The Hill We Climb

24

Comments

  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    Poetry World possibly a different planet.
    And I will readily admit that I’m definitely not an inhabitant of that different planet. I enjoy some poetry, but I wouldn’t call myself someone who appreciates poetry generally.

    That said, to my non-discerning ear, Amanda Gorman and her poem—many lines of which did indeed resonate with me—was the high point of the inauguration. Like @questioning, I found it very reminiscent of preaching in African American churches, which can have a definite sense of poetry or musicality. I think that may be part of the reason Gorman was chosen to read her poetry—that and the connection I imagine Biden feels with her given her history of a speech impediment that @Gramps49 noted.

    I will say her poetry was, to me, a most welcome relief after Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brookes.

    Okay, Lady Gaga wasn’t as bad as I feared, but I didn’t share the feeling that many had of how great it was. (I didn’t like Whitney Houston’s version either, so it may all say as much about me as anything.) I loved the symbolism of J-Lo singing “This Land Is My Land” and “America the Beautiful,” but I didn’t like the arrangements at all.

    As for Garth Brookes and “Amazing Grace”—that apparent calla lily of hymns, deemed by so many suitable to any occasion—just how hard is it to sing “amazing” as one word, without breathing in the middle? (The answer: Not hard at all.) Not that I particularly like the song to start with, but that just drives me nuts.

    Amazing Grace as a hymn always bothers me. The back story of a guy who did great evil and then sings all about himself. So self centered. Also sung far far too often.

    That saved a wretch like thee

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    Poetry World possibly a different planet.
    And I will readily admit that I’m definitely not an inhabitant of that different planet. I enjoy some poetry, but I wouldn’t call myself someone who appreciates poetry generally.

    That said, to my non-discerning ear, Amanda Gorman and her poem—many lines of which did indeed resonate with me—was the high point of the inauguration. Like @questioning, I found it very reminiscent of preaching in African American churches, which can have a definite sense of poetry or musicality. I think that may be part of the reason Gorman was chosen to read her poetry—that and the connection I imagine Biden feels with her given her history of a speech impediment that @Gramps49 noted.

    I will say her poetry was, to me, a most welcome relief after Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brookes.

    Okay, Lady Gaga wasn’t as bad as I feared, but I didn’t share the feeling that many had of how great it was. (I didn’t like Whitney Houston’s version either, so it may all say as much about me as anything.) I loved the symbolism of J-Lo singing “This Land Is My Land” and “America the Beautiful,” but I didn’t like the arrangements at all.

    As for Garth Brookes and “Amazing Grace”—that apparent calla lily of hymns, deemed by so many suitable to any occasion—just how hard is it to sing “amazing” as one word, without breathing in the middle? (The answer: Not hard at all.) Not that I particularly like the song to start with, but that just drives me nuts.

    Amazing Grace as a hymn always bothers me. The back story of a guy who did great evil and then sings all about himself. So self centered. Also sung far far too often.

    That saved a wretch like thee

    me.

    Bit of a backstory on John Newton. He was a slave trader but in 1748 he was involved in a severe storm off Ireland which caused him to beg for mercy. However, he continued slaving until 1754 or 55, when he began studying Christian Theology. He later became an abolitionist.

    He wrote Amazing Grace as an illustration to a New Years day sermon in 1773, so in some ways, his poem is much like Ms Gorman's poem.

    Whenever I sing Amazing Grace, I am reminded of the conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus where he was about to do terrible things to the nascent Christian Church and also the time when Martin Luther was in a violent storm as he was going to university to become a lawyer.



  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Of the genre, I give you a former Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Robert Menzies', immortalisation of a couplet from a minor English poet, Thomas Ford, in adoration of the young Queen Elizabeth II's gracious visit to the antipodes:

    "I did but see her passing by,
    And yet I love her till I die. " (To be spoken with a heavy Oz accent).

    It must be poetry because it rhymes.

    By and large poets laureate write a load of crap to commemorate state occasions, which reflect poorly on their own artistic capacities. I thought Ms Gorman's effort was more than OK, and she was captivating.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Every comparison of the poem to a written one, and every comparison to something you've enjoyed reading, misses the point and function utterly.
  • @Kwesi Actually there is some dispute about the authorship of the words you quote: when Henry Purcell set them to music he attributed them to Robert Herrick.

    The confusion over authorship stems from another setting of the words in an anthology of music compiled by Thomas Ford in his early 20s when he was working as a freelance musician and teacher.
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    Of the genre, I give you a former Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Robert Menzies', immortalisation of a couplet from a minor English poet, Thomas Ford, in adoration of the young Queen Elizabeth II's gracious visit to the antipodes:

    "I did but see her passing by,
    And yet I love her till I die. " (To be spoken with a heavy Oz accent).

    “Heavy Aussie accent” not.

    I recall Bob Menzies well ( offen heard on the wireless) and for a boy from Jeparit ( small town in western Victoria) the accent was on the plummy side. Probably rural twang ironed out during his boarding school days in Melbourne.

    He was a pompous old git; “British to the bootstraps” he boasted.

  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    Poetry World possibly a different planet.
    And I will readily admit that I’m definitely not an inhabitant of that different planet. I enjoy some poetry, but I wouldn’t call myself someone who appreciates poetry generally.

    That said, to my non-discerning ear, Amanda Gorman and her poem—many lines of which did indeed resonate with me—was the high point of the inauguration. Like @questioning, I found it very reminiscent of preaching in African American churches, which can have a definite sense of poetry or musicality. I think that may be part of the reason Gorman was chosen to read her poetry—that and the connection I imagine Biden feels with her given her history of a speech impediment that @Gramps49 noted.

    I will say her poetry was, to me, a most welcome relief after Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brookes.

    Okay, Lady Gaga wasn’t as bad as I feared, but I didn’t share the feeling that many had of how great it was. (I didn’t like Whitney Houston’s version either, so it may all say as much about me as anything.) I loved the symbolism of J-Lo singing “This Land Is My Land” and “America the Beautiful,” but I didn’t like the arrangements at all.

    As for Garth Brookes and “Amazing Grace”—that apparent calla lily of hymns, deemed by so many suitable to any occasion—just how hard is it to sing “amazing” as one word, without breathing in the middle? (The answer: Not hard at all.) Not that I particularly like the song to start with, but that just drives me nuts.

    Amazing Grace as a hymn always bothers me. The back story of a guy who did great evil and then sings all about himself. So self centered. Also sung far far too often.

    That saved a wretch like thee

    me.

    Bit of a backstory on John Newton. He was a slave trader but in 1748 he was involved in a severe storm off Ireland which caused him to beg for mercy. However, he continued slaving until 1754 or 55, when he began studying Christian Theology. He later became an abolitionist.

    He wrote Amazing Grace as an illustration to a New Years day sermon in 1773, so in some ways, his poem is much like Ms Gorman's poem.

    Gorman was a slaver? Gorman had a half-hearted conversion experience? Gorman studied Christian Theology? Gorman preached a sermon and used The Hill as an illustration? You've totally lost me. In what way at all is his poem like hers, other than that it was read out loud to an audience?
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Actually there is some dispute about the authorship of the words you quote: when Henry Purcell set them to music he attributed them to Robert Herrick.
    In Helen Gardner's 1972 Oxford Book of English Verse the poem is attributed to the prolific writer Ann Onimus.

  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Poetry readings shouldn't be performances. They should be readings.

    Why?

    Do you feel the same way about plays? Including the extensive poetry in Shakespeare?

  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    Poetry World possibly a different planet.
    And I will readily admit that I’m definitely not an inhabitant of that different planet. I enjoy some poetry, but I wouldn’t call myself someone who appreciates poetry generally.

    That said, to my non-discerning ear, Amanda Gorman and her poem—many lines of which did indeed resonate with me—was the high point of the inauguration. Like @questioning, I found it very reminiscent of preaching in African American churches, which can have a definite sense of poetry or musicality. I think that may be part of the reason Gorman was chosen to read her poetry—that and the connection I imagine Biden feels with her given her history of a speech impediment that @Gramps49 noted.

    I will say her poetry was, to me, a most welcome relief after Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brookes.

    Okay, Lady Gaga wasn’t as bad as I feared, but I didn’t share the feeling that many had of how great it was. (I didn’t like Whitney Houston’s version either, so it may all say as much about me as anything.) I loved the symbolism of J-Lo singing “This Land Is My Land” and “America the Beautiful,” but I didn’t like the arrangements at all.

    As for Garth Brookes and “Amazing Grace”—that apparent calla lily of hymns, deemed by so many suitable to any occasion—just how hard is it to sing “amazing” as one word, without breathing in the middle? (The answer: Not hard at all.) Not that I particularly like the song to start with, but that just drives me nuts.

    Amazing Grace as a hymn always bothers me. The back story of a guy who did great evil and then sings all about himself. So self centered. Also sung far far too often.

    That saved a wretch like thee

    me.

    Bit of a backstory on John Newton. He was a slave trader but in 1748 he was involved in a severe storm off Ireland which caused him to beg for mercy. However, he continued slaving until 1754 or 55, when he began studying Christian Theology. He later became an abolitionist.

    He wrote Amazing Grace as an illustration to a New Years day sermon in 1773, so in some ways, his poem is much like Ms Gorman's poem.

    Gorman was a slaver? Gorman had a half-hearted conversion experience? Gorman studied Christian Theology? Gorman preached a sermon and used The Hill as an illustration? You've totally lost me. In what way at all is his poem like hers, other than that it was read out loud to an audience?

    I was only comparing the poem of Amazing Grace to the Poem of Amanda Gorman in its potential impact in the future. Amazing Grace has certainly had an impact on the Church. Gorman's poem I believe will long resound in American Culture. Both Newton and Gorman are activists in their own right: he as an abolitionist, she in feminism and civil rights.

    BTW, I think she has said she has taken one or two courses in theology at Harvard; but in any case, she does exemplify a strong religious background
  • Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, perhaps was redeemed, but he harmed many people. I'm reminded of rich people who ruthlessly make their money and later are lauded for "giving back" which continues throughout our age.

    This is a tangent from the poem/speech. Some of the sentiments are similar.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Sojourner: “Heavy Aussie accent” not

    Don't spoil the illusion! I like to imagine it being reverently intoned by a cricket fan at the GABBA holding a can of amber nectar.
    I recall Bob Menzies well............He was a pompous old git.

    I think we can agree on that!
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Poetry readings shouldn't be performances. They should be readings.

    Why?

    Do you feel the same way about plays? Including the extensive poetry in Shakespeare?

    I wouldn't go as far as @ECraigR but if a poem depends on a competent performer in order to be effective, then it's only accessible to people who are able to attend such a performance, whereas if a poem works in its own right just from the arrangement of words on the page, then it's accessible to anyone who can read it in an anthology. Of course you could argue that an inauguration poem is only intended to be effective for the inauguration itself.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    edited January 23
    I think many great poems depend on competent performance to work - even if that performance only takes place in the reader’s head. I offer John Donne’s ‘Batter my heart’ as but one example.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    MaryLouise wrote: »
    it signalled something different in place.
    For me, this nails the inauguration as a whole and the poem, and choice of poet, in particular. The world is a better place when it has more talented, non-white, female 22-year-olds on podiums.

    The line that caught my ear, however, was from the benediction by Rev Dr Sylvester Beaman: "we will seek restoration beyond correction".

  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    edited January 23
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Sojourner: “Heavy Aussie accent” not

    Don't spoil the illusion! I like to imagine it being reverently intoned by a cricket fan at the GABBA holding a can of amber nectar.
    I recall Bob Menzies well............He was a pompous old git.

    The Gabba?????!!!!

    Mate don’t kid me.

    The cricket ground at Wooloongabba ( Brisbane; not a town I know well despite son-out-law being a native) is not the place you’d hear such stuff.

    I might add that XXXX (fourex the local brew) is one step up from cat piss.

    Tidied up quoting code. BroJames, Purgatory Host
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    edited January 23
    Ricardus wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Poetry readings shouldn't be performances. They should be readings.

    Why?

    Do you feel the same way about plays? Including the extensive poetry in Shakespeare?

    I wouldn't go as far as @ECraigR but if a poem depends on a competent performer in order to be effective, then it's only accessible to people who are able to attend such a performance, whereas if a poem works in its own right just from the arrangement of words on the page, then it's accessible to anyone who can read it in an anthology. Of course you could argue that an inauguration poem is only intended to be effective for the inauguration itself.

    Well, yes, that's exactly what I'd argue.

    I think it's fundamentally flawed to judge a work of art by things it's not even trying to do - in this case to be effective on the page. It's not only this example. I frequently witness it in music, where people seem to expect every genre of music to have the same goals, and even make that mistake with different albums from the same performer.

    The goal of this poem was to be effective as spoken by its author. To the extent that accessibility is a question, well, this was a broadcast available to basically the entire country, with the video still readily available to much of the world. You talk about attendance, and yet we all knew, and the author knew, hardly anyone was going to be attending in person. She knew, we all knew, the event was being broadcast.

    To assess how the poem reads on the page is to judge it by a criterion it wasn't designed to fulfil in the first place. To talk as if there is one set goal of all poetry makes no sense to me, any more than to talk as if there is one set goal of all music or all cinema. An art form doesn't have a single fixed function in that way.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    @ECraigR said -
    I'm not saying Gorman is a bad poet, and I'm not saying that occasional poetry has to be phenomenal. I'd just like to see the one time the poetry world is brought to the national consciousness be used in a way that focuses on the poetry and not the poet, or the poet's performance.

    That seems to me like saying you prefer reading the lyrics to hearing the song.

    I love to listen to poetry, it’s as much about the performance as the words for me. Reading it and analysing it is for critics, but not for me.

    For me her poem and her performance were perfect for the occasion.
  • tclunetclune Shipmate
    Boogie wrote: »
    @ECraigR said -
    I'm not saying Gorman is a bad poet, and I'm not saying that occasional poetry has to be phenomenal. I'd just like to see the one time the poetry world is brought to the national consciousness be used in a way that focuses on the poetry and not the poet, or the poet's performance.

    That seems to me like saying you prefer reading the lyrics to hearing the song.

    I love to listen to poetry, it’s as much about the performance as the words for me.

    For me, that depends on the poem and the poet. I love to hear Dylan Thomas reading his poetry, but some poets just don't have the chops to read their stuff aloud. I also love to read some poetry aloud -- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Paradise Lost come readily to mind among great poetry, as does just about anything from Robert Service among lesser works. Some of my fondest memories are of my mother reading story poems to me at bedtime when I was a child.
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    orfeo wrote: »
    Ricardus wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Poetry readings shouldn't be performances. They should be readings.

    Why?

    Do you feel the same way about plays? Including the extensive poetry in Shakespeare?

    I wouldn't go as far as @ECraigR but if a poem depends on a competent performer in order to be effective, then it's only accessible to people who are able to attend such a performance, whereas if a poem works in its own right just from the arrangement of words on the page, then it's accessible to anyone who can read it in an anthology. Of course you could argue that an inauguration poem is only intended to be effective for the inauguration itself.

    Well, yes, that's exactly what I'd argue.

    I think it's fundamentally flawed to judge a work of art by things it's not even trying to do - in this case to be effective on the page. It's not only this example. I frequently witness it in music, where people seem to expect every genre of music to have the same goals, and even make that mistake with different albums from the same performer.

    The goal of this poem was to be effective as spoken by its author. To the extent that accessibility is a question, well, this was a broadcast available to basically the entire country, with the video still readily available to much of the world. You talk about attendance, and yet we all knew, and the author knew, hardly anyone was going to be attending in person. She knew, we all knew, the event was being broadcast.

    To assess how the poem reads on the page is to judge it by a criterion it wasn't designed to fulfil in the first place. To talk as if there is one set goal of all poetry makes no sense to me, any more than to talk as if there is one set goal of all music or all cinema. An art form doesn't have a single fixed function in that way.

    How do you know that the poem was meant to only be performed? I first came across, and read, the poem when it was put out through the Academy of American Poets a day or two before the inauguration.

    My primary complaint against the poem is that I do not believe it is effective as poetry divorced from the reading, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that such a bifurcation was desired by the author. PennSound has a whole archive of poets giving readings, reading a poem that’s successful on the page successfully to an audience. My initial gripe against the poem is that of all the people who spoke to me about the poem, no one commented on the poem itself but only on the poet and her performing of the poem.
    Boogie wrote: »
    @ECraigR said -
    I'm not saying Gorman is a bad poet, and I'm not saying that occasional poetry has to be phenomenal. I'd just like to see the one time the poetry world is brought to the national consciousness be used in a way that focuses on the poetry and not the poet, or the poet's performance.

    That seems to me like saying you prefer reading the lyrics to hearing the song.

    I love to listen to poetry, it’s as much about the performance as the words for me. Reading it and analysing it is for critics, but not for me.

    For me her poem and her performance were perfect for the occasion.

    I’m explicitly not saying this because music with lyrics is designed with the music and lyrics to work together, and in most instances neither work well divorced from each other.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    ECraigR wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Ricardus wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Poetry readings shouldn't be performances. They should be readings.

    Why?

    Do you feel the same way about plays? Including the extensive poetry in Shakespeare?

    I wouldn't go as far as @ECraigR but if a poem depends on a competent performer in order to be effective, then it's only accessible to people who are able to attend such a performance, whereas if a poem works in its own right just from the arrangement of words on the page, then it's accessible to anyone who can read it in an anthology. Of course you could argue that an inauguration poem is only intended to be effective for the inauguration itself.

    Well, yes, that's exactly what I'd argue.

    I think it's fundamentally flawed to judge a work of art by things it's not even trying to do - in this case to be effective on the page. It's not only this example. I frequently witness it in music, where people seem to expect every genre of music to have the same goals, and even make that mistake with different albums from the same performer.

    The goal of this poem was to be effective as spoken by its author. To the extent that accessibility is a question, well, this was a broadcast available to basically the entire country, with the video still readily available to much of the world. You talk about attendance, and yet we all knew, and the author knew, hardly anyone was going to be attending in person. She knew, we all knew, the event was being broadcast.

    To assess how the poem reads on the page is to judge it by a criterion it wasn't designed to fulfil in the first place. To talk as if there is one set goal of all poetry makes no sense to me, any more than to talk as if there is one set goal of all music or all cinema. An art form doesn't have a single fixed function in that way.

    How do you know that the poem was meant to only be performed? I first came across, and read, the poem when it was put out through the Academy of American Poets a day or two before the inauguration.

    My primary complaint against the poem is that I do not believe it is effective as poetry divorced from the reading, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that such a bifurcation was desired by the author. PennSound has a whole archive of poets giving readings, reading a poem that’s successful on the page successfully to an audience. My initial gripe against the poem is that of all the people who spoke to me about the poem, no one commented on the poem itself but only on the poet and her performing of the poem.
    Boogie wrote: »
    @ECraigR said -
    I'm not saying Gorman is a bad poet, and I'm not saying that occasional poetry has to be phenomenal. I'd just like to see the one time the poetry world is brought to the national consciousness be used in a way that focuses on the poetry and not the poet, or the poet's performance.

    That seems to me like saying you prefer reading the lyrics to hearing the song.

    I love to listen to poetry, it’s as much about the performance as the words for me. Reading it and analysing it is for critics, but not for me.

    For me her poem and her performance were perfect for the occasion.

    I’m explicitly not saying this because music with lyrics is designed with the music and lyrics to work together, and in most instances neither work well divorced from each other.

    And with performance poets, the words and the delivery go hand in glove too. Its meant to be seen and heard, not just read.
  • Wesley JWesley J Shipmate
    edited January 23
    Watching her perform in 2017 might give an insight into how she works. (7 minutes, but worth it.) - I find this helpful. I like her.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    ECraigR wrote: »
    I don't believe a poem like the one Gorman gave us was great for the occasion because America needs more right now than just pretty generalizations and stock cliches.
    It certainly does, but not at all times and in all places. Marvell's Horatian Ode may be the greatest political poem in the language, but a modern version of the Horatian Ode would have been inappropriate for the occasion.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited January 23
    I don't expect a recited poem at an inauguration to give "what America needs right now". That's not the purpose of such a performance, and it strikes me odd bordering on absurd to demand such.

    I'd say the purpose of this particular poem at this particular time (since you ask) is to make us feel good or at least hopeful about America again, after 4 years of cringing and being the laughingstock of the world. Make America Hope Again.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    "Elaborate" and "admit of its existence" are not coterminous.
    It would be impossible to adequately summarise Lewis' views on stock responses (which evolved) without giving too much space to what would be a tangent.

  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    Dafyd wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    I don't believe a poem like the one Gorman gave us was great for the occasion because America needs more right now than just pretty generalizations and stock cliches.
    It certainly does, but not at all times and in all places. Marvell's Horatian Ode may be the greatest political poem in the language, but a modern version of the Horatian Ode would have been inappropriate for the occasion.

    And I wasn’t saying in all times and all places; I was specifically saying this one time and one place.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    MaryLouise:. Not John Winthrop's shining 'city on a hill' in the Massachusetts Bay colony of 1630, but the hill we have to climb here and now.

    I can't help but reflect that the hill which challenges politicians is the one that frustrated Sisyphos. As Kipling at the height of Empire felt forced to admit:

    Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
    Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

    Perhaps we might have asked from a poet for more than the Democrat version of Make America Great Again.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    edited January 24
    What makes a poem fit for an auspicious public occasion? Is that poem different in form and content from the poem printed on a page and intended to be read in private by a solitary poetry-loving individual?

    And following on from that, would oral performance poetry last as long as the printed poem or lose its relevance within weeks or years? Or as soon as someone thrilled by the performance sits down with the printed words on a page and thinks, 'Meh'?

    I was thinking last night about one of the earliest English poets, Cædmon, who cared for the livestock at the abbey and would listen to poets declaiming epic poetry or ballads each night. Cædmon couldn't sing or compose poetry, so he would slip away back to the byre.

    In a dream, a spirit or angel told him to sing of 'the beginning of created things' and he made up a poem while dreaming. On awakening, he wrote down the dream and added a few lines, revised a bit. He went off and sang/recited his verse to the abbess and was made a monk, acknowledged as a true poet who could join the poets and minstrels at nightly feasts.

    The poem Cædmon wrote down, however, was never for him as good as the perfect dream song inspired by the angel. The written dream was inferior to the poem he had originally conceived and sung in his sleep. What had been sung in response to a divine prompting had been for God's ears alone and no conscious human effort to sing for and heard by humans could match the original dream. We might say that this was the first meta-poem, the 'poem' unable to transcend human occasion and show what the celebratory feast (or inauguration) should mean rather than its shortcomings.

  • Another Occasion Poem? Jackie Kay's 'Fare Well' to 2020 for the Edinburgh Hogmanay Drone Light videos. Said over the videos it worked very well. I would say it still packs a punch as a stand alone poem. Whether it'll make it to the textbook anthologies, time will tell.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    I think performance poems will last as long technically as their recorded versions if they have been recorded.
    I see them as being analogous to pop music, rather than classical music. though in both what is good will last, what is poor will fade.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    ECraigR wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Ricardus wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Poetry readings shouldn't be performances. They should be readings.

    Why?

    Do you feel the same way about plays? Including the extensive poetry in Shakespeare?

    I wouldn't go as far as @ECraigR but if a poem depends on a competent performer in order to be effective, then it's only accessible to people who are able to attend such a performance, whereas if a poem works in its own right just from the arrangement of words on the page, then it's accessible to anyone who can read it in an anthology. Of course you could argue that an inauguration poem is only intended to be effective for the inauguration itself.

    Well, yes, that's exactly what I'd argue.

    I think it's fundamentally flawed to judge a work of art by things it's not even trying to do - in this case to be effective on the page. It's not only this example. I frequently witness it in music, where people seem to expect every genre of music to have the same goals, and even make that mistake with different albums from the same performer.

    The goal of this poem was to be effective as spoken by its author. To the extent that accessibility is a question, well, this was a broadcast available to basically the entire country, with the video still readily available to much of the world. You talk about attendance, and yet we all knew, and the author knew, hardly anyone was going to be attending in person. She knew, we all knew, the event was being broadcast.

    To assess how the poem reads on the page is to judge it by a criterion it wasn't designed to fulfil in the first place. To talk as if there is one set goal of all poetry makes no sense to me, any more than to talk as if there is one set goal of all music or all cinema. An art form doesn't have a single fixed function in that way.

    How do you know that the poem was meant to only be performed? I first came across, and read, the poem when it was put out through the Academy of American Poets a day or two before the inauguration.

    I didn't use the word 'only'. But are you seriously trying to argue that the primary purpose of a poem written after Gorman was asked to perform at the inauguration, and actually performed at the inauguration, was not to be performed at the inauguration?

    There is a complete air of unreality in trying to question this, as you seem to be doing. Okay, so it was put out a day or two before. Where a bunch of people like yourself got a preview. But please don't try to turn that into the main event.

    Meanwhile, millions (and I do really mean millions) of people encountered this poem as a result of it being performed at the inauguration.

  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Alan29 wrote: »
    I think performance poems will last as long technically as their recorded versions if they have been recorded.
    I see them as being analogous to pop music, rather than classical music. though in both what is good will last, what is poor will fade.

    For most people, classical music was not designed for sitting down and reading a score any more than pop music is. It's simply a form that developed when writing was the way you could transport music around. The written score was how musicians got told what to play, not how an audience got to enjoy the music.
  • But, but, surely, Mozart is better than Bob Dylan. NB., sarcasm.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    Alan29 wrote: »
    I think performance poems will last as long technically as their recorded versions if they have been recorded.
    I see them as being analogous to pop music, rather than classical music. though in both what is good will last, what is poor will fade.

    For most people, classical music was not designed for sitting down and reading a score any more than pop music is. It's simply a form that developed when writing was the way you could transport music around. The written score was how musicians got told what to play, not how an audience got to enjoy the music.

    Indeed. The score is not the music. Its the instructions for performing the music.
    In classical music the instructions are very detailed almost down to how each individual note should be played. The typical pop score leaves much more to the musicians discretion - very often the song-writers and the performers are the same people so only an outline score is needed.
    I'm sure the poem in question would look very different on the page if it also contained the sort of performing instructions that were in evidence at the inauguration. Like a score, the bald text is just the starting point.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited January 24
    In classical music the piece is entirely independent of the performers: even if a particular orchestra or performer commissions something from a composer it's the composer who puts their name on it.

    In pop, songs are much more closely connected with the first performer, and if a single is released with that particular performance. So even though, for example, I Can't Get You Out of my Head wasn't written for Kylie Minogue song, it's still a Kylie song, and any future performances by other singers will be considered covers.

    Is that the distinction people were trying to get at?
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Perhaps we should not confuse works of art with the categories into which critics seek to place them. Failure to fulfil the criteria into which a particular expression has been placed is probably a criticism of the classificatory system rather than the work itself.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Firenze wrote: »
    Poetry World possibly a different planet.
    And I will readily admit that I’m definitely not an inhabitant of that different planet. I enjoy some poetry, but I wouldn’t call myself someone who appreciates poetry generally.

    That said, to my non-discerning ear, Amanda Gorman and her poem—many lines of which did indeed resonate with me—was the high point of the inauguration. Like @questioning, I found it very reminiscent of preaching in African American churches, which can have a definite sense of poetry or musicality. I think that may be part of the reason Gorman was chosen to read her poetry—that and the connection I imagine Biden feels with her given her history of a speech impediment that @Gramps49 noted.

    I will say her poetry was, to me, a most welcome relief after Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez and Garth Brookes.

    Okay, Lady Gaga wasn’t as bad as I feared, but I didn’t share the feeling that many had of how great it was. (I didn’t like Whitney Houston’s version either, so it may all say as much about me as anything.) I loved the symbolism of J-Lo singing “This Land Is My Land” and “America the Beautiful,” but I didn’t like the arrangements at all.

    As for Garth Brookes and “Amazing Grace”—that apparent calla lily of hymns, deemed by so many suitable to any occasion—just how hard is it to sing “amazing” as one word, without breathing in the middle? (The answer: Not hard at all.) Not that I particularly like the song to start with, but that just drives me nuts.

    Amazing Grace as a hymn always bothers me. The back story of a guy who did great evil and then sings all about himself. So self centered. Also sung far far too often.

    That saved a wretch like thee

    me.

    Bit of a backstory on John Newton. He was a slave trader but in 1748 he was involved in a severe storm off Ireland which caused him to beg for mercy. However, he continued slaving until 1754 or 55, when he began studying Christian Theology. He later became an abolitionist.

    He wrote Amazing Grace as an illustration to a New Years day sermon in 1773, so in some ways, his poem is much like Ms Gorman's poem.

    Gorman was a slaver? Gorman had a half-hearted conversion experience? Gorman studied Christian Theology? Gorman preached a sermon and used The Hill as an illustration? You've totally lost me. In what way at all is his poem like hers, other than that it was read out loud to an audience?

    The half-hearted John Newton: 'In 1788, 34 years after he had retired from the slave trade, Newton broke a long silence on the subject with the publication of a forceful pamphlet Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade, in which he described the horrific conditions of the slave ships during the Middle Passage. He apologised for "a confession, which ... comes too late ... It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders." He had copies sent to every MP, and the pamphlet sold so well that it swiftly required reprinting.

    Newton became an ally of William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the African slave trade. He lived to see the British passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which enacted this event.

    Newton came to believe that during the first five of his nine years as a slave trader he had not been a Christian in the full sense of the term. In 1763 he wrote: "I was greatly deficient in many respects ... I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards." ' wiki

    We can only hope that Republican politicians become so half-hearted. And many of us.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Amazing Grace as a hymn always bothers me. The back story of a guy who did great evil and then sings all about himself. So self centered. Also sung far far too often.
    So @NOprophet_NØprofit you don't accept, respect or acknowledge the concept or possibility of repentance?

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    The inauguration of a new US president is not a religious ceremony. It's a civic ceremony in a country with no established religion where lots of people are not Christians. As such, it should not begin and end with prayer, and there should be no hymn. A hymn about Christian salvation has no place in an inauguration.

    If they're going to have hymns, they should at least stick with hymns that are about the country. "Amazing Grace" was really inappropriate.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    I noticed that when she was reciting places in the country and implying heritage and origin, all she mentioned about the South was how hot it was, although the 'baked earth' (I forget the exact words) could have implied earth depleted by cotton.
    While I think that could indeed have been a reference, at least in part, to enslaved people toiling in the heat—sun-baked earth and sun-baked people—I’m not sure that the fact it’s “all” she mentioned about the South has significance. That section of the poem was:
    We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
    We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
    We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
    We will rise from the sun-baked South.
    The only region that got anything more than a description of “golden hills,” “lake-rimmed cities” or “sun-baked” was “the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.”

  • edited January 24
    Enoch wrote: »
    Amazing Grace as a hymn always bothers me. The back story of a guy who did great evil and then sings all about himself. So self centered. Also sung far far too often.
    So @NOprophet_NØprofit you don't accept, respect or acknowledge the concept or possibility of repentance?

    Depends. Many people, after a lifetime of harming others, review their lives and feel guilty. Others do kind things and don't make a sack money from the suffering and foreseeable deaths of others, their whole lives. There's a difference. Newton would have been responsible for probably hundreds of deaths as 40% "loss" on ships wasn't unusual (more economic to have them die). And he would have been responsible for destroying hundreds, probably thousands, of others' lives. -- I'm also not interested in apologetic Nazis. And make no mistake, slavers were were just like them. We prosecute Nazis, apologetic or not.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    The inauguration of a new US president is not a religious ceremony. It's a civic ceremony in a country with no established religion where lots of people are not Christians. As such, it should not begin and end with prayer, and there should be no hymn. A hymn about Christian salvation has no place in an inauguration.

    If they're going to have hymns, they should at least stick with hymns that are about the country. "Amazing Grace" was really inappropriate.

    Yes, I was surprised at the long prayers in the middle, but Biden is a Catholic, I guess. I couldn't figure Amazing Grace being there.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    There are always prayers.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Ruth wrote: »
    The inauguration of a new US president is not a religious ceremony. It's a civic ceremony in a country with no established religion where lots of people are not Christians. As such, it should not begin and end with prayer, and there should be no hymn. A hymn about Christian salvation has no place in an inauguration.

    If they're going to have hymns, they should at least stick with hymns that are about the country. "Amazing Grace" was really inappropriate.

    Yes, I was surprised at the long prayers in the middle, but Biden is a Catholic, I guess. I couldn't figure Amazing Grace being there.

    I went to see Judy Collins perform once in my hometown(Edmonton), and she ended the performance with an a capella singing of Amazing Grace. There was nothing else religious about the show, and I didn't interpret the inclusion of that hymn as an attempt to christianize the event. To me, it was just sort of a typical bit of folk/Americana(*).

    Of course, an inaugaration is political, so there was likely a dog-whistle element to Biden's use of the song. But really, how different is that from Harris announcing that she's being sworn in on Thurgood Marshall's Bible? Sure, it honours Marshall, but it also lets everyone know that she places stock in the Bible. (A book which is not actually required for a swearing-in.)

    (*) Yes, I know the hymn is British, but I can't imagine I'm the only one who associates it with the sturdy protestantism of the American Heartland.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    There are always prayers.

    Oh in England, there are prayers if the queen farts, but youse is secular.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    edited January 24
    Ruth wrote: »
    The inauguration of a new US president is not a religious ceremony. It's a civic ceremony in a country with no established religion where lots of people are not Christians. As such, it should not begin and end with prayer, and there should be no hymn. A hymn about Christian salvation has no place in an inauguration.

    If they're going to have hymns, they should at least stick with hymns that are about the country. "Amazing Grace" was really inappropriate.
    It's a non religous ceremony where people take an oath with their hand on The Bible and keep mentioning God, ending with " God bless the United States of America"

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Ruth wrote: »
    There are always prayers.

    I saw a Qanon post observing that the inauguration sounded considerably more Christian than the Trump team.

    The US version of a secular state is so far removed from the French one as to be incomprehensible to us.
  • Telford wrote: »
    Ruth wrote: »
    The inauguration of a new US president is not a religious ceremony. It's a civic ceremony in a country with no established religion where lots of people are not Christians. As such, it should not begin and end with prayer, and there should be no hymn. A hymn about Christian salvation has no place in an inauguration.

    If they're going to have hymns, they should at least stick with hymns that are about the country. "Amazing Grace" was really inappropriate.
    It's a non religous ceremony where people take an oath with their hand on The Bible and keep mentioning God, ending with " God bless the United States of America"
    Neither the Bible nor the ending “so help me God” are required by law. They are accretions of tradition, not requirement. For better or for worse, and often it is for worse, there’s lots of civil religion that has become interlaced into these things.

    Meanwhile, “The Hill We Climb” was mentioned and quoted in this morning’s sermon (on the lectionary reading from Jonah) at our place. It was the opening that was quoted:
    When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
    The loss we carry.
    A sea we must wade.
    We braved the belly of the beast.
    We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
    And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
    I wonder how many other sermons it showed up in.

  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    orfeo wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Ricardus wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    Poetry readings shouldn't be performances. They should be readings.

    Why?

    Do you feel the same way about plays? Including the extensive poetry in Shakespeare?

    I wouldn't go as far as @ECraigR but if a poem depends on a competent performer in order to be effective, then it's only accessible to people who are able to attend such a performance, whereas if a poem works in its own right just from the arrangement of words on the page, then it's accessible to anyone who can read it in an anthology. Of course you could argue that an inauguration poem is only intended to be effective for the inauguration itself.

    Well, yes, that's exactly what I'd argue.

    I think it's fundamentally flawed to judge a work of art by things it's not even trying to do - in this case to be effective on the page. It's not only this example. I frequently witness it in music, where people seem to expect every genre of music to have the same goals, and even make that mistake with different albums from the same performer.

    The goal of this poem was to be effective as spoken by its author. To the extent that accessibility is a question, well, this was a broadcast available to basically the entire country, with the video still readily available to much of the world. You talk about attendance, and yet we all knew, and the author knew, hardly anyone was going to be attending in person. She knew, we all knew, the event was being broadcast.

    To assess how the poem reads on the page is to judge it by a criterion it wasn't designed to fulfil in the first place. To talk as if there is one set goal of all poetry makes no sense to me, any more than to talk as if there is one set goal of all music or all cinema. An art form doesn't have a single fixed function in that way.

    How do you know that the poem was meant to only be performed? I first came across, and read, the poem when it was put out through the Academy of American Poets a day or two before the inauguration.

    I didn't use the word 'only'. But are you seriously trying to argue that the primary purpose of a poem written after Gorman was asked to perform at the inauguration, and actually performed at the inauguration, was not to be performed at the inauguration?

    There is a complete air of unreality in trying to question this, as you seem to be doing. Okay, so it was put out a day or two before. Where a bunch of people like yourself got a preview. But please don't try to turn that into the main event.

    Meanwhile, millions (and I do really mean millions) of people encountered this poem as a result of it being performed at the inauguration.

    It seems to be impossible to read what I’m saying charitably, but that’s fine. I’m not going to quibble over what words were used.

    It is not unreality, it is disagreement.
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Ruth wrote: »
    The inauguration of a new US president is not a religious ceremony. It's a civic ceremony in a country with no established religion where lots of people are not Christians. As such, it should not begin and end with prayer, and there should be no hymn. A hymn about Christian salvation has no place in an inauguration.

    If they're going to have hymns, they should at least stick with hymns that are about the country. "Amazing Grace" was really inappropriate.
    It's a non religous ceremony where people take an oath with their hand on The Bible and keep mentioning God, ending with " God bless the United States of America"
    Neither the Bible nor the ending “so help me God” are required by law. They are accretions of tradition, not requirement. For better or for worse, and often it is for worse, there’s lots of civil religion that has become interlaced into these things.

    Meanwhile, “The Hill We Climb” was mentioned and quoted in this morning’s sermon (on the lectionary reading from Jonah) at our place. It was the opening that was quoted:
    When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
    The loss we carry.
    A sea we must wade.
    We braved the belly of the beast.
    We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
    And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
    I wonder how many other sermons it showed up in.

    None I heard.
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