Author Topic: Amanda Gorman--Holy shit  (Read 2406 times)

PonoBill

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Amanda Gorman--Holy shit
« on: January 22, 2021, 07:48:58 PM »
If Biden picks his cabinet members like he picks his poet Laureate, the world will be a much better place. holy shit. this lady... This is a prayer I could go to sleep with. This is a skinny black girl I'd be happy to have as whatever she chooses to be. What it takes to form words into music like this happens once a generation if we are lucky.



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’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,

"Okay, she could have stopped right there and everyone in the world that loves a great poem would have leapt to their feet. But she goes on, and tears our hearts from our chests. "


and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.

"Boom."


We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.

We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.

Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.

Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.

It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.

Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
This effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith, we trust,
for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.

This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,
but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.

We will rise from the golden hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east 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.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country,
our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.


holy shit, that's amazing. She's incandescent. We are so fortunate.

This poem will be studied. This poem will birth a million more. I've read it twenty times tonight and it just gets more amazing. I hope we can live up to it.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2021, 08:15:55 PM by PonoBill »
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surfcowboy

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Re: Amanda Gorman--Holy shit
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2021, 08:24:36 PM »
I invite all to leave your politics at the door and as an American, let this pass through your head a few times.

Simply beautiful.

daswusup

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Re: Amanda Gorman--Holy shit
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2021, 06:26:59 AM »
The prose is amazing but the delivery floored me. It almost had a Hamiltonesque suttle rap thing. How about those hand gestures? I was stoked that I caught it live. Gave me chills. All of the performances were really good. I felt a sense of hope and restoration after this inauguration. The last one, which I could only bare 5 minutes of left me feeling scared and alone. That feeling stuck with me for 4 years.

PonoBill

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Re: Amanda Gorman--Holy shit
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2021, 08:24:44 AM »
I don't read a lot of poetry, but I love striking poetic images in music. It's what makes me such a big Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan fan. I got the same feeling from this and watching her perform it made it more special.

But ultimately, reading it makes it powerful, especially as I chopped it into my own weird cadence of pieces.

I like to write, I work at it, I have no idea how someone does this, any more than I understand how Dylan came up with...

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow

Or how Bruce wrote

Someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull
Cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull
At night, I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train runnin' through the middle of my head
Only you cool my desire
Ooh, I'm on fire


Those lyrics are permanently engraved in my head. Nothing that I've ever written remains there. How and why that happens is a mystery to me.
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Wetstuff

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Re: Amanda Gorman--Holy shit
« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2021, 09:45:22 AM »
Sadly, those aggrieved geezers I listen to on right-wing radio in Delaware on the way home at night will never hear or see her.  They do not dare allow someone like her to pollute their cesspools with prospects of a future universal good.  They prefer to call in and say things like; "I'd like to shoot Biden" (the station does not seem to have a 7-second delay button?) and spout all sorts of fanciful conspiracy nonsense. Biden has a home nearby ('One of 6 his mansions' is a mantra) so they are particularly upset.

Jim
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SUPJorge

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Re: Amanda Gorman--Holy shit
« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2021, 06:11:03 AM »
Ms. Gorman was, is, spectacular, an example of the very best this country has to offer. May we be deserving of her hopefulness.
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