Does Conan O’Brien read my blog?

He seems to have reached the same conclusion about Sarah Palin’s writing as I have:

Poetry Review: Sarah Palin’s “Resignation”

So, I should totally be making final preparations for teaching tomorrow, but as it is my lunch break, I just have to take the time to reflect upon Sarah Palin’s latest contribution to the poetic world. Truly, we are witnessing a genius at work here. Branching out from her previous preference for shorter poetic forms such as the haiku and the blank verse poem, Palin, as unconventional as ever, has opted to try her hand at the prose poem. The result? Undeniably her most impacting poem to date.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Literature Review: Inaugural Poem

Since I have been talking about Elizabeth Alexander for awhile now, I thought I might give a review of her inaugural poem, which is as follows:

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 some one 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 thyself,
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.

Courtesy of the New York Times. Link here.

The reviews have been tepid, and I can understand and sympathize why. Considering the momentous gravity of the moment, I don’t know if the underlying simplicity of the poem captured the mood of the day. Its effect did not lie in its oral performance, something that perhaps future inaugural poets should contemplate when composing such a piece. Yet I do believe that, absent the historical weight the work is asked to bear, the poem is quite lovely when read. You can tell that Alexander strove to write a poem which cut through the noise of politics and present to us something that was universally American.

At some points, she fails at this task: her choice of simple occupations and actions — a farmer, someone darning a hole in a uniform — attempts to tap into a kind of Norman Rockwell “Americana.” The problem with these examples is that this kind of America is quickly vanishing, as most farms are now owned by corporate industries, and most seamstress work is conducted through machines and companies. Teachers don’t say “Take out your pencils” much anymore — that phrase harkens back to a different era. It seems as if we have yet to find images and descriptions that accurately capture the America we live in today. It’s hard to imagine putting “someone listens to their ipod on the subway,” and “a child text messages her friend” in a form that sounds poetic. But I welcome anyone up to the challenge.

Where she succeeds is in her assessment of those who came before us to bring us to this day:

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.

It was slaves who built the capitol, who “built / brick by brick the gliterring edifices.” Later, it would be their children hired as janitors who would “then keep clean and work inside of.” And now it’s their children who will live in the White House. Commending those who came before us, the poem sings. Her assertion that we speak to each other in words, “spiny or smooth,” is a vivid image, and her theme of “Praise Song for the Day,” I think, is a noble one. Overall, I think Alexander’s poem reveals itself quite truthfully as embedded in the current state of modern poetry: beautifully crafted, aware of the historic tradition that comes before it, desperately attempting to articulate where we are today, yet still unable to really, truly, connect to a larger deeper audience, as it misses where the heart of American truth lies today.