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There Was No Poem At Biden’s Inauguration
How prose is passed off as poetry in an infantilized society
Amanda Gorman recited her poem, “The Hill We Climb” for Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. Under the circumstances, her platitudes were suitably upbeat and dumbed-down, and Gorman’s youth and African Americanness at the forefront of the political discourse were likewise uplifting.
There’s just one problem. You see, I failed to detect a poem being recited when Gorman spoke at the podium. (You can read her “poem” and watch her recite it.)
Maybe I missed the poem when she was instead reading her prose speech, or perhaps she was speaking the poem surreptitiously in sign language with her odd hand gestures.
Can someone help me find the poem in “The Hill We Climb”?
Prose versus Poetry
But before you make the effort, let’s be sure we’re on the same page. What’s a poem? I dabble in poetry so I have some idea of what a poem’s supposed to be. To be sure, Amanda Gorman is ten thousand times more successful as a poet than I am, since she was a National Youth Poet Laureate and she’s read her poetry for the Library of Congress, MTV, and now Biden’s inauguration.
