{"id":2355,"date":"2009-01-20T18:53:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T23:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2355"},"modified":"2009-01-20T18:53:39","modified_gmt":"2009-01-20T23:53:39","slug":"the-poem-read-at-the-inauguration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2355","title":{"rendered":"The Poem Read at the Inauguration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth Alexander&#8217;s poem today was a bit difficult for me, in part because I didn&#8217;t hear it all, but I wonder if I just need more in a poem than a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/20\/us\/politics\/20text-poem.html?ref=books\">praise song for the day<\/a>.  Here&#8217;s how it ends:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In today&#8217;s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.<\/p>\n<p>On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp &#8212; praise song for walking forward in that light.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Did you hear the poem read?  What did you think of it then or now when you read it?<\/p>\n<p>Update: Many reviewers apparently didn&#8217;t like the poem either.  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/politics\/inauguration\/la-na-inaug-poet21-2009jan21,0,5929443.story\">David Ulin calls it &#8220;prosaic.&#8221;<\/a>  But her poetry books are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/2009\/jan\/21\/obama-poet-alexander-bestseller\">selling well<\/a>. (via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/\">ArtsJournal<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elizabeth Alexander&#8217;s poem today was a bit difficult for me, in part because I didn&#8217;t hear it all, but I wonder if I just need more in a poem than a praise song for the day. Here&#8217;s how it ends: &#8220;In today&#8217;s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun. On &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2355\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Poem Read at the Inauguration<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}