As you know, I don’t much hold with poetry, but damn this was some some kickarse word-poeming.
The New York Times has a nice write up of it here.
After four years during which language was debased — when it meant anything at all — Gorman offered a fortifying tablespoon of American plain-spokenness. She offered lucidity and euphony. Her hand motions were expressive, as if she were conducting an orchestra of one.
If her performance made you vaguely feel that you’d had a blood transfusion, it was perhaps because you could sense the beginning of a remade connection in America between cultural and political life. A sleeping limb was tingling back into action.
Such a drastic contrast to the garbled 'communications' of the previous president. I also want to recognise whichever bandmaster who arranged for the military band that was marching outside the White House the day before and had them play "Hit the road Jack...." for Trump's last day in the WH.
Yeah, I'm kind of a knuckle-dragger re: art appreciation as well, but I recognized this as first class as I watched it in real time. Very, very impressive.
"Air Force One started its slow taxi, as the notes of “Tiny Dancer” faded away, and the voice of the real boss began to issue across the vast expanse of concrete. “And now, the end is near…”. Frankie!
"God of every 20th century white man who feels himself to have gone up against the world. “More, much more than this, I did it…”. Someone had planned this last bit to the second. It was far more moving and strange and beautiful than anything at the inaug, pharoah carried to Florida heaven in his sky chariot, the clouds rolling out like one great white golf course.
...
"St Augustine was invoked — “love of the things we share in common” — and a million minds raced to what that might be for Americans. Unlimited soft drink refills. Baconaise. Medical bankruptcy. Shops called “Big Lots”. Lecturing other countries on fair elections. Marshmallow as a salad ingredient.
"We were pulled out of that reverie by… nothing. Joe ended with a call to unity that verged on pleading. Wasn’t a terrible speech, wasn’t anything at all. Set a tone of blah. After that there were invocations, and the day ended on its only punchy note, youf poet Amanda Gorman’s stunning, precise, poem/spoken word/soft rap about whose land this was, and how long it had been coming to them (oh god, JLo singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land”, communist anthem, as a lush lounge piece. I’d forgot that. Says it all…).
That poem was absolutely staggering. Rundle framed his piece around the establishment taking back the reins of power, but Gorman's poem really highlighted that they do so only with the consent (grudging in a lot of cases) of the people themselves.
That poem. Holy shit.
Such a drastic contrast to the garbled 'communications' of the previous president. I also want to recognise whichever bandmaster who arranged for the military band that was marching outside the White House the day before and had them play "Hit the road Jack...." for Trump's last day in the WH.
Yeah, I'm kind of a knuckle-dragger re: art appreciation as well, but I recognized this as first class as I watched it in real time. Very, very impressive.
I'm very glad that YouTube (and the ABC) have given us ways to watch just that bit of the show. Guy Rundle did a lovely summary of the whole thing yesterday, cut with views of Trump's staged departure as though watching on another screen. (https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/01/21/presidential-power-returns-establishment-joe-biden-inauguration/)
Here's a couple of tastes:
"Air Force One started its slow taxi, as the notes of “Tiny Dancer” faded away, and the voice of the real boss began to issue across the vast expanse of concrete. “And now, the end is near…”. Frankie!
"God of every 20th century white man who feels himself to have gone up against the world. “More, much more than this, I did it…”. Someone had planned this last bit to the second. It was far more moving and strange and beautiful than anything at the inaug, pharoah carried to Florida heaven in his sky chariot, the clouds rolling out like one great white golf course.
...
"St Augustine was invoked — “love of the things we share in common” — and a million minds raced to what that might be for Americans. Unlimited soft drink refills. Baconaise. Medical bankruptcy. Shops called “Big Lots”. Lecturing other countries on fair elections. Marshmallow as a salad ingredient.
"We were pulled out of that reverie by… nothing. Joe ended with a call to unity that verged on pleading. Wasn’t a terrible speech, wasn’t anything at all. Set a tone of blah. After that there were invocations, and the day ended on its only punchy note, youf poet Amanda Gorman’s stunning, precise, poem/spoken word/soft rap about whose land this was, and how long it had been coming to them (oh god, JLo singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land”, communist anthem, as a lush lounge piece. I’d forgot that. Says it all…).
That poem was absolutely staggering. Rundle framed his piece around the establishment taking back the reins of power, but Gorman's poem really highlighted that they do so only with the consent (grudging in a lot of cases) of the people themselves.
That was some goddam masterful wordsmithing!