Cloaked in hope: American poet Amanda Gorman reading at the Inauguration of President Joe Biden, January 20, 2021. Photo Copyright © 2021 by Rob Carr/Getty Images.
MORNING, SUNSHINE,
Though you're in the afternoon now there. Pleased to hear the family is well. Staying healthy. You've got each other to help keep fit; I know you all like to hike. How are you doing today? Rainy, grey days are harder for me, too. I'm not sure if maybe I've always been that way or if living in the tropics has made me more partial to warmth and light. I know winter and spring are my two least favourite seasons: the former's too dark, the latter's too wet.
In any case, you asked me how I’ve been managing to keep going during the pandemic, given ongoing lockdowns, including just now in Barbados. I keep going by remembering what I have/want/need to do for Aeryn, for the Madam, for myself, for others in my life and community who are relying on me. I enjoy much of what I do, so that makes moving from day to day easier, whether engaged in laundry, writing, cutting the lawn, editing, cooking/baking, long conversations....
Samuel Johnson once wrote, "Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed." Life is hard, and we do live much of it feeling alone, yet this life and world remain so beautiful to me...when I look at the open sky in whatever season or remember the fulfillment of a rollicking roll in the hay.... I guess my point is I don't view the world as frozen or on pause, nor am I waiting for life to start back. This is it, only one pass, only one shot at who we are here and what we're going through. I'm going to do my best to endure but also to enjoy.
That should be easier for us all with Trump out of the White House. A term in office now feels like a lifetime in politics. What the man didn't count on in the elections was what most Americans mythologically count on: the republic's ability to self-correct based on constitutional rule of law and the willingness of good people to do the right thing when it counts. Trump, a businessman and a very narrow one at that, never understood this and was counting on other American "virtues" or "values" being in his favour.
He lost. Next time, the US may not be so lucky with another of his kind. And the door has always been open to beasts like him. Their democracy/republic is broken. The whole world can see it. Until there is proper agreement on that across the nation—all myths of self and state aside—there can be no road to recovery for all, no healing unity.
I agree, the Democrats expected more tomfoolery from Trump. But could you hear the outrage in their voices at the level of resistance and insurgency they met on the Hill January 6?
These politicians are not really accustomed to violent encounters of this nature based on simply who they are or their views. Privilege and protection would preclude such assaults for a number of them. Many of us are saying, "Welcome to our world," which is, in the end, their world, too. Like I said, they all have to be in this together if their country is to heal.
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Thanks for the Politico article on Trump and the complicity of the Baby Boom Generation in his ascension, sir. It does make you wonder, doesn’t it? A couple points stand out.
Biden had and has, in fact, been doing everything to not continue any argument with Trump. He's doing his best to make Trump irrelevant by not engaging him, or by refusing to give him more of a prominent role in discussion (calling him, for instance, an "embarrassment" during the elections), thereby neutralizing his effect to a certain degree. He knows Trump is still dangerous, but often to the extent that others give him power and a platform through their attention to him.
On the other hand, that line about self-righteous and indulgent behaviour being a “transferable inheritance” is brilliant. Before reading the article, I was inclined to view the blame for our present situation as multigenerational: not limited to Trump’s generation, the Baby Boom Generation. I still am.
There are those of every age, at every level across countries, who, knowingly or ignorantly, have contributed to where we are now in our history. Denying our individual responsibility, large or small, only helps to perpetuate the problems we face globally, whether the issue is Black Lives Matter, the Me Too movement, or a pandemic that still threatens to divide us because of a lack of transparency and trust in government (keenly felt here in Bim). To paraphrase Wendell Berry, how can we understand or overcome our history if we think we are superior to it? That goes for all of us, in every nation. Could be Canada, Germany, the US, the UK, St Lucia, Russia, South Africa….
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This is what Amanda Gorman was getting at—or trying to, you would say—in “The Hill We Climb.”
“She looked fabulous in yellow & I am thrilled for her opportunity & the history she's made & is making.
“I liked that she wrote part of it during/after the storming of the Capitol.
“I appreciated the theme(s) & ideas in it & the capture of the moment in time & the message. The ideals of hope & unity...
“Some good lines but for me, the bulk of it was a speech, an essay & not yet a poem. The ending (the "we will rise" lines to the end) w/its repetition is where the actual poetry puts in an appearance.”
In short, my dear: you were glad for her and America, but disappointed for poetry.
Yes, I acknowledge this style of message-driven expression is the trend right now, especially among young(er) writers and readers—just “waiting for the trend to pass,” you say! Well, every generation must have its own, no? What it thinks is its own. No use gettin tie up over that, others would say.
I thought it tread the line between spoken word and poetry for the page. Her inflections and hand gestures scanned that way. I just couldn't tell if the approach was strictly intentional. I guess I would have preferred her more fully and (un)comfortably, given the occasion, in one particular camp. If you're going to give a spoken word piece, make it slamming, indignant, incendiary. If you're going to give me a poem, make the language pop, enlighten me, arrest my senses. Either way, hit my head with heart and soul. Technically, she was fine and fit the occasion; message-wise, as you say. Maybe the parameters given were narrow. America is on edge....
Further to the above, did you see Kwame Dawes' comments on Amanda's poem? (Hint: it includes the word "sublime.") Or catch her at the Super Bowl?
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I used to think of yellow as the colour of hope. The sun, sunflowers, neutral baby’s clothes. Now Amanda’s coat. It is a good day for poets. Is it a good day for poetry?
The true act of poetry may have been Amanda’s performance: composed, clear-eyed, hopeful, unifying. Any brief given was honoured, elevated. What more could you ask of this young poet? What more could we ask of our own in the Caribbean, except maybe more stories of guidance and hope?
Maybe Amanda’s fellow poets Wayne Miller and Jericho Brown are more right than wrong in feeling “poems change persons,” not “people,” or peoples. But isn’t it still the individual we count on? Because everybody is just too many bodies to think of one time?
In the US, they have yet to properly manage, let alone quell, the pandemic. In Barbados, we’ve tripled our deaths and quadrupled our reported cases in a matter of weeks, after keeping our numbers low and stable for so long. Christmas may have been a little too merry, our borders too loose.
Looking at Aeryn on her tablet or cellphone in “class,” as I sit at the kitchen table doing my work, I can’t help but feel we let down our children this time. Some of the rhetoric from our own politicians, who mean well yet are still having difficulty finding that tone of trust in their COVID-19 messaging, makes me think they, too, need to DeTrump or Bidenize (as my brothers now put it): antagonize less, conciliate more.
Our politicians should remember what Rorschach warns his fellow inmates in Watchmen. And that how you tell a body something is as important as what and why. We’re all learning that all over again during this crisis, that’s for sure….
What will it take to overcome together?
The cashier at one of the supermarkets where we shop put the answer so plainly. She asked me the question that had been leapfrogging from long line to long line over the conveyor belts. When it finally reached us, I tossed it back at her shielded eyes (since I already know where I stand).
“Just for all people to do what they’re supposed to do. That's all. What they know they should do. That’s all. That’s not too much to ask a people,” she said.
“Don’t you think?”
Last Modified: February 19, 2021.
