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Last Updated: Feb 13th, 2009 - 07:46:49 |
Moments after President Obama gave his inaugural address, the poet Elizabeth Alexander took the stage to read her poem “Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration.” Alexander is incoming chair of Yale University’s African American Studies Department.
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: “Praise Song for the Day.”
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| Elizabeth Alexander |
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.
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| Alice Walker |
On Tuesday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet Alice Walker co-hosted Democracy Now!’s special inaugural coverage. The Associated Press had asked Alice Walker for an inaugural poem. She read it on our broadcast. She calls it “The World Has Changed.”
ALICE WALKER: A poem honoring the people who don’t believe this is happening. I wanted to write a poem for the people who are still saying, “Oh, no, this can’t happen,” you know, because all along the line of this struggle to get Barack Obama to the White House, people feared that something awful would happen to him, and so many people hold so many angers and pains that they just can’t believe today. So this is a poem for the people who basically don’t believe that it’s happening. It’s called “The World Has Changed.”
The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean that
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don’t let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.
Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, reading her poem “The World Has Changed.” Alice Walker co-hosted Democracy Now!’s Inauguration Day special.
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