3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Missing Barack Obama's Presidential Quality, March 15, 2009
This review is from: Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration (Paperback)
In a word: mediocre. Yes, this will disappoint devotees and debutantes, but, away from the politics of it all, the poem was not a strongly written piece. It is with sadness I post this review.
While I love a poem filled with descriptive images, Alexander chose unimaginative cliches to show America. She presented no nuance, no color, nothing that is more than a prosaic poem not fit for a high school talent contest.
She looked for meaning, then scraped it clean of impact and influence before committing her idea to paper.
Who or what is she praising? A day? The definition of praise here is uniformly unpointed, as a day has no power. If the day has power, then it becomes a god, with a kind of omnipotent power.
"A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, 'Take out your pencils. Begin.'" So what? Farmers do that. Teachers do that. She neither tells us something new, nor gives us insight about their action.
Her attempt to summon the spirit of Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman fails with, "Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks..." as her song has no notes.
She suggests, "Some live by 'Love thy neighbor as thy self.'" Is she suggesting others do not want to live by that, living entirely selfishly? That's hardly an Obaminian thought.
"Love that casts a widening pool of light." Love, here, is a living entity, after she tries to explain what love looks like in vague terms.
Praise changes from a thing to an action, clunking on the ground as the listener hums the platonic, monotonous drumbeat, "On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light."
All of Obama's passion was passed in Alexander's poem. It will be quoted because it was read at an inauguration, but for no other reason.
--Brockeim
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Hymn of Hope, February 17, 2009
This review is from: Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration (Paperback)
Here is the poem "Praise Song For The Day" that Elizabeth Alexander read at the Obama inauguration, shorter than either of the prayers offered and briefer and better than "A Rock, A River, A Tree," the poem that Maya Angelou read at Bill Clinton's first inauguration although both poems-- even though Ms. Alexander does not use the word-- are about hope, as is the poem from the second Clinton inauguration, "Of History and Hope," by Miller Williams. It is not unusual that hope is a recurring theme in all these poems since we as U. S. citizens get all fired up every four years, believing that our new president can make a difference. That Ms. Alexander should focus on hope is even more appropriate as Mr. Obama's two mantras during his campaign were hope and change.
The poem begins with a variety of individuals going about their daily business-- working, making music, then progresses quickly to hope: "I know there's something better down the road." Ms. Alexander then gets to the heart of the matter, that we have elected the first African American president:
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.
The poem then moves to a praise song for struggle and finishes with the subject of love. Alexander asks the question: "What if the mightiest word is love?"-- a love that "casts a widening pool of light." The poem concludes with "praise song for walking forward in that light."
When the British poet Stevie Smith was asked by Queen Elizabeth where she got the subjects for her poems, she responded that sometimes ideas and images came to her when she was hoovering. It has always seemed to me that writing a poem for a specific occasion must be much more difficult than getting ideas while you are hoovering or taking out the garbage or feeding the cat. Whether that is true or not in Ms. Alexander's case, she has certainly risen to the occasion here and given the world a memorable poem.
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