More on That Poem
Frank links to one review saying Alexander’s inaugural poem was “history’s worst inaugural poem” and to another review saying, “It is what one expects from an earnest junior-high-school student with little gift for language, or from a professor at Yale.”
That second post quotes poet Geoffrey Hill, saying society has no use for poets. “The great poet has no social function. The mediocre, yes, he finds himself delivering fashionable platitudes to the public. The true poet is completely isolated.”
Longfellow’s Excelsior!
THE SHADES of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, ‘mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath,
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath,
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue,
Excelsior!
In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright;
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan,
Excelsior!
“Try not the Pass!” the old man said;
“Dark lowers the tempest overhead,
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!”
And loud that clarion voice replied,
Excelsior!
Continue reading one of Longfellow’s many great American poems.
An Art President?
Mark Swed says Obama is probably an arts president, so he should do better than the “hokey” quartet by Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill.
If he really wants change, he will have to have the courage to listen to artists who can’t be controlled, whose vision is greater than his and his handlers. We need artists not merely to sing our achievements but to communicate new ideas and to spread our voice through the land and the world. Obama must mobilize the arts to help him change the mood of our nation and raise our energy.
“Artists who can’t be controlled”? Politicians don’t usually go for lack of control.
Service Section memories
I still haven’t finished the Schulz biography, so what to write about tonight?
Further memories of the AFLC Service Section, I suppose (see yesterday’s post). It was one of the more colorful places I’ve worked.
The Service Section (shipping and mailing) was to the America Lutheran Church Headquarters what The Weird Brother We Keep Locked in the Basement and Never Talk About is to some family living next door to a Flannery O’Conner story. The suits (and clerical collars) worked in a tall, pale building on the south side of the block, above Augsburg Publishing House. We SS guys* toiled like orcs in an ancient, creosote-stained, low building on the north side of the block. In order to physically pass from the Shambles to the Tower, you had to either go around outside, or take a freight elevator down to the basement, then follow a tunnel through the rumbling presses of Augsburg’s printing department, to another elevator back in a corner. Continue reading Service Section memories
Historical Inaugurations
Delancy’s Place has a couple excerpts from how Washington’s and Lincoln’s inaugurations went. At one point for Washington, “a chorus of white-robed girls tossed flowers from their baskets in his path while singing a tribute to ‘The Defender of the Mothers, The Protector of the Daughters'” For Lincoln, he wore a soft felt hat instead of his trademark stovepipe hat to avoid recognition while he slipped out of Harrisburg for the trip to Washington.
A poem for the inauguration
Hey Phil, do you like this one better?
Princess
I’m currently engrossed in David Michaelis’ Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. I’ve rarely been so caught up in a nonfiction book, for reasons I’ll explain when I’m ready to write my review (which I expect will be a long one).
But one thing that grabbed my interest was all the places where Schulz’s and my paths crossed (disregarding the small matter of a few decades’ time). I lived for a while with my aunt in St. Paul, only a couple miles southeast of the corner of Snelling and Selby, where Schulz’s father, Carl, ran a barber shop for most of his life. I used to jog around Highland Park, where Schulz himself liked to play golf.
But the crossings weren’t only in St. Paul.
I worked several years in Minneapolis in the shipping and mailing department (known for some reason as the Service Section) of the headquarters of the American Lutheran Church, an organization which no longer exists (like its building, which was demolished a few years back to make way for the new city jail).
Just kittycorner across Fourth Street from our building was Art Instruction Schools (the people behind the “Can you draw me?” magazine ads). Schulz worked there for a number of years, before and after his service in World War II and up to the time when he became an established cartoonist.
Michaelis reports that he “fell in love” (from afar; he was desperately shy) with several pretty girls who worked at the school. One became the inspiration for Charlie Brown’s “little red-haired girl.” Another was the sister of the woman he eventually married.
Art Instruction Schools and pretty girls. That brings back a memory…. Continue reading Princess
A wonderful day
Today is a wonderful day in American history. It’s wonderful for two reasons.
1) The color barrier to the highest office has finally been broken.
2) The new president hasn’t yet had time to implement any of his policies.
There will be a very few of these wonderful days, so enjoy them!
The Poem Read at the Inauguration
Elizabeth Alexander’s poem today was a bit difficult for me, in part because I didn’t hear it all, but I wonder if I just need more in a poem than a praise song for the day. Here’s how it ends:
“In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.”
Did you hear the poem read? What did you think of it then or now when you read it?
Update: Many reviewers apparently didn’t like the poem either. David Ulin calls it “prosaic.” But her poetry books are selling well. (via ArtsJournal)