Wednesday, January 21, 2009
News / News Bites Why a poem . . . then, there?
Posted by Michael Miner on 01.21.09 at 01:12 PM
Elizabeth Alexander is being hammered for her contribution to yesterday's Inaugural -- the poem "Praise Song for the Day," which she read after Barack Obama spoke, and which -- if we're to judge by the TV shots of folks wandering off and by the critiques -- nobody was inspired by or even tried very hard to follow.
I certainly didn't. Good poetry isn't easy. Alexander's massive audience naturally assumed this was to be good poetry -- if it wasn't, why was it on the program? -- which meant it would have to be considered with some deliberate care for its virtues to unfold. I, for one, wasn't in the mood for that. My mind was on Obama's speech. An expert reading of an apposite poem I already knew by heart might have been nice, Even a reading of a new poem that we'd already had a few days to read by ourselves and reflect on might have worked. But poetry isn't something to be unveiled like the new Bud Light ads during the Superbowl. I listened to Alexander just long enough for her to show me she wasn't going to be able to save the day with a socko delivery, and then I, almost gratefully, tuned her out. Barack Obama seemed engrossed, but I bet he'd read "Praise Song for the Day" beforehand.
British correspondents sniffed. Wrote Carol Rumens of the Guardian: "'Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking,' Alexander begins: not a riveting start." Normally, a poem doesn't require a riveting start -- but it probably does if it's written to be delivered at the close of a long, cold, exhilarating morning of public ceremony.
And wrote Erica Wagner of the Times: "Praise Song for the Day was unmemorable. How do I know that for sure? Why, because I can’t remember it. Two minutes after it was spoken I couldn’t remember it."
In other words, Alexander's poem needed a catchy hook.
I suggest moving the poem forward in the inaugural program so it isn't such an anticlimax, and allowing and encouraging the public to get to know the poem ahead of time. Or we could turn the poetry reading over to the Hollywood star who raised the most money for the new president's campaign. Or we could drop it.
Way too late, the text of "Praise Song for the Day" is now publicly available. Here it is, courtesy of the New York Times. Alexander wrote a modest, gentle poem that understands the occasion it was written for but doesn't dress up for it. It works on its own terms. If the point was to awe the multitudes, she miscalculated.
Comments (6)
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Exactly! Who's the genius who decided to have her follow Obama's inaugural address? He was the headliner. She should have opened for him, as it were.
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Brava! Well put! I applaud Obama's choice to include an inaugural poem, the fourth in our country's history. How cool to have a leader who likes poetry. (He's even written some of his own! Obama's Poetry here OK- I should be the easiest audience for any poet. I teach English, and in my classroom I dictate at least one poem a week. I fight metrophobia in my students all the time, and I firmly believe poetry is meant to be read and shared and discussed. And so moved was I by the inauguration, just about anything could have kept my tears flowing. But what a missed opportunity. Yes, it's tough to follow a speaker like Obama- but I don't think it would have gone over much better if they'd stuck that poem right before his speech. Certainly, people would not have left physically, but they would likely have left mentally. Or to shout, "O-BA-MA!" And let me tell you, a study guide? They're a tough sell, although I agree that Alexander's poem reads better on the page than it did on the stage. Poor Alexander. I feel sorry for her. But a good writer does not necessarily equal a good performer. I think Obama learned a lesson: pick a writer-performer. Pick a Nikki Giovanni, a Billy Collins... Go to Chicago's Green Mill and find someone who can bring a poetry-shy crowd into the fold. Look at Maya Angelou's "On the Pulse of Morning"-- better yet, watch her read it. Gah- It just kills me to see a public poetic flop like that. As if people don't already fear and avoid poetry. A missed opportunity! Now that speech? Whew! My hands hurt from applauding so much. And I was alone at home on my couch.
This source includes the proper line breaks for the poem: http://tinyurl.com/7cdc93
Line breaks do not a poem make; that is, they do not magically turn prose into verse. Judging by the evidence, not only has Ms. Alexander not written a poem, she doesn't even know what a poem is.
Gads! Nikki Giovanni is awful, as a person. She came to our town to read and I actually got up and walked out after I'd had enough of her hate. She even hates her own son, but she hates white people more. When she said ugly things about her son was when I got up and walked out. No one should ever applaud that hate-mongering woman. To put her in the same category as Billy Collins is heresy. Billy Collins is all about love and stuff, and all about praise and wonder and feeing grateful and worshipping what is dying (which is: all of nature, people included). He doesn't get enough credit for being serious. I didn't know his poems were funny till I heard him read them. They can be taken both ways. Ambiguity is good in poetry.
