a rough night before a reassuring dawn

I must say that, while I was very impressed with the inaugural events overall, I was rather disappointed with the presentation of the inaugural poem. The rigid, halting reading notwithstanding (due presumably – and understandably – to the enormous pressure Elizabeth Alexander must have been feeling), the first half (approximately) of the poem felt nauseatingly trite. Phrases like “All about us is noise” and “repairing the things in need of repair” fairly screamed out their cheapness to me (and their redundancy, in the latter). I kept thinking, well, yes, our troubled world is often described as noisy and chaotic – I cannot really think of an era that has not considered itself to be on the brink of Armageddon, surrounded by discord and dispute. And it seems to me as though all politicians feel themselves duty-bound to promise their constituency that they will repair anything and everything that they believe needs to be repaired (regardless of whether or not it is possible to keep such a promise). The mundanity of her imagery, although seemingly fitting for a man thought of as a people’s president, cast a pall of vapid mawkishness over the entire composition. Her mention of teachers and kitchen tables and crossing roads sounded very cliché to me – almost quaint, which I feel was not quite fitting for such a historic moment.

In spite of my overall dislike for the poem, I found that few phrases struck me as being somewhat more worthy of the occasion. Her imagery, specifically in her comparison of darkness/uncertainty (“that which we cannot yet see”) and light/illumination, was poignant and timeless. I thought it tied in well with President Obama’s reference to the “gathering clouds and raging storms.” Her question “what if the mightiest word is love” was, despite being a little trite, an important one that needed to be asked, if for no other reason than to balance out the negativity of the earlier stanzas (who wants an inaugural poem to end on a pessimistic note?). This query transitioned well, I thought, into her repetition of the image of impending change: “on the brink, on the brim, on the cusp.” Thus a stale beginning evolved into a decently inspirational finale, which I can only hope will be recognized in years to come as a good omen for Obama’s administration – a telling sign that an era of change for the better is indeed upon us.