The 2009 Inaugural Poet and Poem

Reading the Inaugural Poem

During the Reading of the Inaugural Poem

(Photo is a TV shot from ABC News.)

Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is a professor at Yale University and was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University this year. She was chosen to write and deliver the inaugural poem, only the fourth poet to have this privilege.

Robert Frost recited his poem, one he had written in the 1940s, The Gift Outright , at the 1961 Inauguration of John F. Kennedy, Maya Angelou wrote and read The Rock Cries Out to Us Today at Bill Clinton’s Inauguration in 1993, and Miller Williams wrote and read Of History and Hope at Clinton’s Second Inauguration in 1997.

This is a transcription of Alexander’s poem, delivered at Barack Obama’s Inauguration, January 20, 2009. The poem will be available in a commemorative chapbook by Graywolf Press on February 6th.

It’s an interesting study to read the four inaugural poems as a collection. (Interesting, too, that two of the poems have the word bramble in them. Bramble? Not your ordinary kind of word, but definitely a poet’s word.)

Praise Song for the Day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

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.”

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 someone 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.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

About Bo Mackison

I'm a photographer, book-artist, traveler, naturalist, and creator of the Contemplative Creatives Journey, An Online Workshop and Community and Desert Wisdom Cards and Workshops. Though often not well known, I find the desert a welcoming place - a healing space. Its mysteries and gifts transformed me several years ago. Since that first encounter, I return again and again to fill my well in what most people think of as a desolate region. I'd love to share my desert discoveries and wisdom with you. Please subscribe to receive my five part mini email course The Gifts of the Desert. It's my gift to you.

Comments

  1. It’s curious to observe which Presidents had poems for their inaugurations (at least since the first one) and which ones have not. The idea to have a poem or not isn’t partisan (at least not yet) inasmuch as Johnson & Carter did not have poems. Reagan had a gift of imagery in his presentations and did not need a poet to give image to his vision (whether you like the vision or not). Johnson, Carter, Nixon and the Bush family – what is in common?

  2. Thanks for posting, I enjoyed reading that as much as I did listening to it yesterday.

  3. Yes, “bramble” is a poet’s word. I noticed it when she said it. I like that word, how it sounds like what it means, and how she followed it with “thorn.”

    I really found her economy of words striking, and I said it on QM’s post about Elizabeth Alexander, that I was amazed how in just a few words she was able to invoke the image of slaves and migrant workers, janitors/cleaners and business people.

  4. jackie chavis says

    She, like Whitman, includes all of us. Her ideas strike of Auden looking at the painting of a momentous event like the fall of Icarus while others go about their daily tasks!
    Brilliant for a commissioned piece.

  5. jackie chavis says

    She, like Whitman, includes all of us. Her ideas strike of Auden looking at the painting of a momentous event like the fall of Icarus while others go about their daily tasks!
    Brilliant for a commissioned piece.

  6. In my reading (which I blogged about), I found that Elizabeth Alexander’s poem paled in comparison to Maya Angelou’s. How did the comparative reading strike you?

  7. I may need to review the other inaugural poems. Do you have a link?

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