All in all, I think she navigated this balance wonderfully. I would imagine it was a difficult balance for Gorman, trying to be both happy and uplifting without missing the sobering and serious nature of America's historical wrongs and their legacy in the present. Moreover, coming after the events of January 6th, the hope that exudes from Gorman's writing despite everything that's gone on lately is something we all could use a little more of these days.
It's a time for a president to broadcast their big ideas for the nation, with the idea of motivating citizens to step up to the challenge. Generally, inaugurations are times of hope, proof that American democracy persists with the peaceful transfer of power between administrations. I don't disagree with the critics about the presence of platitudes in places, but what did they expect out of a poem given at a ceremony full of pomp and circumstance and patriotic symbolism? While critics of the poem pointed out that it was cliché and full of platitudes, I found "The Hill We Climb" communicating deeper, rather than shallower, ideas regarding America's reckoning with its history as we move into the future. Written by the youngest poet yet to give a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration, Amanda Gorman's poem "The Hill We Climb" is powerful, sobering, and uplifting all at the same time. I confess I don't read poetry that much, but I am glad I went ahead and read The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country (2021). Review originally published April 29, 2021 It will indeed be more troublesome for those same Americans that a new presidential administration which is vehemently underscoring its departure from the dark past uses cliched art to make its message resonate with the people. It is sadly possible that many Americans might not be terrified that what the nation’s youth poet graduate creates is little different from what an automatic generator of trite expressions and cheap allegory can produce.
The dilemma is that when cliched art is celebrated as profound and meaningful, and is made mainstream and institutional by the public endorsement, that means that (political) ideas are also cliched. To a lesser extent, everyone is also entitled to its own ideas about art. It is understandable that American hearts may need reassurance and guidance after years of darkness and chaos - yes, the poem does provide those.īut if one strips the poem of its envelope of powerful oral delivery, colourful cloths, ethnic jewels, identity politics associated with the author and the specific context of delivery, one is left with a bunch of cliched verses that could be taken straight from a 10th grade assignment: “Write something symbolic and solemn about Thanksgiving Day”.Įveryone is entitled to its own feelings when it is about art. The poem is verbose, unimaginative, condescending, self-indulgent, didactic and - what is worst - cliched.
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