2 Million People hear Poetry
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msan...@gmail.com
Jan 20, 2009, 3:34:55 PM1/20/09
to Poem of the Week
What a day! What a desperately needed new beginning. What a day of
symbolism and substance. And who would have thought of a poet reading
to an audience of 2 million people -- now this was all my dreams come
true. Of course I thought the best poetry of the day came from 85 (I
think) year old Rev. Lowry, that old lion of the Southern civil
right's epics.
To start the new year and the new era, three poems. The first is
Robert Frost's The Gift Outright. Frost had composed a poem for
Kennedy's inaugural but the sun that day was too bright for him to
read it. So he instead reverted to a poem of his that he could recite
by heart. The second is by Elizabeth Alexander, Obama's inaugural
poet. I heard this read this morning on the Writer's Almanac and liked
it in many ways more than the one she actually read. And finally I was
curious to go back and find Clinton's second inaugural poet -- Miller
Williams the father of the wonderful Lucinda Williams and read what he
wrote in a time when many of us, certainly including me, had turned
away from any Washington Clinton festivities.
I hope these find you warm, safe, and soaring on wonder and delight
and naive hopes.
Yrs
Michael
~ The Gift Outright ~
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia.
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak.
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
~ Robert Frost; 1874-1963 ~
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
Elizabeth Alexander
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said
“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
Of History and Hope
Miller Williams
We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands -- oh, rarely in a row --
and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become --
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set
on a land we never can visit -- it isn't there yet --
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
symbolism and substance. And who would have thought of a poet reading
to an audience of 2 million people -- now this was all my dreams come
true. Of course I thought the best poetry of the day came from 85 (I
think) year old Rev. Lowry, that old lion of the Southern civil
right's epics.
To start the new year and the new era, three poems. The first is
Robert Frost's The Gift Outright. Frost had composed a poem for
Kennedy's inaugural but the sun that day was too bright for him to
read it. So he instead reverted to a poem of his that he could recite
by heart. The second is by Elizabeth Alexander, Obama's inaugural
poet. I heard this read this morning on the Writer's Almanac and liked
it in many ways more than the one she actually read. And finally I was
curious to go back and find Clinton's second inaugural poet -- Miller
Williams the father of the wonderful Lucinda Williams and read what he
wrote in a time when many of us, certainly including me, had turned
away from any Washington Clinton festivities.
I hope these find you warm, safe, and soaring on wonder and delight
and naive hopes.
Yrs
Michael
~ The Gift Outright ~
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia.
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak.
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
~ Robert Frost; 1874-1963 ~
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
Elizabeth Alexander
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said
“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
Of History and Hope
Miller Williams
We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands -- oh, rarely in a row --
and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become --
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set
on a land we never can visit -- it isn't there yet --
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
chin...@aol.com
Jan 20, 2009, 3:55:36 PM1/20/09
to Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com
Yes, what an incredible long overdue day of hope!!! Very exciting! Thanks for keeping me so tuned into poetry.
-----Original Message-----
From: msan...@gmail.com
To: Poem of the Week <Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 2:34 pm
Subject: 2 Million People hear Poetry
Cecily
-----Original Message-----
From: msan...@gmail.com
To: Poem of the Week <Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 2:34 pm
Subject: 2 Million People hear Poetry
What a day! What a desperately needed new beginning. What a day of
symbolism and substance. And who would have thought of a poet reading
to an audience of 2 million people -- now this was all my dreams come
true. Of course I thought the best poetry of the day came from 85 (I
think) year old Rev. Lowry, that old lion of the Southern civil
right's epics.
To start the new year and the new era, three poems. The first is
Robert Frost's The Gift Outright. Frost had composed a poem for
Kennedy's inaugural but the sun that day was too bright for him to
read it. So he instead reverted to a poem of his that he could recite
by heart. The second is by Elizabeth Alexander, Obama's inaugural
poet. I heard this read this morning on the Writer's Almanac and liked
it in many ways more than the one she actually read. And finally I was
curious to go back and find Clinton's second inaugural poet -- Miller
Williams the father of the wonderful Lucinda Williams=2
0and read what he
wrote in a time when many of us, certainly including me, had turned
away from any Washington Clinton festivities.
I hope these find you warm, safe, and soaring on wonder and delight
and naive hopes.
Yrs
Michael
~ The Gift Outright ~
The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia.
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak.
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.
~ Robert Frost; 1874-1963 ~
Ars Poetica #100: I Believe
Elizabeth Alexander
Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry
is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said
“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats
for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.
Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way
to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)
is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog die
d.
Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
Of History and Hope
Miller Williams
We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands -- oh, rarely in a row --
and flowering faces. And brambles, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become --
just and compassionate, equal, able
, and free.
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set
on a land we never can visit -- it isn't there yet --
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
George Scarlett
Jan 20, 2009, 5:06:42 PM1/20/09
to Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com
Yes, Lowry won -- for the second half of his poetic benediction. The
first half he borrowed from John Rosamond Johnson's wonderful "Negro
National Anthem" -- originally composed for a celebration of Lincoln's
birthday. I've pasted below:
'THE NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM'
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land James Weldon Johnson June 17, 1871 - June 26, 1938
--
W. George Scarlett,Ph.D.
Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155
617-627-2248
FAX: 7-3503
first half he borrowed from John Rosamond Johnson's wonderful "Negro
National Anthem" -- originally composed for a celebration of Lincoln's
birthday. I've pasted below:
'THE NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM'
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land James Weldon Johnson June 17, 1871 - June 26, 1938
W. George Scarlett,Ph.D.
Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155
617-627-2248
FAX: 7-3503
n1...@charter.net
Jan 20, 2009, 6:01:44 PM1/20/09
to Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com
A very hopeful day but one burdened with heavy tasks as we look toward a promising future.
My wish to all is that we take a moment to lock into memory a "thing" from this day to use as an icon of hope...to be called upon for strength in the tough days ahead.
My best to all and thank you Michael for keeping the poetry group going.
Gwen
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: msan...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:34:55
My wish to all is that we take a moment to lock into memory a "thing" from this day to use as an icon of hope...to be called upon for strength in the tough days ahead.
My best to all and thank you Michael for keeping the poetry group going.
Gwen
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: msan...@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:34:55
To: Poem of the Week<Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: 2 Million People hear Poetry
Barbara Helfgott Hyett (Poemworks)
Jan 20, 2009, 6:30:29 PM1/20/09
to Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com
Thanks Michael, especially for the Williams poem, which I'd never seen. yes
indeed, the best and only poetry was Lowry's. O was fantastic. I loved every
single word, even the declaration of indep. in it, which no one else seems
to have noticed. So far!
You're always educating me, dear friend. We missyou at our table, of course.
Sorely! All best on your own fine, strong work.
xo
Barbara
indeed, the best and only poetry was Lowry's. O was fantastic. I loved every
single word, even the declaration of indep. in it, which no one else seems
to have noticed. So far!
You're always educating me, dear friend. We missyou at our table, of course.
Sorely! All best on your own fine, strong work.
xo
Barbara
----- Original Message -----
From: <msan...@gmail.com>
To: "Poem of the Week" <Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 3:34 PM
Subject: 2 Million People hear Poetry
From: <msan...@gmail.com>
To: "Poem of the Week" <Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 3:34 PM
Subject: 2 Million People hear Poetry
marshall ganz
Jan 21, 2009, 7:33:26 PM1/21/09
to Poem-of-...@googlegroups.com
Thanks Michael,
But go back and give yesterday's poem a slow read, read it aloud, let
you self hear it anew.
Marshall
But go back and give yesterday's poem a slow read, read it aloud, let
you self hear it anew.
Marshall
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