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lauren’s journal

The Day After...

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In response to @joshua

ug. i have to disagree with you. I will confess that she certainly was not the most inspiring reader on the planet, but the poem is beautiful and appropriate. also, elizabeth alexander is an extremely well known and highly regarded poet, theorist, academic, etc. perhaps it is a surprise to the (white) american public that there was a black poet reading at the inauguration that they had never heard of.


In general

"Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here."

How many people were crying tears of joy? How many tears of pain for the many who died for that day, and I speak not of the men and women in the military, but the men and women who were brought to this country in the bowels of slave ships. who were not counted as entire human beings. who were beaten and murdered for protesting segregation. i am not being dramatic or sentimental but we have to ask ourselves what the tears are really about, and where have they been hiding? electing president obama, swearing him into office does almost nothing in the face of all that history. i kept asking myself yesterday, why... why is this such a "historical moment"? because the whites have opened the door and 'allowed' a black person in? i cried yesterday and i have to ask myself the same question. chances are there will be differing, but deeply connected answers.

i probably shouldn't have started this entry because i don't have the time to finish it properly. lets just say that i watched cnn for five hours and it made me tired. the complexities of this situation are too much for my brain and my heart to handle sometimes.

I forget who, but someone said that racism basically decides who gets to live and who gets to die.

"Say it plain, that many have died for this day."
331 words

💬 6 comments

  1. jason ·

    Not everything is about race, or is appropriate to see through a race colored prism, especially when reading people you don't know that well. I think a poem can be great, or it can be utter shit, regardless of who wrote it or read it.

  2. james ·

    was yesterday not a time to see things through the prism of race?

  3. jason ·

    Not to the extent that if someone doesn't dig her poem questions of racial bias arise. No, I do not agree with that.

  4. metalpeter ·

    I didn't hear the poem since I didn't see the signing in of the new president. I did read the poem here. I don't think a poem should be read at an event like that. I know there are many kinds of poems and some use rimes and sounds. But see poems are made to be read, not spoken like a song. I know some of the hipsters might attack me. But a poetry slam is bullshit. I'm not saying it isn't talent but if you speak it, it is a song or a rap. Now some might say but there is no music. But freestyle (both real and made up on the spot, and fake where the person wrote it or thought before hand and presents it as if they are thinking it) rap doesn't use music. Reading a poem in class or with other people aloud is different then at a big event or a coffee house performance place. I'm not saying I wouldn't go to one of those. Yes I think that maybe those are a good thing and a good way to get kids to get into it and learn. But poetry is to be read to ones self and not alound at a big event like that.

  5. joshua ·

    Rather than accusing you of it, and then responding in vicious form as a result of it, I'll just ask then respond - are you suggesting that I didn't like her poem because she's black?

    Fair enough on your opinion of the poem.

    @lauren I'm a very widely read person - I know who Elizabeth Alexander is. I'm also probably one of the few humans with "outies" that has read Fear of Flying... lol. I wouldn't call her "extremely well known" as a poet but that is just me. I think her selection had more to do with the fact that her brother was a Senior Advisor to the Obama campaign, and his sister happened to be a college professor that had a collection selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 (well deserved honor).

    I see her as well regarded *enough* but certainly not on the level of a Maya Angelou or Robert Frost when they were selected. It is no stretch to say that she's more obscure than her inaugural forebears. I'm not denigrating her by saying this - I think she was a worthy selection although I didn't like the poem. But let's not pretend that she is a mainstream name because that isn't true!

    For me Maya Angelou is an example of an inaugural (black!) poet that almost everybody knows and knew at the time, including most of the evil white people.

    I'd venture to guess that a vast, enormous swath of the 2m at the inauguration had no clue who she was (including many of those in Congress), and it was the most diverse crowd ever at an inauguration. It is hardly a crime that most people had and generally still have no clue who she is - most people don't know any poets whatsoever outside of whatever it is they read in high school.

  6. lauren ·

    sigh. no, @joshua, i am not saying you didn't like the poem because she was black. i am also not suggesting that most people didn't know her because she was black. im not sure i understand your reference to fear of flying either...that was written by erica jong...am i missing something? and i do understand that i live in the academic world where she is extremely well known and that often that world is disconnected from the so called real world.

    oh yes, and...i hate to disagree with you :) but... i do think most things are about race. and gender and sexuality and class and all that shit. this is of course not to say that i was targeting your feelings about the poem as being about race at all...and i was also not intending to sound as though all the black folks in the audience knew who she was because they are black. nor am i saying that all white folks are evil...but thats a whole nother entry.

    @metalpeter i just wanted to say that i think there is something really powerful about reading poetry aloud just as it can powerful to read to yourself. it depends on the poem, the person, etc. she wasn't the best reader, but the poem speaks for itself.

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