Praise Song for the Day
I have mixed feelings about Elizabeth Alexander’s Inauguration Poem, PRAISE SONG FOR THE DAY. It is better read than heard. That might not be a defect, but it certainly is not a strength.
Some examples:
“Repairing the things in need of repair” scans like a half-line from a limerick. In a serious poem, it’s awful.
There are some good lines (notably excluding “about to speak or speaking”) but there are also these:
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.
The first tercet is a big, vague, poorly organized “so what?” The second is as well, and so random it verges on incoherence. It isn’t even especially good prose. Nor does it scan. “Begin.” just thuds.
I’m not much of a poet,
http://jazzbumpa.tumblr.com/post/71954472/inaugural-poem
but I would be embarrassed by those verses.
The words of the next tercet seem good, both for reading and for hearing. It has vivid imagery and is evocative of our history as nation, but it is also clotted with inelegant multiple redundancies.
All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.
The middle section is stronger. I like the rhythms, the word choices (but not the word repetition,) the images, the specificity of the ideas expressed, the invitation to think on things only hinted at.
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 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.
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.
There are still problems, though. Upon rereading, I find less in it, not more. And, too often, the lack of logical flow makes lines seem just thrown together. After these verses, she loses her way again, sinking into platitudes, redundancy, repetition that looks and feels like padding, and incoherent scansion.
Rule number 1 of the musician’s code is “Always end on a good note,” and Alexander finds the poet’s equivalent with this fine final line:
praise song for walking forward in that light.
All in all, a very uneven effort. Not everyone agrees with my assessment, of course. For a more charitable opinion, follow this link.
http://biancasteele.typepad.com/bianca_steele/2009/01/praise-for-the-day.html
