by Elizabeth Alexander
A Poem for Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
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 pre-empt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp
praise song for walking forward in that light.
Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Alexander, Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota
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I love that President Obama chose to include poetry in the Inaugural Festivities. (Poets have only been included four times in our history.) As Minneapolis poet Tim Nolan says in this Star Tribune article, "A poem is one soul speaking to another soul, and that's very moving in a public setting….It provides something that nothing else can really accomplish with the same efficiency and directness."
(Be sure to read entire three pages of this thoughtful article on the importance and nature of poetry. I love what poet Todd Boss says in this article: " 'We the people' commission poets all the time to speak for us, to illuminate the present, to give words to our accruing history…In a perfect world, there'd be a poem commissioned for every occasion, not just the most momentous. Think what a world we'd live in if poets were asked, for example, to respond to every report by the National Academy of Sciences, or every World Bank summit."
I also learned in that Star Tribune article that Barack Obama is a poet, too. As an undergrad at Occidental College he published two poems in the literary journal there. See this New York Times article for poems; while the New Yorker weighs in on their merit here.)
You can find more on Elizabeth Alexander and the writing of the inaugural poem here (The Guardian), here (Time Magazine) and here (NPR story).
Alexander's website includes several poems and audio selections, including Alexander in a Poetry Off the Shelf interview on Obamapoetics.
Shannon Jackson Arnold
Also, check out this UK Times video link to Nobel Prize-winner Derek Walcott reading a poem he wrote for Barak Obama — "Forty Acres."
Shannon Jackson Arnold
I updated the poem to reflect the actual line breaks. Makes such a difference to read a poem this way (i.e. not just hear it or read it but see it in form, too, with punctuation, line breaks, style). I got a whole new appreciation experiencing this poem in its "proper" form). Thanks to Alicia at Posie Gets Cozy for tipping me off to the link here.
Can't wait for Graywolf Press to publish the chapbook on February 6. For me, this poem capture what I want to remember about the inauguration.