Obama’s Inauguration Day poem
Elizabeth Alexander, the inaugural poet, will be continuing a grand tradition when her verse is declaimed today, says Boyd Tonkin
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
CJ Gunther
Chosen one: the Harlem-born poet Elizabeth Alexander
It must rank as the grandest poetry gig on earth, with a potential audience of billions. It may also terrify the lucky – or unlucky – author into terminal blandness or toe-curling bombast. In spite of her window of worldwide exposure, few fellow-poets will envy the task that faces Elizabeth Alexander today in front of the Capitol in Washington, DC, after musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma and singers such as Aretha Franklin have done their turns.
Alexander, now 46 and a professor at Yale University, was born in Harlem but grew up in Washington. Teaching at the University of Chicago in the early 1990s, she befriended a young colleague who, last month, invited her to perform at his big party: Barack Obama
Obama’s Inauguration Day poem – White House, News – The Independent.
CQ Transcript: Elizabeth Alexander’s Inaugural Poem
CQ Transcriptswire
SPEAKER: ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, POET
[*] ALEXANDER: Praise song for the day.
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
ALEXANDER: A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone 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.
Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.
END
.ETX
Jan 20, 2009 12:45 ET .EOF
Source: CQ Transcriptions
© 2009, Congressional Quarterly Inc., All Rights Reserved
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Tags: barack obama, History, inauguration, poetry, Politics, Social History, united states
