January 20, 2009 marked the day in history that most people sixty years ago would have never dreamed possible. It marked the inauguration of the first president of African descent. Obama, as all presidents before him, gave a speech after he was sworn in. The major difference between this inauguration and any inauguration of the past was that this particular one had roughly 2 million people present. This was by far the largest turn out in the history of America.
The speech was delivered in Obama’s typical flawless fashion. He spoke the words of his speech with astounding conviction. There was however a major flaw in this speech. There appeared to be far too many literary clichés. At the beginning of his speech he stated “…the rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace.” Then he goes on to say “Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.” These appear to me to be extremely cliché words for such a unique moment. It was astounding to me that on such a memorable first for America, Obama and his speech writers chose to use extremely over used wording. I was also expecting a line so memorable that it would live on for hundreds of years. Such as in Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” or FDR’s “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” There was nothing in my opinion that even approached such a line during the entirety of Obama’s speech. Overall, I believed that Obama’s speech was good I was just expecting more.
The poem that Elizabeth Alexander gave in commemoration of this great moment in American History was “Praise Song for the Day”. I thought the delivery of this poem was very sub-par for such a unique and special moment in America’s history. People were so bored listening to this poem that literally left before the inauguration was over. The poem itself I thought was great I just didn’t understand the manner in which it was delivered. There was no enthusiasm in her voice and certainly nowhere near the conviction present in Obama’s speech. The best part of the poem was when she talked about love as being of supreme importance in the world today. “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 preempt grievance”. This was a great message and the only part of the poem that I felt wasn’t redundant after Obama’s speech.
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