I can’t wait until it’s available from Amazon.

I also had to separate the text from Alexander’s delivery. I could tell she was nervous and her voice sounded a little stilted.

After reading it, though, I feel that she is saying something quite beautiful about: 1) the way our words and language define our identities; 2) the way we transform our pain and struggles through music; and 3) the roads we walk and the paths we have the courage to make for ourselves.

I enjoyed the images she provides of everyday citizens and the way that she references the painful legacy of slavery and oppression in this country by honoring their work:

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.

I was not as moved by her reflections on “love” as I was when I first heard the poem. What sticks with me now is the notion of a “praise song for struggle” and Alexander’s call for us to make our own music, our own “sentence” as we move forward in these interesting times!

Well, I guess I just wrote my own post. Sorry, Anika, for the long comment! I suspect that this poem won’t get the attention it deserves. Maybe once it is published and people have time to reflect. If people look back at Maya Angelou or Robert Frost’s poems, I think they’ll find that inaugural poems are often anti-climactic and a little corny. Compared to them, I think Alexander’s poem is really very good.

I knew when she started that she wasn’t going to get a full listen. Folks were still settling in after the speech, rustling their whatnots, and weren’t fully attuned to her beginning. Also, the relative flatness of the delivery and its focus on the sound of each word, and not the entirety of the work–in terms of dynamic presentation–just didn’t capture most folks.

But I too want to see how she envisioned it written, line breaks and such. I want to see how she saw it and then it’ll more fully make sense in terms of how the piece means.

As a more plain spoken kind of poet myself, I can definitely understand her impulse to “make it plain” rather than leaning toward the high verse of an occasional poem for masses that just aren’t that into hearing poetry much at all.

I also keep in mind that the expectations for inaugural poets are high, while the precedent is still vary malleable (she’s fourth). I believe she did it her own way and it was beautiful.