Over the Hill

I was asked what I thought about Amanda Gorman's inaugural poem. You can read and listen to the poem here. You assh*les know exactly what to send me.😄 All right, here we go. I didn't see the inauguration on Wednesday because...what for? But I do remember this chick after hearing her. She had a commercial out where she did her whole Americana routine. Nobody cared then. What a difference a day and the right stage can make, huh? Let me begin by stating my central thesis: There is a difference between a poem written for the page and one written for the stage. Hers was clearly written to be performed and she performed it very well. It was tailored to the audience who put Joe Biden in office: one that is oblivious to or willfully detached from reality. It was mostly empty rhetoric designed to please rather than challenge, to placate rather than spur people to think critically.

There's a White critic named Dan Schneider who used to rip famous poems and poets to shreds on his website(cosmoetica). He would re-write their famous poems in ways he considered more mindful of enjambment and less rife with clichés. He is White so you have to take any critique of Black writers with a grain of salt. He would probably rip my last line (and many others) for the irony and clichés.😄 The difference is I'm not a poet and never pretended to be one. I just enjoy writing my sh!t. In any case, if he were to critique the actual text of her poem, he would likely have a field day and I can't say he would be wrong.

Many of the criticisms I've heard of her (poem) from Whites pretend to be rooted in a more critical analysis of the work itself or in comparison to dead, White poets. Of course, nothing in the way they articulate their criticism suggests any real understanding of poetry. They're merely rubes with no pubes, childishly trying to express their disdain for her and what she said while pretending not to be the racists they are. They are much less original and authentic in terms of the content of what they say, and how they say it, than they claim her to be.

But this brings us back to my central point. The poem is meant to be recited more than to be read. From that standpoint, she was very effective. In terms of the technical aspects of poetry on the page, it's mediocre, but poetry is also defined by it's ability to evoke an emotional response. So even the Storm Trumpers who hate it for reasons and words they had to look up on the internet only prove how effective a piece of poetry it was.

Good poetry often translates terribly into song and good songs often make terrible written poetry. Spoken word is an attempt to bridge the divide between the two. They[poetry and spoken word] originate from the same creative impulse, but are very different in their execution, how they are often interpreted, and how they should be evaluated. Her performance was top notch, but her understanding of the world around her as conveyed by her poem is bottom barrel. Now she is only 22 or 23. What's your excuse for being moved in any direction by her message?

Now, let's discuss the poet herself. In a way, she reminds me of Phyllis Wheatley, not in terms of talent, but in her desire to belong, to believe that she is actually a true citizen in this country or can become one despite what the entire history of this country should have shown her. Make no mistake about this: she is a budding enemy to Black men and thus Black progress. I know it doesn't seem like it, but that's because she's still in the young Anakin Skywalker phase. Even without Oprah's endorsement or her mentioning her single mother upbringing, I could practically smell the shea butter and see the bell hooks coming through the screen. The difference between her and Darth Vader is Darth Vader was able to redeem himself in the end. I've never seen a Black woman in her position do that. She has set herself up nicely to be embraced by the Academy, get a Ph.D. and professorship somewhere, and become the next generation Van Jones or Symone Sanders or some other bald-headed bootlick. Truly tragic, right? A complete waste of human potential. The real lesson here will be found in the juxtaposition of the person and the poem, not the poem itself. I believe she said she wanted to run for President in 2036. That's plenty of time for her to meet the world as it is, not what she hopes it to be. And the best case scenario for her will be to eventually realize that this past Wednesday was her best day as a poet and her worst day as a (critically-thinking) person.