't use certain words, Norma, doesn't mean you aren't being mean - condescending, haughty and patronizing read and sound just as mean as words you may associate more commonly with "mean." Again, you are in an industry that relies on the use of words. You may craft what others say, but I have doubts as to whether you realize how you sound.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-al.bk.r...

http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/01/27.php#24369  (the audio is there for you to listen to the entire hour about "snark") 

( http://www.blogher.com/praise-song-day-reloaded-at... )

JillWrites Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

Norma156 5 pts

"Using the word "hater:" it's satire, Norma, satire."

Language is an interesting and powerful tool, Nordette. Your title above, by the repetition of the word "satire," suggests I was missing an obvious point. The repeition is vehement. It suggests impatience and it's snippy and condescending. Just the one word changes the entire tone of your post.

As you are a self-described poet, I must conclude you meant it that way.

But why?

Why would I know urban slang? "Hating on my dress?" Why would I know that this is some kind of affectionate or informal interchange?

"Hateration." Why is that a word I would know?

If you were writing in an forum dedicated to urban slang, perhaps I might be expected to understand it. But you're not.

This is a general audience. Write for us and don't use the word "hater" when describing critics. It doesn't read as satire.

For those of us who are not familiar with urban slang it just makes you sound mean.

Kim Pearson 8 pts

I loved your smart, informed and detailed reporting and analysis, Nordette.  I've forwarded to my departmental colleagues.I'm also glad you posted the text. I enjoyed reading it, and it occurs to me that perhaps it is a poem that is meant to be read more than heard.

When I listened to Alexander's poem, I was reminded of Carl Sandburg's paeans to everyday Americans -- poems like, "The People, Yes," or "I am the People, the Mob ( http://carl-sandburg.com/i_am_the_people_the_mob.h... )."

There is a sense of moment in the sketches of ordinary people doing ordinary things, in the twinkling before... before what? When John Hersey used the same technique to open Hiroshima, it was just before Hell came to earth in the form of atomic bombs. In Ronald Reagan's campaign commercial (which always struck me as a creepy echo of the "Brotherhood" poster in Invisible Man,) it was a moment that presaged his vision of "Morning in America." This moment, too, is a new and wondrous thing, she sames to be saying, and what will we make of it?

 I do have a quibble with her delivery. When she reached the end, no one seemed to know it was over. As I read it, I am not sure why -- the text seems neatly finished. 

 Thanks again.

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor ( http://blogher.org/blog/kim-pearson )|Professor Kim ( http://professorkim.blogspot.com/ )|

Virginia DeBolt 19 pts

day and although I didn't understand the subtle nuances of some of this one (for example, I didn't know the cultural significance of praise songs) I certainly thought it was effective. It evoked the very sense that we are all one: in our commonness, our everydayness, we join in hope. I especially loved

"In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun."

Virginia DeBolt
BlogHer Technology Contributing Editor ( http://www.blogher.com/blog/virginia-debolt )
Web Teacher ( http://www.webteacher.ws/ )
First 50 Words ( http://first50.wordpress.com/ )

Nordette Adams 11 pts

 You're right about that last line.  Simple, yet encouraging to the soul.

Thank you for writing.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

I know what you mean about not liking to have people read to you.  I have a friend like that. It may have been hard for you to listen to her read the poem, however, even if you didn't mind folks reading to you because she read it the way old school poets read poems, which can be kind of stilted.  Then she was so nervous up there. I'm glad she made it through without upchucking her breakfast, if she was able to eat that morning that is. :-)

It's a poem that I think will grow on people who sit down and think about it.

Glad you enjoyed my ramblings. Thank you for posting.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Thank you, Jill. That's what's so great about poetry, it forces us to look and consider something for more than a commercial's time length.

Alexander's poem is beautifully dense and so has gems for the person who wants more. Yet, she still managed to "say it plain." You don't have to be a poetry freak to get what she meant.

When I say it's dense, I really mean that. But her compression is subtle. For instance, I didn't include some of the other lines that have dual meanings such as why she chose to write  "a woman and her son" as opposed to "a mother and her son."  Let America chew on that for a while. :-)

"Spoke to everyone in terms of who was doing the heavy lifting ..."  I like that. :-)

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Poets keep fighting over this and over whether or not free verse (no form, rhyme, or obvious meter) is poetry.  I just read a good piece on it the other night about this fixation with categorizing poetry.

Thank you, Michelle. :-)

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

It's a joke to call people "hater" just because they say something you don't like, Norma. It's not to be taken literally that you believe the person hates you or you hate them.

Example:

Girlfriend# 1 to Girlfriend#2:  Girl, I love you, but that purple lipstick isn't working for you.

Girlfriend#2:  Hater. Don't put down my lipstick just 'cuz you jealous I'm looking so good.

They both laugh and move on to next subject.

Hater or "hata" is associated with jealousy:

"hater" is the street term for jealous. Example: 1) "This girl is hating on me." ...means :This girl is jealous of me" 2) "Sean is such a hater"....means: Sean is jealous 3) "Look at the way she is looking at
me, i know she is hating on my dress"...means: Look at the way she is looking at me, she's so jealous of me wearing this dress". Hope it helps!  (actually a good definition from Yahoo Answers)

There's also an invented word:  hateration.  It's used in all kinds of crazy ways and circumstances.

Some people use the word in its literal since about people who are angry and racist, etc.

It's another word that has dual meanings of in the English language, urban slang.

If you have time, you can watch Jill Scott's facial expressions ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2009/01/jill-scotts-ha... ) and body language in her 2007 hit "Hate on Me" and figure out the word can be used as tongue in cheek but "crackin' and fackin."

The word "hater" is used in this piece as satire because critics objected to Alexander using the obvious word for the day, "love."  And since poets and poetry critics have a long history of big egos and jealousy issues, I think it works here.

So often we take offense because we don't understand what we're hearing, especially when the words' meanings are colored by culture, including generational cultures.  Oddly enough confusion about words and wording is part the point of Alexander's poem as she talks about using words "spiny or smooth" as well as eventually a love that has no need to pre-empt grievance.

Anyway, "hater" is kind of old slang now, Virginia just did a post on new slang ( http://www.blogher.com/pardon-me-was-latest-slang ), for anyone who's interested.

Thanks for commenting. (Updated for typos but not content.)

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

JC 5 pts

I'm not a poetry expert, but when I heard Elizabeth Alexander recite her poem, I thought she gave a glimpse into our country's workings on a random day.  It felt like she was taking a snapshot of all of us, and I liked it.  I especially liked the last line about walking forward in the light.  It's very hopeful.

http://www.storyrhyme.com/jcsblog

Nordette Adams 11 pts

It's a joke to call people "hater" just because they say something you don't like, Norma. It's not to be taken literally that you believe the person hates you or you hate them.

Example:

Girlfriend# 1 to Girlfriend#2:  Girl, I love you, but that purple lipstick isn't working for you.

Girlfriend#2:  Hater. Don't put down my lipstick just 'cuz you jealous I'm looking so good.

They both laugh and move on to next subject.

Hater or "hata" is associated with jealousy:

"hater" is the street term for jealous. Example: 1) "This girl is
hating on me." ...means :This girl is jealous of me" 2) "Sean is such a
hater"....means: Sean is jealous 3) "Look at the way she is looking at
me, i know she is hating on my dress"...means: Look at the way she is
looking at me, she's so jealous of me wearing this dress". Hope it
helps!  (actually a good definition from Yahoo Answers)

There's also an invented word:  hateration.  It's used in all kinds of crazy ways and circumstances.

Some people use the word in its literal since about people who are angry and racist, etc.

It's another word that has dual meanings of in the English language, urban slang.

It was used in this piece in the satrical sense because critics objected to Alexander using the obvious word for the day, "love."  And since poets and poetry critics have a long history of big egos and jealousy issues, I think it works here.

Thanks for commenting.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Marianne at MealMixer 6 pts

Thank you for your post.  I read it all, enjoyed it, and learned something!  I did not enjoy the poem upon hearing it.  But, I am not a person who enjoys being read to, my attention wanders and I find that I cannot focus at my own speed.  Upon reading this poem I liked it, and then having it explained I liked it even more!  People who truly consider the poem and still don't like it?  Probably drink their wine from screw top bottles (lol).

Marianne  : )

Jill Miller Zimon 9 pts

I do not "know" poetry.  But I have read a reasonable amount of it, heard some of it - even participated in a Langston Hughes reading in college at the request of the organizers (that was a shock, and something I just remembered while typing this comment!) and I keep a couple of books of it by my bedside.

I confess that I did not listen intently to the entire poem - I did for the first few minutes and again toward the end.  I considered it to be not so much of a statement or a prophecy or anything like that, but rather additional backdrop for the future, one person's summary of what is the fabric of life, up until now, and what it can be, what we can make of it, as time continues.

I thought it was accessible in its language and frankly, I liked how she read it.

I felt that it was like a backdrop to have in our memories as we work to improve the situations in our country and our own lives, between one another and for ourselves. I felt it spoke to everyone in terms of who has the heavy lifting and agree with Nordette's observation about how the poem functioned with the inaug. speech.

This is a great post, Nordette. Thank you for taking so much care and time on this event.

JillWrites Like She Talks ( http://www.writeslikeshetalks.com )

Michelle McKinley 5 pts

has to rhyme. 

I thought her poem was beautiful, no way I could write anything like that!  This is a really good post, good read :o)

http://superfabuloushousewife.blogspot.com/

Norma156 5 pts

Whether you liked the poem or not, this was a very interesting and thoughtful post.

Well done. (Although I'm not sure labeling people "hater" based on their criticisms is especially productive especially since the rest of the post is so very thoughtful.)

That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Mata H 5 pts

When that happy day that we meet up somewhere comes -- IOU one breath-gasper hug, m'friend.

--Mata

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool ( http://timesfool.blogspot.com )

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Thank you, Mata.  A week before the inauguration, I bought the CD of Beatles remastered, "Love."  Love may be used in cliche ways, but I think it was the right word for the day.  My 78-year-old aunt, a woman raised down here under segregation, went to the inaug.  She says she cried the whole time, couldn't see Obama because whe was far away from even a giant TV screen, but she said all the people of all races were just smiling and hugging each other. She said she's never seen anything like it in her lifetime.

I would have taken that gasp for breath hug gladly. :-)

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Thank you, FoxyC for dropping by.   Here is a link where you can watch video of her performance.

http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2009/01/praise-song-fo... ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com/2009/01/praise-song-fo... )

If you visit, please leave a link to your work so I can visit you.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Thank you, Sage.  You'll have to scroll down to read my response. I put it in the wrong spot.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Mata H 5 pts

When you said:"I have a question for them, perhaps for us all, "If we're so damned smart and well-adjusted that we don't need to hear, listen to, or contemplate a message encouraging us to love better and walk into "love that cast a widening pool of light," why is the world still so effing effed up?" ...

I swear, if you were close enough, I would have hugged you until you gasped for breath.

Well spoken.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool ( http://timesfool.blogspot.com )

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Haha! Sage, you went in a time vault for that one.  But thank you.

You make some exceptional points about Alexander's inaugural poem.

For me, the whole metaphor of the poem is a thirsting for sunlight from
each and every one of us.  It is felt as a unifying energy and love, and so critics are just that, critics, they are chaotic, irregular, and fragmentary.  Blood, death, bells, politicians, poets, and stars, all drawn from poetry, all brought together in a complex web of associations

It's amusing in a way.  The poem is about inclusion and moving forward and many negative critics of the poem are using a elitist poetry models of the past to blast the poem.

Thank you, Sage. :-)

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

foxyc 5 pts

I've just read Ms. Alexander's poem for the president's inaguration on your post...hope to find its delivery. I'm a poetess as well and I happent to like/appreciate what the poet was conveying for all people as our Mr. President is for the community of folks...

While reading this work, I was thinking of Martin Luther King's speech...his march in Selma,Alabama...I think the poem spoke volumes for all God's children:)

sagesweetwater 5 pts

Poetry gets its integrity from its growth out of a mind struggling to find form and language to express a personal vision.  Elizabeth Alexander did exactly this in "Praise Song for the Day," the Inaugural poem.  Her first three lines sums up what we know as the people of this country know, and that is most folks avoid direct eye contact for fear of connecting with another human being because it is DNA encoded in us to be "suspicious" of anyone and anything, which is sadly ashamed.  Look at your neighbor and say "I'm glad you're here."

I find Alexander's poem to be a wonderful vehicle for commenting on her society and our society for increasing contact with the outside world.  She has no responsibility to form her poetry in the traditional metrical and stanzaic form, and unobstrusive diction of the poets of the fifties.

"Praise Song for the Day" is in conjunction with the spiritual and physical sense of belonging.  In my opinion, Alexander found a language and a poetic form to accommodate a sense of change our nation is headed for.  It is a poem of transition which seeks ideals to embrace life and art. 

Any poet can write and recite a poem for which there is an accepted meaning, but it takes a poet such as Elizabeth Alexander with this open-endedness to impart her vision and provide the reader with a catapult into larger reality.  Such a connection with poet and reader is continually in flux through social, political and inner pressures.  Historically, this process of change is apparent from the slave trade.  To have a black man in office as President of the United States is a powerful transition!  Barack Obama will lead us away from this crisis point, and the irony of it is the African slaves built the platform of opportunity, and it is how I interpret Alexander's lines

"picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of."

For me, the whole metaphor of the poem is a thirsting for sunlight from each and every one of us.  It is felt as a unifying energy and love, and so critics are just that, critics, they are chaotic, irregular, and fragmentary.  Blood, death, bells, politicians, poets, and stars, all drawn from poetry, all brought together in a complex web of associations.  Nordette, you wrote a poem quite some time ago, and I leave you and your readers with a final thought.  That poem I am speaking of is your social responsibility poem, "The Poets Speaking Beauty" http://sw.writingjunkie.net/speakbeauty.html ... I, in compliment, equate those lines to Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural poem, "Praise Song for the Day" because I understand it, I understand it  to have beauty.  I liked it, just as strong as I felt like for your poem "The Poets Speaking Beauty"...because I understand it. The accompanying spoken word file is, in my opinion, one of your strongest voice deliveries; yes, "the poets must speak beauty."

In sisterhood and respect,
Sage Sweetwater, Celebrity Firebrand Lesbian Novelist
http://www.authorsden.com/sagesweetwater

Nordette Adams 11 pts

Laurie, I used to have panic attacks if a teacher said we were going to work with scansion, determine if a poem is iambic pentameter or something else. I hated placing stress marks because I usually heard the poem a little differently from whatever the teacher ended up saying.

I can't get the people who are saying Alexander has no sense of imagery. I think it may be that some of what she does is so subtle it escapes people.

Oh, but that section also represents you and I believe Alexander meant to do that.  Almost every ethnic group upon arrival to America had "some one" at some point telling its members you can't cross over to my side of the road.  The Irish had it so bad for a while that some wealthy Irish people changed their names.

Thinking more on that stanza about marking roads.  Her use of the some "one," it occurred to me that in separating a word we normally see as one word and juxtaposing it to "others" she's speaking of "one" in the sense of the group that considers itself the only representation of America and that does not want the "others' to join them fully in the American dream.  Very subtle, clever writing.

You are also included because you are a woman, someone's always marking some road and telling women you can't go beyond where we tell you, stay in your place.

Thank you, Laurie, for your insightful commentary and the compliment.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

lauriewrites 20 pts

"In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun."

This was how I felt and she captured it. I looked up from what my Twitter people were saying - mostly some variation on "I have no words" - when she read this.  Reading your helpful quote of the poem here (because yes, I was obsessed with other things at the time and didn't hear it) I liked this part a lot: 

"We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one 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."

Anorexic understanding what? And whereas perhaps she didn't mean this to represent ME as I am defined by color and ancestral experience, she included me in ways she may not have set out to do- third generation child of Irish immigrants that I am.

This is an excellent consideration of this work, and of its relevance to an important day, and I thank you for it....and also for making me read about form, to which I'm largely allergic. ;) 

Laurie

Nordette Adams 11 pts

That occured to me also, that she was running a slide show of images for us.

Really, who other than working poets recalls poetry terminology forever? :-)

The poem would be on my favorites list not as a poem but as memorabilia.  Not to say it isn't a poem, but that it didn't move me as much as some other poems have. However, I could easily see whipping it out when I'm talking to my grandchildren one day and being able to tell them the mood of the country in January 2009.   It's history compressed with a look to the future.

Thank you for commenting.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Lisse 11 pts

 I have forgotten most of it, but I did recognize what Alexander was doing. There were certainly times when her delivery was awkward, but I think she got the message across to me.

If nothing else, she gave us a series of images, a verbal version of what might be delivered in Flicker, or PowerPoint.

Was it great poetry? I'm not sure I'm qualified to say, but I certainly didn't hate it.

 I thought after all the high, aspirational speeches, she brought us back a reminded us that this day was not just about the new President, but about all those ordinary people who are counting on him.

- Lisse

@ Home in the World: International Adoption and Other Travels ( http://homeintheworld.typepad.com )

Nordette Adams 11 pts

"Thorn and din" for noise of the kids. :-)

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Tammy Donroe 5 pts

I'm no connoisseur of poetry (in fact, I usually can't understand it), but I liked the language and imagery and tone of this one.  It was accessible without being simplistic, I thought.  I didn't particularly like the stilted delivery, but at least it enabled me to hear everything being said over all the noise of the kids at our Inauguration Party.  Thorn and din, indeed.

Candelaria Silva 5 pts

I enjoyed  and "got" the poem when it was being read.  I like it even more seeing it in print.  The delivery was dreadful.  It didn't need to be read in a "soken word" way but it did need a more powerful rendering.

I think it's wonderful that President Obama invited a poet, returning a tradition to the inauguration that had been discontinued.  I think the debate over the merits of the poem is a healthy one and brings poetry as an artform beyond the folks who usually read it.

One unrelated comment - damn - you write long blog entries, Mordette!

blog.candelariasilva.com

Good and plenty!

Nordette Adams 11 pts

I thought about splitting it into two, but figured most people don't care about poetry enough to read it anyway so if they like poetry they'll read it.  If they don't, they won't.

Also why I used word "Attack."  It's a monster, and I put in a lot of blockquotes from other people.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Nordette Adams 11 pts

That particular line is one of her more lyrical lines.  I like it too. Thank you for commenting, Virginia. I remember that you were the first person to hit my blog looking for the text of the poem. :-)

Nordette ( http://blogher.org/blog/nordette ) is a BlogHer CE, personal blog WSATA ( http://bigsole.blogspot.com ). Also @ Twitter ( http://twitter.com/nordette_verite ).

Norma156 5 pts

Tit for tat? Nordette, I complimented you for thoughtful column which I thoroughly enjoyed. Please re-visit my orginal comment.

I added only minor caveat which I thought reduced the value of a column that I would consider far more important than the normal emphermal blog posts.