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Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

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Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#51

Post by jxramos »

x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #11
mcguire wrote: post #5

"*And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect." Um,...?

Why are you confused? "We're not perfect, but we're not trying to be perfect."

It's close, not trying to be perfect and not striving to be perfect, I'd think the former is a foregone conclusion of unattainable goal. However the later seems appropriate more as an attitude towards work. Kind of subtle "to try to be something" this sort of carries notes of fabrication and possibly hubris? Alternatively, "to strive to be something" carries a degree of humility of knowing you may not attain it, but recognizing it's the process of convergence that matters not the ultimate end state. I may be reading too much into this but those are the thoughts that cone to mind.

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#52

Post by UncleOxidant »

dash2 wrote: post #43
UncleOxidant wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not that you're "right". It's that your techbro-ism is showing. Not a good look.

I'm not sure what techbro-ism means. I don't work in tech. Do you mean that as a man, I ought not to criticize a black woman's poetry? I don't accept that.

The phrase "on the spectrum" comes to mind.

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#53

Post by dash2 »

alistoriv wrote: post #41
dash2 wrote: post #29

Look, no offence, but this is a terrible poem. It's verbose: > We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. It doesn't make sense. (You can't be the successor of a country, you even more can't be the successor of the present instant happening right now.) It's content-free…

You're right. Reading this text without having heard it, it reads like a speech. The only thing that gives it the poetry sheen is the same tired slam poetry delivery that you can't escape now.

I never saw the delivery and it may have been awesome. (There were a couple of good lines that I can imagine sounding great - "It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit./It’s the past we step into and how we repair it." Punchy, to the point, and a nice, surprising rhyme.)

Speech can change things. I once heard a brilliant reading of someone's translations of Mickiewicz (Poland's national poet). I bought the book and it was disappointing how the stuff didn't stand up on the page. Really good work - at least in poetry - should be able to cope with being read as well as being listened to.

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#54

Post by eachro »

dash2 wrote: post #29

Look, no offence, but this is a terrible poem. It's verbose: > We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. It doesn't make sense. (You can't be the successor of a country, you even more can't be the successor of the present instant happening right now.) It's content-free…

What I find fascinating is how people so often have this impulse to tear down things that others hold in high regard. Impulse might even be an understatement - it's almost a need. I wonder why that is.

Ex:

- "vim sucks! why don't people use emacs instead?"

- "katy perry's music sucks!"

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Many liked it. Many did not - yourself included. That's okay. Art does not evoke the same response from everyone and we should not expect it to.

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#55

Post by antiterra »

dash2 wrote: post #29

Look, no offence, but this is a terrible poem. It's verbose: > We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. It doesn't make sense. (You can't be the successor of a country, you even more can't be the successor of the present instant happening right now.) It's content-free…

Your claim about successor fails, because, even ignoring the variance of meaning of the word successor, ‘of a country’ can simply be the implication that you are part of that country.

The union being forged with purpose seems more about there being a purpose instilled in the union and also ‘purpose’ as the raw material being forged.

The part you call cliché is perhaps not that deep, but fits within the expected patriotic idealism the poem invokes. It’s also good sonically.

The ‘cheap effect’ is just more concentrated youthful idealism, of the sort encoded in our founding documents and pledges.

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#56

Post by dash2 »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #45
dash2 wrote: post #29

Look, no offence, but this is a terrible poem. It's verbose: > We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. It doesn't make sense. (You can't be the successor of a country, you even more can't be the successor of the present instant happening right now.) It's content-free…

Paul Beatty's essay was actually about his inability to appreciate Maya Angelou, and subsequently his inability to appreciate Black literature the way it's been framed in the white educational system. "My journey to black literary insobriety isn't so different from how I came to appreciate free jazz after growing up in a house that contained two records, the soundtrack to "Enter the Dragon" and "Rufus Featuring Chaka…

Maybe so (I can't access the NYT article right now) but here's a quote from elsewhere:

“I made it through the first couple of pages or so before a strong sense of doom overwhelmed me and I began to get very suspicious. I ventured another paragraph, growing ever-more oppressed with each maudlin passage. My lips thickened … For a black child like myself who was impoverished every other week while waiting for his mother’s bimonthly paydays, giving me a copy of that book was the educational equivalent of giving the prairie Indians blankets laced with smallpox or putting saltpeter in a sailor’s soup.”

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#57

Post by williamaadams »

dash2 wrote: post #29

Look, no offence, but this is a terrible poem. It's verbose: > We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. It doesn't make sense. (You can't be the successor of a country, you even more can't be the successor of the present instant happening right now.) It's content-free…

And yet, without any analysis, anyone I've talked to was moved by the poem, and thought it was the best part of the inauguration. I think the moment, the black young girl standing at the pulpit of power, the collective relief, the joy of seeing a female (black/asian) as VP, culminated in an emotional uplifting, which the words did not capture at 100%. It had meaning in the context of 4 years of trump, of 400 years of oppression, of a summer of outcry for justice. Reading later will leave you flat I think. I thought it was perfect for the moment.

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#58

Post by TeaDrunk »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #52
dash2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what techbro-ism means. I don't work in tech. Do you mean that as a man, I ought not to criticize a black woman's poetry? I don't accept that.

The phrase "on the spectrum" comes to mind.

It's inappropriate to make a pass at autism as the reason why the person may be responding in a manner one disagrees with towards a piece of art. For one thing, autistic poets and authors exist and can exist successfully, often with their neurodiversity actively enriching their art.

(Especially given the poet in question has a disability herself, I am criticizing the assuming a disability as a way to to criticize someone's response to art.)

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#59

Post by war1025 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #50
war1025 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heart Emoji The left spent four years focusing on the absolute worst aspects of a man, and refusing to give him credit for the several things he accomplished that were actually worthwhile. That's a recipe for an unhealthy relationship, and it's also something you only get better at with practice. I think they did more psychological harm to themselves over it than he ever could have.

Someone sounds a little snow-flakey. What's wrong did someone possibly criticize your dear leader? Wouldn't want that now, would we?

> What's wrong did someone possibly criticize your dear leader? Wouldn't want that now, would we?

Objectively Trump is not a good person. That doesn't mean he wasn't a useful blunt instrument.

Many people on the right gave him far more credit than he deserved. But a lot of that was reaction to nearly everyone on the left spewing nothing but hate about him his entire term.

He's done and gone and won't be coming back.

The thing the left should actually be worried about is what happens when the next person comes along that also has the right song and dance to get elected, but once there actually knows how to govern?

Re: Amanda Gorman's “The Hill We Climb” (Full Text)

#60

Post by WorldMaker »

avmich wrote: post #30
jakeva wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I understood it

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I think that it is intentional to underscore that "more perfect" != "perfect". The founders that wrote that document did not believe the Constitution was perfect, they knew it a part of process towards perfect, while it might imply perfect is an end goal it also doesn't necessarily say that.
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