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    Super Bowl Fans Tackle Poetry

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    On January 20, a star was born in Washington, DC, during the inauguration of the 46th president of the United States — a 78-year-old white man taking over from a 74-year-old sore loser. Before the swearing-in, an unknown 22-year-old black female strode up to the podium. She embodied the Democratic Party’s commitment to identity politics. With her expressive voice, she recited a rap-influenced poem celebrating the new dawn that would emerge after the nation’s weathering of hurricane Donald. (“Dawn” and “weathered” followed by “belly of the beast” and the metaphor of wading a sea were among the stale images that appeared in the early lines of the poem).

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    The art of poetry, long neglected in US culture, has now emerged from the shadows of cultural neglect. On February 7, it reached a pinnacle as the same young poet was invited to occupy the nation’s most prestigious stage and bask in the bright, intense spotlight of the Super Bowl. After starring in President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Amanda Gorman has become the new face and the fluid voice of a newly hopeful America, a nation run by aging white men who demonstrate their youthful spirit by promoting diverse young talents charged with renewing the veneer of political hyperreality.

    The Super Bowl halftime show featured a video clip of Gorman performing her poem, “Chorus of the Captains.” Her recital was accompanied by the kind of dramatic orchestral score typical of patriotic political ads. Its emotional crescendo rose to a climax as Gorman spoke these lines:

    “Let us walk with these warriors,
    Charge on with these champions,
    And carry forth the call of our captains!
    We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion,
    By doing what is right and just.”

    Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

    Charge on:

    Move forward with speed and physical force, even if it means crushing anything that stands in the way, one of the primary virtues taught to all Americans, encouraged to act quickly and never worry about the consequences

    Contextual Note

    What could be more appropriate than the verb “charge on” for a poem celebrating a sport with a reputation for addling the brains of its players? Americans have largely positive associations with the idea of charging, whether the object charged is the enemy lines or a commodity being purchased. Americans are happy when their iPhones are fully charged and their cars supercharged. On the other hand, being charged with a crime evokes negative associations, unless it’s spectacular enough a crime to propel the subject from obscurity to fame. For many Americans, anything that makes people famous must be good.                                                                                                                                   

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    The heroes Gorman names are warriors, champions and captains. They have the perfect American profile: assertive and aggressive but kind. They radiate the authority that incites their followers to “carry forth” their “call.” Gorman may have been thinking of former President Donald Trump, whose troops carried forth his call as far as the Senate chambers in January. Gorman recognizes what makes Americans resonate, especially those convinced that what they are doing “is right and just.”

    The acts ascribed to Gorman’s heroes convey a spirit of charity, generosity and solidarity. The first is a former Marine who, in all probability, unthinkingly followed the dictates of his government to engage in mortal combat with people he knew nothing about, but, having survived, responded to the needs of his community by “livestreaming football for family and fans.” Super Bowl spectators will be sensitive to the value of this gesture. Like any good entertainer, Gorman clearly understands the profile of her audience.

    The second hero is a teacher who does things that help students “succeed in life and in schools.” Nothing is more American than success. It’s a competitive world and everyone is called upon by their captains to pursue success, even though only a few will attain it, and fewer still by the age of 22. Fortunately, it’s a humiliation most Americans courageously learn to live with.

    Then Gorman introduces the nurse, whose self-abnegation proves that “even in tragedy, hope is possible.” Actually, speaking as a literary critic, it isn’t. In tragedy, hopes are introduced only to be dashed. Characters in great tragedies who express the conviction that “hope is possible” will be disappointed, unless, as in Macbeth, their hope is that the guilty king will die in the final act. Aristotle taught us that the poignant poetry we associate with tragedy inspires pity and fear, not hope. 

    Perhaps Gorman thinks the American tragedy is different, as in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Last Action Hero,” where the film’s hero, a child, hopes that Hamlet will kill his cruel uncle, inherit the throne, remove everything that’s rotten in the state of Denmark (“drain the swamp” as Trump would put it), and stabilize the country for decades to come. That is a “consummation devoutly to be wished,” far better than Hamlet’s submission to the “special providence” he sees “in the fall of a sparrow.” And it avoids having to accept the idea that “the rest is silence.”

    Historical Note

    Apart from rare examples of epic poetry, from Homer and Virgil to Milton, in which mature poets with powerful voices and incredible stamina produced monumental literary productions for the glory of their nations, poetry has always been a poor man’s art. Even great poets never sought to make a living from poetry. The immensely influential Arthur Rimbaud wrote all his poetry before the age of 20 and then went off to traffic arms in the desert.

    For most great poets, writing and eventually publishing poetry required a serious loyalty to the tradition and a radical sense of self-effacement. Poetry is the one literary discipline whose only expected reward was a handful of motivated and respectful readers, one or two of which might be suitably rich, patrons inclined to encourage the poet’s production. “Professional poets, who write beautiful and rhythmic words for a living, almost always have day jobs that pay the bills,” according to Bangladeshi poet Zubair Ahmed. Successful poets, he tells us, “are writing in defiance of market forces, driven by the love of their craft.”

    Embed from Getty Images

    American culture has rarely honored its poets. Walt Whitman was a journalist who made a splash with his poetry by creating verse recognizable as coming from the national voice, distinguishing American poetry from the British tradition. Robert Frost, the closest thing to a professional poet, made his mark as a New England voice. Carl Sandberg was a Chicago poet and Langston Hughes a black Harlem bard. These examples highlight the importance of branding for success or celebrity in the US. T.S. Eliot, arguably the most influential and respected of American poets, chose a more purely aesthetic path and ended up as a British poet, having changed his nationality and found his place in a more broadly European tradition.

    Most recognized poets earned their reputations slowly and most often painfully. Amanda Gorman is the product of contemporary celebrity culture, where the talented have no time to waste in their quest to impose their brand. This is the world of “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent” in which budding young talents, strong on well-honed technique, a sense of personal image and the ability to duplicate stylistic features associated with commercially successful standards of quality, compete to be applauded by seasoned professionals. With the right amount of luck, some become immediate cultural commodities.

    Gorman may be the first to do it with poetry. Frost was an old man when John F. Kennedy invited him to his presidential inauguration in 1961. Maya Angelou was nearly 65 when Bill Clinton followed Kennedy’s example and invited a poet to his inauguration. Democrats now feel impelled to invite a poet to boost their image as aesthetes, something no Republican president has bothered to do. 

    Gorman demonstrated her personal self-belief and her commercial acumen by getting a spot at the Super Bowl. She did it in the way any celebrity would do. Jack Coyle, in an article for Associated Press, explains: “Shortly after the inauguration, she signed with IMG Models, an agency that represents supermodels, tennis star Naomi Osaka and playwright Jeremy O. Harris. This week, she covers Time Magazine, in an interview conducted by Michelle Obama.” As a young practitioner of letters, Gorman may have noticed that the initials of “poetry reading” are PR. 

    *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Amanda Gorman at Biden's inauguration reminded me: politics needs poetry

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      Obama-endorsed and wearing gold-clipped braids and Oprah-gifted earrings, 22-year old poet Amanada Gorman and her poem The Hill We Climb have been the talking point of Biden’s inauguration. Her five-minute poem, which started with the question “When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?”, explored grief, redemption and recovery, and wowed the world. Imperfect but fervent, it reminded us of something important: politics needs poetry.Gorman, born in 1998 in Los Angeles and raised by a mother who works as a teacher, graduated from Harvard university in 2020. She was the first US national youth poet laureate and its youngest ever inaugural poet. Owing to a speech impediment, she couldn’t pronounce the letter R until two years ago. She has described spoken word as “my own type of pathology”. Praise has overflowed for the young poet and many have celebrated her passion, beauty and poise in this historic moment that closes the door on Trump. “I honor you, @TheAmandaGorman. Thank you,” wrote the daughter of Dr Martin Luther King Junior, Bernice King on Twitter.The clips circulating on the internet of Gorman, glowing and optimistic, stand in utter contrast to scenes of Trump supporters storming the Capitol, grotesque and desperate. She wrote the remainder of the piece after the events of 6 January , staying up late to watch the storming the Capitol. The line: “We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it” speaks directly to the attempted derailment of democracy.On Instagram, Gorman describes herself as a dreamer, and the line: “Our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful” shows her faith – a young woman dreaming aloud before millions of people in the form of spoken word. The moment has gone viral. Spoken word is a craft and a powerful art form, from the cadence to the delivery, to the subtle choreography. The moment, as internationally syndicated as it was, belongs to America. I don’t necessarily desire to see a version of it reproduced should Keir Starmer ever be elected prime minister (nor for the poet to find inspiration in Winston Churchill speeches).American politics’ relationship to poetry has a deep legacy in its fight for justice. In 1861, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a poet and lecturer, wrote To the Union Savers of Cleveland, a poem about Sara Lucy Bagby, a woman who had escaped enslavement and was arrested and returned to her “owner” under the Fugitive Slave Act. Harper published the poem in abolitionist newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle, and addressed it fervently to the white people of Ohio, writing “And your guilty, sin-cursed Union/ Shall be shaken to its base/ Till ye learn that simple justice/ Is the right of every race.” Poetry has long been the platform for opposing the current condition. As Matt Sandler writes in The Black Romantic Revolution: “Harper and her contemporaries borrowed and transformed the techniques and theories of Romanticism in an effort to bring about the end of slavery.”Poets are vendors of aspiration and are always fashioning together depictions of a better tomorrow, but it’s fair to ask if they are ever truly listened to in political spaces.Maya Angelou read her poem On the Pulse of Morning in 1993, at the inauguration of Bill Clinton. She says: “Lift up your hearts/ Each new hour holds new chances/ For a new beginning./ Do not be wedded forever/ To fear, yoked eternally/ To brutishness./ The horizon leans forward,/ Offering you space to place new steps of change.” Clinton would later go on to instigate the war on drugs and enact the 1994 Crime Bill that would destroy many lives and accelerate the incarceration of African Americans.I have wished many times to see more poets in positions of power, though writing poetry hasn’t made presidents any less barbaric or kinder – as one might think a writer of similes would be. Obama published poems at 19 in a literary review, published in 1982 by Occidental College. Jimmy Carter was the first US president to write a book of poetry, Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems, in 1995. Neither of these men has clean hands.For now, it’s paramount that young poets be given the space, funding and opportunities to be the voices of their communities. They are often spokespeople for those who look and live like them. Don’t wait until a black poet is on the world stage to be inspired by them – often they are not invited, and often they don’t want to endorse state activities by engaging in such ceremonies.Those poems, performed on neighbourhood stages, sitting in anthologies and self-published books, showcased at slams and open mics, have the answers too. There are many young poets like Gorman, who have glistening ideas for tomorrow and deserve to be recognised and propelled into superstardom, or at least just read. Buy their books too.Gorman was an alumnus of empowering youth projects such as Youth Speaks and Urban Word. If you fell in love with Gorman’s inaugural poem, support your local equivalent too. More

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      in Elections

      How Amanda Gorman became the voice of a new American era

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      On Wednesday in Washington DC, a striking young woman stood at a podium on the steps of the US Capitol, surrounded by the country’s leaders, who were masked against the pandemic. She was unmasked, at a safe distance, so she could speak with resonance and force, spreading her enthusiastic vision without danger. She radiated joy, conviction and purpose as she declaimed the poem she had written to mark the inauguration of Joe Biden as 46th president of the US: The Hill We Climb. Tears sprang from the eyes of many listeners, those weary and wary from four years of domestic discord, whether they sat on folding chairs at the Capitol, or on easy chairs in their homes. Hearing her words, they felt hope for the future.That woman’s name is Amanda Gorman. She is America’s first national youth poet laureate and, at 22, she also is the youngest poet accorded the honour of delivering the presidential inaugural poem. But despite her youth, Gorman’s assurance and bearing made her seem to stand outside time. Erect as a statue, her skin gleaming as if burnished, her hair cornrowed, banded with gold and drawn tightly back into a red satin Prada headband, worn high like a tiara, she evoked what poet Kae Tempest calls the “Brand New Ancients”: the divinity that walks among us in the present day. According to Greek mythology, nine muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, inspire creative endeavour, with five devoted to different kinds of poetry – epic, romantic, lyric, comic or pastoral and sacred. Gorman suggested a new poetic muse – one to inspire the poetry of democracy.Gorman told the New York Times that she had not wanted to dwell on the rancour, racism and division of America’s four years under the Trump administration: she wanted to “use my words to envision a way in which our country can still come together and can still heal”. That way would require action, her poem declares: “We lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another, we seek harm to none and harmony for all.”Gorman knows the importance of taking action to make the change you want to see. Raised in Los Angeles by a single mother, Joan Wicks, a middle-school English teacher, Gorman overcame daunting obstacles to forge her path. Amanda and her twin sister Gabrielle, an activist and filmmaker, were born prematurely. In kindergarten, the future poet was diagnosed with an auditory disorder that gave her a speech impediment. When she was in third grade, a teacher introduced her to poetry, and it was through writing and reciting poetry that she found her voice. She found a role model in the poet Maya Angelou, whose autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings reminded her of her own life, she remarked in one interview: “[Angelou] overcame years of not speaking up for herself, all for the love of poetry.”Gorman has presidential plans. ‘I am working on hashtags,’ she told the Harvard Gazette. ‘Save the 2036 date on your iPhone calendar’As Gorman struggled to improve her spoken fluency, she also strove for social justice. For her, it was clear from the start that expression was to be both poetic and political. In 2014, at the age of 16, she founded a non-profit organisation to support poetry workshops and youth advocacy leadership skills, called One Pen One Page. The following year, she published her first poetry book, The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough, and went to Harvard to study sociology. (She graduated in 2020.) Her clarity of expression received a turbo boost from musical theatre while she was in college, with the arrival of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton, whose lyrics she memorised and recited (the song Aaron Burr, Sir helped her pronounce her “R”s, she has said).In the spring of her sophomore year in 2017, she was named America’s first national youth poet laureate, an honour that took her and her poetry to public events across the country. At one of these, held at the Library of Congress, Dr Jill Biden heard her read a poem she had written in the wake of the white supremacist “Unite the Right” march in Charlottesville, titled In This Place (An American Lyric). Three years later, Biden, as first lady-elect, suggested the young poet for the inaugural honour.In the first week of January, Gorman was halfway through writing The Hill We Climb when a mob of angry Trump supporters invaded the US Capitol in an attempt to violently overturn the election result. She finished the poem in the hours after the melee, undeterred, with that jarring tumult as backdrop.On inauguration day, Gorman wore a ring depicting a caged bird, a gift from Oprah Winfrey that attests to the link the young poet represents between the past and the future. It not only summoned thoughts of the poet’s first inspiration, Angelou; it reminded anyone looking for portents that Angelou, as the US poet laureate, had also recited a poem to a new president on the Capitol steps: Bill Clinton, in 1993. One day, Gorman may be the audience, not the author, of such a poem: she has presidential plans. “I am working on hashtags,” she told the Harvard Gazette. “Save the 2036 date on your iPhone calendar.” The last lines of The Hill We Climb, containing an intended echo of Miranda’s Hamilton, constitute a poetic battle cry: “We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover in every known nook of our nation in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful, when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, for there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”Her words not only electrified Washington, they have prompted a surge of admiration in the public at large. That same day, her two forthcoming books were Amazon’s top two bestsellers. Instagram feeds flash continuously with images of her triumphal stand at the Capitol; op-eds across the country have called for poetry education programmes in schools, and television news broadcast highlights of her performance hour after hour – lyric adrenaline bursts to reanimate democracy.Gorman has appeared on many of these news programmes. On one, Good Morning America on ABC, Miranda made a surprise appearance to congratulate her. “The right words in the right order can change the world; and you proved that yesterday,” he told her. “Keep changing the world, one word at a time.”As if anyone could stop her. As she writes in her forthcoming book, Change Sings:
      I can hear change hummingIn its loudest, proudest song.I don’t fear change coming,And so I sing along. More

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      in US Politics

      Hope and inspiration at Joe Biden inauguration | Letters

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      In years to come, we may recall Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony by reading again Amanda Gorman’s words, delivered to a spellbound inauguration assembly (Biden offers a message of resilience in America’s ‘winter of peril’, 20 January). The authority of her poem comes from the clarity of its imagery and the uncompromising challenge of its rhetoric.
      What it says ensures that, to relief at the end of America’s political nightmare and goodwill towards the two principals in the drama that unfolded, must now be added the assertion that we can “raise this wounded world into a wondrous one”.Frank PaiceNorwich
      • Amid the analysis of Joe Biden’s inauguration speech, it is worth noting that he referred to the evil of racism twice, specifically mentioning “systemic racism”. At a time when the UK’s Conservative government is determined to pretend systemic racism doesn’t exist, this is refreshing.
      But is any Labour politician willing to show a similar awareness of how racism operates in Great Britain? Will Keir Starmer step up to the mark and challenge the government’s denial and strongly condemn the systemic racism that blights the lives of too many people in this country? I worry that the Labour leadership’s fear of a “culture wars” backlash has already induced a reluctance to speak out for these fundamental values.Geoff SkinnerKensal Green, London
      • Perhaps Donald Trump could take solace in the fact that the crowd at his inauguration was definitely bigger than that at President Biden’s. Size matters to him after all.Joan FurtadoWhitworth, Lancashire More

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      in Elections

      The Hill We Climb: the Amanda Gorman poem that stole the inauguration show

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      When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly succeeded.But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith, we trust,for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the golden hills of the west. We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked south. We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country, our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it. More