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Elizabeth Alexander: "Praise song for the
day"
Responses to Inaugural Poem 2009
"...Then God smiled And the
light broke..."
For me, Elizabeth
Alexander's poem compares to my favorite,
James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation." Alexander's
poem is a "Simple Gift"; eloquent in feeling and tone,
quietly political in its passion and globally
accessible. Her poem is one which will make mischievous
9th grade boys sit up in their seats, listen and maybe
begin to contemplate the meaning of existence. Her poem
complemented the composition "Air and Simple Gifts"
performed by Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero
and Anthony McGill (which I found nearly as moving as
Rev. Joseph Lowery's prayer).
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'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to
be free,
"'Tis the gift to come down where you ought
to be,
"And when we find ourselves in the place
just right,
"'Twill be in the
valley of love and delight."
"Simple
Gifts," written in the mid-1800s by a Shaker
composer and popularized by Aaron Copland in
his 1944 ballet "Appalachian Spring." |
—Jeannette
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Everyone has a
comment on Elizabeth Alexander's poem today. Many have
comments about her "performance" or lack of. I found
everyone comparing her words to Whitman, Frost and
Angelou. However, one name that was not mentioned was
Gil Scott-Heron. First, Alexander's poem should be
connected to the closing lines of Barack Obama's speech.
Can we get a coda here? Obama quotes George Washington—and
it seems like a Valley Forge moment. It's Winter in
America. Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day" echoes
this:
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In today's
sharp sparkle, this winter air,
anything can be made, any sentence begun. |
Now let's bring in
Gil and his deep voice, singing:
And now it's winter
Winter in America
Yes and all of the healers have been killed
Or sent away, yeah
But the people know, the people know
It's winter
Winter in America
And ain't nobody fighting
'Cause nobody knows what to say
Save your soul, Lord knows
From Winter in America
The Constitution
A noble piece of paper
With free society
Struggled but it died in vain
And now Democracy is ragtime on the corner
Hoping for some rain
Look like it's hoping
Hoping for some rain |
We seem to be
trapped in winter right now. It is cold outside.
Alexander's poem is not a blueprint for the future. It
isn't the visionary poem I was thinking she might write.
Others will do this. I found Alexander doing what Obama
did in his address. Alexander stands in front of us as
mother and comforter. An ordinary woman in extraordinary
times? This complements the humility expressed by Obama.
For a moment
Elizabeth Alexander is not a Yale professor: she is a
woman going about her daily work. She hears the music
created by the people. If her words seem more prose than
poetry, it's because she is saying it plain. This is a
praise song in which the words of remembrance do the
heavy lifting. Alexander's poem informs us to celebrate
the moment in its Buddhist and sweet Christian dress.
Incorporated are the basic teachings of all good people:
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy
self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more
than you need. |
If we are to pursue
King's dream then we must continue to believe in the
Beloved Community. Alexander reminds us of this. Yes the
mightiest word is love. It seems to be Divine Love- for
the poet yesterday told us to look beyond marital,
filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of
light.
Maybe here is where Elizabeth Alexander becomes not
Gwendolyn Brooks but Lucille Clifton. As I listened to
Elizabeth recite her poem yesterday - I thought of the
light that had come to my friend at this historical
moment. I thought about how Aretha had the hat but
Alexander had the poem.
And the poem guided us towards the light, and we were
all moving forward—as
one and as Americans.
In the Spring of our beginning—
| Anything can be made, any sentence
begun. |
—Ethelbert
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We cannot really
comment on poems because of the nature of poetry. Either
our hearts and souls receive the heart and soul of the
poet or not or, sometimes, somewhere in between. Words
and events are one and cannot be separated in
poetry. Professor-poet Alexander's expression of
scenes typical of African American communities in
historic collision, complementarily or coherence with
other communities in the inaugural moment features three
themes that touch my heart and soul.
The words between
"Say it plain" and "work inside of" resonated with the
slave labor experiences of several oppressed peoples in
US history. In Washington City, the District of
Columbia, where so many of their ilk worked, died and
still keep insides clean, I felt those events-words
strongly.
The next lines,
between "Praise song" and "hand-lettered sign" reminded
this listener/watcher of King's paragraph about
"creative suffering" in the 28 August 1963 speech
which I heard strongly and enabled me to love hers.
As a Biblical
theologian, her ethical discussion between "Some live"
and the end resonated with my feelings about the kind of
love that feels "no need to preempt grievance" but
enables us to walk "forward in that (love) light."
The poem for
the day manifests a sense of what we call the eternal
present moment now which always we live into every new
beginning, every time we fix what is broken, to hearken
back to her scene-setting lines very much in the spirit
of the inaugural moment. Hers is a most appropriate poem
for this event and I hope lots of school children who
want to create poems will memorize and recite this fine
work of Elizabeth Alexander.
—Ralph
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Wow. You know, I
have been craving a discussion of Alexander's piece.
I couldn't wait to hear what she had to share. What
pressure. Oh, I think I would have cracked. :) Millions
of people all over the world listening. The President of
the United States and our wonderful new First lady
listening. Oh, my gosh.
I took for granted that the inaugural committee has a
poet, I fully expected them to. I didn't realize how
rare it was. I was really happy when I read that it
would be Alexander. I respect her work. I especially
loved that she dealt with Sarah Bartman in her book of
poetry "Venus Hottentot."
So when she got up to read her poem, I demanded silence.
I leaned on every word. We all know what it takes to
compose, but to create because someone asked you to,
well, that's no easy task. I think she worked hard to
make sure that she would be understood. She could have
written something--well, let's just say she could have
written something that would have left many of us saying
"huh, what?" while folks in the ivory tower would have
been going wild with adulation.
I appreciate craft, honesty, colour, music, sweat, a
little samba or pepper or protest in poetry. I don't
think that a well-crafted poem has to be stiff. I don't
think that poets who can work it on stage can't work it
on the page. What am I saying? I appreciate the careful
craft, the labour she put into every word. I have heard
the poem twice and read it three times and thought about
it while walking with my children. I read somewhere that
a person can always go back to a really good poem and
find something there that s/he didn't find the first or
second or third time. I think that is this poem. Each
time I encounter it, I fall deeper and deeper under its
spell.
I have attached the poem and put the lines in bold that
had me doing my Amen corner "mmmph," the first time I
heard the poem.
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. . .each
one of our ancestors on our tongues
. . .
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden
spoons on an oil drum,
. . .
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one 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.
. . .
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at
kitchen tables.
. . . What if the mightiest word is love?
. . .
any thing can be made,
any sentence begun. |
When I viewed
it a second time, the poem started to really come
together for me. Reading it on the page though,
brought it home. I think that hearing the poem again
or reading it reveals the intricacies of it. This
poem might not be peppery, but there is protest in
it. This poem acknowledges struggle, albeit in a
quieter way than I am used to. There is the sweat of
laborers, of the enslaved, of the organizers, the
sweat of mothers and all of us who go about our
business every day. I didn't smell the sweat of the
poem, but I saw tiny beads of dew in its stanzas.
This is a graceful
piece.
And you know what? This is a side note, I guess, but she
could have rocked that poem on stage had she read it
another way. Yes, I am saying it. I believe that the
message of this piece could have come across even
stronger had Alexander let us see the poem sweat, and
evoked that music that someone was trying to make
somewhere, and pointed to the other side. This poem has
the ability to jump off of the page. It wanted to leap
and to live and to leave folks breathless. Or so I
think.
Back to the point. "Praise Song for the Day." Subtle,
powerful, beautiful poem. Ashe. one love,
—ekere
The work
of Ekere Tallie
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Just walk around
the Mall and the Capitol area and you stand on the backs
of thousands of black slaves who built it and try to
allow the emotional impact of all that to penetrate to
the depths of your soul, as I and so many other working
class people have done. Remember my personal history as
the son and grandson of Coal Miners, Glass Workers, and
my work on a Ranch, in a Glass Factory, a Grocery store,
a Hide Cellar, a Meat Packing Plant and in Country and
Rock and Roll bands and my acculturization among
Mexicans, Creek, Cherokee, African
American, Asian contexts and you may begin to
understand.
Maya Angelou's
inaugural poem about rising manifested a bit more
symbolically and dramatically than Elizabeth Alexander's
the same essential movement and feeling.
The interpretation
of poetry in a special and important sense is a meeting
of histories of meanings which may collide, converge or
coalesce as they mean something in a present moment
now.
Alexander's poetry
does not aim at the sort of fire that burns off quickly
leaving little if any residue. Instead, she aims to move
people deeply, in the bowels of our feelings, where
sometimes when the Zeitgeist and moment converge, we are
transformed by poetry and not merely entertained or
amused.
—Ralph
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I was moved more by
the poem than by Obama's speech, as I expect many folks
were, and I think there are good reasons for that. We
were all (at least I was) waiting for the memorable
sentences in his that could be bumper-stickered, and he
wisely denied us that. It was a fine and forceful
speech, but he denied us the one-liner. He was saying, I
won't be that easy; life is more complex than that, and
this event is something transcendent that belongs to all
of us. I won't have it reduced to an aphorism or a
sound-bite.
So the poet steps
in and gives words to the beauty around us and inside
us, with words "spiny or smooth," and evokes the
ordinariness of stitching a hem and making music with a
pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum and "figuring it
out at kitchen tables."
And stops you hard
with that line "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.. and built the
glittering edifices." She doesn't have to say that among
those edifices is the White House.
And then against
that hard, bitter line, the invocation of "love beyond
marital, filial, national, love that casts a widening
pool of light," followed by that extraordinary final
stanza that puts us all in the sharp sparkle of January
cold "on the brink, on the brim, on the cusp," praising
song and "walking forward in that light." That image of
love as a widening pool of light is the gift she leaves
us with. Our own gift.
—David
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I think her poem was a quiet storm
that will be appreciated for years to come.
—slwest
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Praise
song for the day
By Elizabeth Alexander
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.
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.
Inaugural
Poem delivered 20 January 2009, Washington,
DC |
Henry Louis Gates Uncovers ‘Faces of America’
17 February 2010
Talk of
the Nation with Neal Conan in Washington:
Skip Gates was talking about these admixture
tests and what they can tell us about it. Well,
among those he tested in this program is
Elizabeth Alexander. She is best known as a
poet. She's also a professor of African-American
studies at Yale, and in this scene from the
documentary, Professor Gates reveals Elizabeth's
pie chart to her.
Elizabeth
Alexander (Poet; Professor of African-American Studies,
Yale): My pie chart.
Skip Gates:
Your pie chart. You are 66 percent white. . . . So what
would you respond, professor of African-American
studies?
Elizabeth
Alexander: It just gets curiouser and curiouser, but
of course, if all of us were only known by our DNA, then
we'd have a whole different American history.
Neal Conan:
Thinking back to that moment, how did it feel to see
yourself in the form of a pie chart?
Elizabeth
Alexander: Well, one the one hand, it confirmed what
I think a lot of African-Americans know about ourselves,
and I think it would be wonderful if this series catches
the rest of the country up with our fundamental
understanding that there is no such thing as pure, that
most of us have mixed backgrounds and, as Professor
Gates just explained, a lot of that was the result of
coerced sexual activity - nothing romantic about it - a
way of producing property; that it was the laws of this
country that said that if you had one drop of black
blood I'm putting "black blood" in quotation marks then
that made you a black person, as we now call ourselves
African-American person.
So I think that
putting together all of these things that many of us
know and thinking about where does that leave us now,
where does the lived reality, the social reality of life
as we experience it in our families, in the bodies that
we move around in, how do we amalgamate all of these
factors? And so that's a long answer to the very
interesting moment where you see in sort of stark terms
that, you know, you have this percentage and that
percentage, but does it in any way challenge my
understanding of myself as an African-American woman?
Not a bit, but it certainly is interesting. . . .
Neal Conan:
But then the interesting point, the question that he
asks is, of course you can take the white side of your
family back all that way. The black side of your family
what, two, three, four generations, that's all
Elizabeth
Alexander: Well, further than that but not to
Africa, and I think that that's really the point. When
you leave these shores in our histories, when you go
further back in the way that I think is very natural for
human beings to wonder, to want to know where we come
from and what's the lore that we get from those long
lines and what do we inherit and what do we, you know,
configure in different sorts of ways, there's something
very melancholic about the things that we just aren't
ever likely to know about those African strands.
I was interesting
in the juxtaposition on one side of, you know,
landowners and King John of England and all of this, an
inheritance that, of course, once again is interrupted
when black people come into the mix and we come black
people, if you were. But on the other side, with a
document that Professor Gates showed me, papers of
ownership in 1832 for my—I think fourth
great-grandfather—who was a slave, who was owned at the
age of two years old and valued at 40 pounds. So I think
that was perhaps the profoundest moment is looking,
thinking about those two things together and thinking
about how that's ended up with an African-American woman
today.
Skip Gates:
Yeah, it's so difficult to find a slave record with an
actual name, Neal, because slaves were property. And in
Elizabeth's case, we found this incredible document,
Edward, as she said, one of her great- great
grandparents, and Edward Honeywell(ph) and Esther
Power(ph), more immediate ancestors, and it's a boy
named Edward—owned by John Chambers(ph), who was the
owner of the Northampton Penn, or plantation, as we
would say, in Saint Elizabeth Parish, and there he was.
And I think that Elizabeth I believe that this was much
more moving to you than discovering that your 37th
great-grandfather was a guy named Charlemagne, born on
April 2 in the year 742 A.D.
Elizabeth
Alexander: Well, absolutely. It absolutely was.
Because I think also then, when you think about how you
get some there to here, that let me—that slave document
let me think very richly about American history, not
necessarily as a march of inexorable progress toward the
present, but nonetheless as a really fascinating history
where a great deal has evolved and changed. And it
underscored for me the real necessity of understanding
our roots as a way of thinking about this complex
organism that is the United States.— NPR
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Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
posted 22 January
2009
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