Inaugural Poem by Elizabeth Alexander

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here . . .

Just as citizens across the nation eagerly anticipated Barack Obama’s inaugural address, most viewing with high expectations, many among literary circles also were looking forward to the poem written by Elizabeth Alexander especially for the occasion. Indeed, for various reasons, most poets and readers of poetry shared a sense of exhilaration that the inaugural event would again feature a poem to help celebrate this historic moment. As has been noted in numerous news reports, Alexander would be only the fourth person commissioned to write an inaugural poem and designated to deliver it as part of the national ceremony. Previously, Robert Frost had received the honor when invited by John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton had chosen both Maya Angelou and Miller Williams for the assignment.

Of course, selection for such a position presents the poet with an enormous amount of personal attention and beneficial promotion for his or her poetry, as well as an intense level of scrutiny, most closely focused upon the quality of the work submitted. Certainly, any search of newspaper columns, magazine articles, and blog entries in the past month would verify Elizabeth Alexander has achieved a widespread public recognition she never enjoyed while merely a highly praised contemporary poet, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and professor of literature at a prestigious academic institution like Yale. A multitude of stories in recent weeks chronicled Alexander’s biographical details and discussed the daunting task she confronted as Barack Obama’s inaugural poet.

On Tuesday Elizabeth Alexander presented her work, “Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration.” All of us who have loved poetry, and appreciated this bright spotlight for the art form, held our breaths anxiously as we watched and listened. For many of us who have admired Alexander’s poetry in the past, we possessed great hope for the poet, perhaps just as most Americans who had heard Barack Obama’s eloquent speeches the past few years harbored substantial expectations for the new president’s address.

However, in the immediate aftermath of the poet’s presentation, much of the reception among her fellow poets could be described as mixed at best, and some openly expressed disappointment. Surely, a few voiced approval and acclaim for the poem Alexander had written; however, in online writers’ lists, in blogs, and in newspaper columns a majority of those responding reacted with less favorable opinions.

David L. Ulin remarked in the Los Angeles Times that “‘Praise Song for the Day’ didn’t measure up” because its “prosaic language” and rhetoric “simply didn’t sing.” Writing for The New Republic, Adam Kirsch considered Alexander’s poem an example of “bureaucratic verse,” lost in clichés and driven by an agenda: “The poem's argument was as hard to remember as its language; it dissolved at once into the circumambient solemnity.” At Times Online Erica Wagner offered a critique of the poem as “unmemorable,” and she suggested: “Professor Alexander, alas, sounded merely repetitious, or at the very least, confused.”

This sentiment was seconded by the About.Com: Poetry blog hosted by Bob Holman and Margery Snyder: “I see that there are indeed some memorable phrases, but I confess that while I was hearing the poem, I felt it was all over the place, not well put together at all, not focused . . . .” Jeff Charis-Carlson wrote at the Poetry & Popular Culture blog: “even I lost interest as Alexander read her poem. I can appreciate the difficulty that she was under—the occasional poem is a hard form for literary poets to master—but I found nothing sonorous and very little memorable about the reading.” On the other hand, at the Kenyon Review blog Kirsten Ogden supplied support for Alexander’s endeavor: “I listened today with great pleasure as Elizabeth Alexander read her poem ‘Praise Song for the Day’ at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. What a joy it was to hear ‘We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.’”

Indeed, I’d prefer to associate my response to Elizabeth Alexander’s poem with the sentiments expressed by Kirsten Ogden; nevertheless, my general reaction more closely resembles those expressions offered by the majority who wrote with disappointment. However, I do not make this statement necessarily as a criticism of Alexander. Instead, I believe she had accepted an almost impossible chore and fell victim to the difficulty of such a monumental situation, particularly in her unenviable spot on the program directly following the renowned eloquence of Barack Obama and while many of the cold folks in the audience on this frigid January day already were starting to wander toward exits from the mall. (In fact, despite the apparent effectiveness of Obama’s address, a number of political commentators mentioned in their reviews of the new president’s speech that, perhaps due to a conscious focus on its purposes as an inaugural message, it didn’t quite measure up to the lofty language and inspiring reaches listeners were accustomed to experiencing in his previous speeches.)

As Jim Fisher has written at Salon: “let's dispense with this idea that poets can produce lasting poems for public events. It's unfair to the audience, discomposes the poet, and probably confirms the low opinion of poetry some listeners already hold.” The three previous poets to offer inaugural poems have been victimized in a similar fashion. The pair who read at Bill Clinton’s two inaugurals presented poems that were targeted to the political times or social circumstances in which they were delivered, and neither piece succeeded in giving its audience exemplary poetry. Maya Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning” and Miller Williams’s “Of History and Hope” left listeners with lines that seemed more superficial than substantive.

Robert Frost was victimized by the actual environmental elements in the immense and very public situation. An aged man already in his late 80s at the time, Frost had difficulty reading the poem he’d written for the inauguration of John Kennedy because of the bright sun’s glare on his wind-blown pages. Consequently, the poet resorted to reciting a favorite old poem he’d memorized perfectly and performed for nearly two decades, “The Gift Outright,” a much stronger work than the less effective official poem he’d been commissioned to produce. As a result, Frost offered a memorable moment praised by both the general population of viewers in attendance or watching on television and revered by lovers of good poetry. In Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered, William H. Pritchard suggests that the substitute poem “had more of ‘life’ in it: in the midst of flattery and display, the sound of sense suddenly and movingly made itself felt.”

In this instance I believe we may learn a lesson. A place exists in public ceremonies for poetry. However, rather than commission a poet to write an occasional poem for the political proceedings, organizers should request a quality poem inspired independent of the moment, yet one that reflects the substance or spirit of the day and has passed the test of time. After all, some of the finest advice beginning poets often receive in creative writing courses concerns an avoidance of writing toward a predetermined goal or abstract notion. Pieces written under such conditions by young poets, or even experienced poets, usually feel forced, display didacticism, or demonstrate a graceless tendency toward prosaic statement rather than lyricism and imagery. As Robert Frost once wrote about the process of composition for a poet: “Writing a poem is discovering.”

Still, Elizabeth Alexander deserves commendation for her courage as she literally placed herself and her poetry in front of the nation for critical examination. Her poem contains a few very compelling lines and some emphatic phrases, especially at its admirable center: “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.” Indeed, the impressive opening pair of lines in that quote could have sufficed for many.

For those who have not yet seen the poem by Elizabeth Alexander with its breaks in lines or stanzas and who wish to evaluate it as a written work rather than a performed piece:

PRAISE SONG FOR THE DAY: A POEM FOR BARACK OBAMA’S PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION


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.


—Elizabeth Alexander