Monday, January 21, 2013

One Today

I was kind of blown away by Richard Blanco's poem for today's inauguration. I don't know why it spoke so deeply to me. Perhaps because it started out in the Smoky Mountains, or because he talked about his mother ringing up groceries (as my mother cleaned houses & worked in a convenience store), or maybe it was this line:

...or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever.

Whatever the reason, if you haven't experienced it you really really should. You can go here to read the text. Or you can listen to him read it now.

8 comments:

  1. Like you, I was deeply moved by this heartfelt poem.

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  2. THIS is what poetry is meant to be in our time...THIS is America! Get used to it...we ARE it :-)

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  3. It's very Walt Whitman-esque. With a bit of TS Eliot in the mix. It's a wonderful poem.

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  4. I always look forward to the poem and this one was out of the park. The best since Maya Angelou. Oh, how perfect and timely.

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  5. Moving and powerful. It was a beautiful narrative of this nation.

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  6. It was a spectacular poem, and the part you highlighted made me cry.

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