The inauguration: a high-flying day to remember
Our neighbor Barb had a bunch of people over this morning to watch the inauguration ceremonies, and the mood was festive: Coffee and bubbly for breakfast will do that. But it wasn’t just the refreshment. There was relief, and anticipation, and — OK, yes — hope. A sense that, as another neighbor, Karen, put it, “now we can have our flag back.” And indeed, she and her husband Ted had hung theirs on their front porch. Inspired, my wife followed suit. Beats all those years we’ve had the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag folded in the bedroom drawer.
What struck me most during this long but compelling (and by the looks of it, very cold) morning was that the power of language has reasserted itself at the center of our national conversation. Like Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. and his model, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama speaks with a plain but lofty straightforwardness. He assumes a certain level of intelligence on the part of his listeners, an ability to follow an argument. He was gracious in victory, which might be a tougher task than being gracious in defeat. He talked down to no one, but encouraged everyone to look up. When he spoke to a particular constituency it was not, as is usual with politicians, with an air of pandering or cynical duplicity but with a measure of inclusiveness and respect. And he melded, as no other politician I can think of since John F. Kennedy, the descriptive and inspirational aspects of language: a vision, yes, but also a caution that realizing a vision requires hard work. Obama’s pie is not in the sky. It’s grounded, practical, sustaining. And if it’s his recipe, it takes a lot of cooks.
I have no illusion that miracles will be worked. Barack Obama waves no wands, and he will make mistakes — probably a lot of them. He is only, it seems prudent to remind some of his more fervid followers, human. But he represents in so many ways the best of what being human means. And by loving and respecting language — by being able to articulate both his own goals and his vision of what our vast and intermingled culture can and ought to be — he helps all of us articulate our own roles in the body politic.
I’ve long believed that Abraham Lincoln is one of the tiny handful of genuine literary geniuses the United States has produced. In the beginning was the word, and it created reality. Oratorically, Obama is is no Lincoln, at least not yet: For clarity and conciseness and passion tethered to intelligence, nothing can match the Gettysburg Address. But clearly, from a literary point of view, Obama is in the Lincoln grain. He has the gifts to be, in the Lincolnian sense, a citizen artist. And it’s been a long time since the White House has seen the likes of that.
So, let the flag fly. Maybe this time, we can look at it as a promise and not a provocation.
January 20th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
How well you’ve said this Bob, no surprise to me. It’s clear that Obama loves the English language and he knows and uses it well, its cadences, its rhythms, a music I found lacking in Alexander’s poem I’m afraid.
I think we can look at the flag as a promise. And now let the work begin.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:32 am
Nicely put Bob. It’s remarkable that so many people gathered on the Mall for this historic occasion, but also that other across the country, like you and your friends, gathered together on a Tuesday morning to watch and celebrate in special ways. I also agree that having a President who is eloquent and facile in using and appreciating language is refreshing and important. I’ll quibble with MUW’s assessment of Alexander’s poem. If I say it was a “workmanlike” poem, I mean that in a positive sense. Its simplicity and directness struck me as an appropriate tone in honoring the common people who have struggled and continue to struggle to build this country. It wasn’t lofty and grand, but rolled up its sleeves.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:04 am
Quibble away, mtc–I read the poem in today’s Oregonian and I think the problem was with the delivery, because there is cadence in the poem after all, just as there is in other simple, direct poetry, like Carl Sandburg’s. Certainly it was appropriate to the day and to our time. I wasn’t looking for lofty and grand, just a little music, so to speak.
Equally remarkable: there was not one single arrest on the mall yesterday, though I wouldn’t have minded if Cheney had been led away in cuffs!
January 21st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I thought the poem was beautiful and strong. And while I appreciated her careful enunciation, I did not like her delivery. That “poetry voice” that so many adopt can be distracting.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:27 pm
This is an interesting conversation about the poem. We had the same split at our house; I said I kind of liked the poem but not the delivery. Would have to read it again to be sure, of course, but I liked its plainspokenness and attention to little things, which seemed apt for a peoples’ moment. As an aside, I didn’t envy her a bit, in terms of performance anxiety, having to follow immediately after Obama. That’s a bit like getting up to recite Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” at a school assembly right after the class has watched Derek Jacobi perform “Lear.”
January 21st, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Now there’s an apt comparison Bob. Though if I were going to make an actor-Shakespearean comparison, I think I’d say it would be a lot like following Laurence Olivier whipping up the troops for Agincourt.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Ah! An improvement! I approve, Martha!
January 21st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
My judgment about the reading was shaded, no doubt, by the glowing aura of hope and uplift that suffused the setting. But I also liked the way the poet took a deep breath and collected her thoughts before launching in. Can you imagine looking out at such a sea of humanity, feeling the import of the moment and knowing that millions more around the world are waiting to hear what you have created? Wow!
January 21st, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Some critics are giving it a beating around the country (the LA Times, for example). I think it’s hard to write a poem for ALL the people. I may sound like a pre-adolescent boy here (no jokes!), but I think she could have left out the “love stuff”, but otherwise I thought she took a decent stab at it. Nothing I’ll carry to the grave, however (like certain “roses are red, violets are blue poems)…
January 21st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Barry’s right–a Portland poet of my acquaintance pointed out to me yesterday that it’s a hell of an assignment in the first place, and look what happened to Robert Frost! I suppose this poem fails my test, though–I can’t remember a single line from it, oh yes I can, the one about sewing a patch on a uniform, and that’s a paraphrase!
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:20 am
I hate to even think of the pressure Alexander must have been under. How tough to be commissioned to come up with a wow poem and read it to, oh, several million people, instead of letting the natural muse of lightning strike and then quietly let the words sit in a computer and ferment.
But I have to say I want more music in her verse. I want the poem to be lifted in song, and though it has some lovely parts to it, those same parts end in clunky ways. Take this excerpt:
“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.”
It starts to get someplace meaningful — “raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce” — but it doesn’t take off. The end — “they would then keep clean and work inside of” — just hits a sour note to me, right when I want it to soar. It’s not the only one. “The figuring it out at kitchen tables” sounds flat and awkward to me.
I like how the poem is about people talking, on the verge of talking, making something of sentences to come together and communicate and maybe, if we’re lucky, sing together. All this while people go about their daily business. The poem sweeps history, anchors in the today and looks to move ahead. It’s a noble arc that’s nicely grounded.
I want some of the language, though, to reach a little higher. “Love that casts a widening pool of light” sounds a bit cliched and makes me cringe. Ground the words, fine. But the grounding carries more weight when it’s contrasted with some loftier tones.
I know it’s a plain-spoken poem for the common people. That’s not a bad thing. I just wish it weren’t so ordinary.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:42 am
Laura hit the nail on the head, and “glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of struck me as incredibly self-consciously “simple” and deliberately ungrammatical because the poem is for “the people.” That’s just a tad on the patronizing side.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:08 pm
It just struck me that we got a dozen comments on this, and they were all about something I didn’t even write about in the original post — the Alexander poem! Ain’t the Internet grand?
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Oh dear, and I’m afraid I started it! But Bob, you were talking about language in your post, were you not?
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Yes, I was. And I’m delighted by the course of the conversation!
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
Congratulations for reaching a comment thread count of 15 (and rising) on a topic that wasn’t even the foundation of the original post! At the risk of being nominated to lead the Elizabeth Alexander “Praise Song” Fan Club, I keep finding lines in it that I appreciate the more I think about them. Yesterday it was this one:
“We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, words to consider, reconsider.”
In recent days Portlanders have been encountering each other in words mostly spiny and declaimed. Each side of the debate over the Mayor’s fate seems confident of its rightness and chary of, if not outraged by its opposite’s presumed motives. Pausing to consider and reconsider the merits of an occasional poem has been a refreshing alternative free of invective.
In that light, I will, after reconsideration, concede Laura’s point that “Love that casts a widening pool of light,” is a clunky cliche. Moreover, the addition of “and the lettuce” after “picked the cotton” strikes me as an intentional stab at inclusiveness — like making sure that the musicians chosen to play the John Williams were broadly representative of ethnic and cultural diversity. I will keep defending “The figuring it out at the kitchen table,” as a simple but precise evocation of what everyday people are doing to survive job loss and mounting bills these days.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 am
The figuring out at the kitchen table bugged me far more than picking lettuces because it was a direct echo of campaign rhetoric. Picked the cotton, picked the lettuce gave the poem some music. How long do you think we can, or should keep this going?!
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:04 am
Oh, of course there is no way I can let this rest now, and I have a bus to catch.
MTC, I concede to you that you found my very favorite line in the whole poem. If the rest of it had been that way I would be swooning.
Just yesterday, my husband (who shall be nameless), said, completely unrelated to Alexander’s poem though we’d just been discussing it, that he didn’t understand the phrase “limp with excitement.” He didn’t understand how anyone could be that way. I told him he was considering it from a rigidly male perspective, as it were. Limp with excitement? That’s what swooning is for.
I do like aspects of Alexander’s poem, but on the whole I’m disappointed. I like the grounded aspects. I would like them more if they included some unexpected twists. To me, that’s what would elevate it to magic.
I did like, however, unlike a lot of people, her delivery. She was strong, clear and assured. I think people expect dramatic readings for poetry. Some poetry works well that way. The Victorian curlicue variety comes to mind, but plenty of others, too, with fewer curls. If the words are workhorses and the rhythms are right, a simple, straightforward reading that tumbles out naturally can wield raw, beautiful power.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:38 am
No no Laura, I didn’t expect dramatic delivery. There was no rhythm in her delivery, no pulse. And I think it does exist in the poem. No 19th century dramatic readings for this cookie, believe me.
Now your sentence beginning “If the words are workhorses and the rhythms are right…” perfect, poetic when said aloud.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
Resolve weakening, fanaticism flagging .. resistance is futile. I concede MUW’s point that the kitchen table imagery resounds of campaign rhetoric. Or, perhaps what it evokes is a cartoon of Dagwood and Blondie with a stack of bills, an adding machine spewing tape and heads in their hands. Put a pencil behind Dagwood’s ear. Perhaps he’s telling Blondie that her hat allowance has to be cut.
I’ll erect my final redoubt in defense of Alexander’s phrase: “love with no need to pre-empt grievance.” I read it as an antidote to eight years of a “you’re either with us or against us” posture.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Yes indeed “If the words are workhorses and the rhythms are right” pulsates perfectly.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
The real dilemma here? How to tactfully respond from a computer that’s … not at home. I just hope that people around me imagine that my face-plant into my keyboard and my heaving sides are because I … need a fan.
MTC! Quit it! That’s my other favorite part of the poem. I said it had some good parts, yes? LOVE the Dagwood and Blondie bit.