Poetry at the Inauguration, with Apologies

In yesterday's post, I did an injustice to Elizabeth Alexander by posting the news transcript of her presidential-inauguration poem without its proper line breaks. Here is the poem typed out correctly. The line breaks demonstrate how eloquent the poem really is, and if you read it in prose (as in the transcript), much of the impact of the poem, and its beauty, is lost. In fact, I would add that the transcript damages the poem, and I added to that damage by posting the transcript yesterday. Read the poem below in its proper form. (I'm also including again the YouTube video of Alexander's performance so you can compare the poem as written with the poem as spoken by the poet.)

Praise Song for the Day

by Elizabeth Alexander

A Poem for Barack Obama's
Presidential Inauguration

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.

Text from the Academy of American Poets website

My sincerest apologies to you, Professor Alexander, for adding to the brouhaha about your poem. Having the poem in its proper form really enhances the experience of hearing it, and your performance is quite remarkable, Elizabeth (if I may), because you are clearly voicing (and voicing clearly) the plain speaking that both you and President Obama hold so dear. Despite what unfriendly commenters on various blogs and news venues have been saying about the poem, it is clear to me you are working to circumvent the esoteric qualities that many people not accustomed to verse point to in American poetry overall, and your poem's plain and clear speech is the source of its eloquence and beauty (as more friendly commenters have also emphasized). Congratulations on a lovely, apt poem. And thank you for striving to make poetry a part of everyday life in the entire world. Brava!

I am particularly moved by the reference to the "many [who] have died for this day." I would imagine that some people, perhaps many people, read this as a reference to African Americans and other people of color. I submit however that, although that understanding is of course important to acknowledge, this refers ultimately to all of us, all Americans who have died for and worked for freedom for everyone. The swearing-in of our first African American president is not a victory only for black people; it is a victory for all Americans, in fact all people across the world. Thank you, Elizabeth Alexander; thank you for this crucial lesson and this important poem.

Poetry at President Obama's Inauguration

At President Obama's inauguration today, his friend Elizabeth Alexander read a poem she wrote for the occasion. (They were academic colleagues at the University of Chicago, I believe.)

Here is the text of the poem Professor Alexander read at the inaugural today. Please note: this is a transcript and not the poem with its actual lineation. When a definitive version of the poem surfaces in the news or the web, I'll update.

Praise song for the day. 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 someone 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 thy self." 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 preempt grievance. In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun. On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

by Elizabeth Alexander

What do you think about Alexander's poem? And her performance?


Note from 1-21-2009: I have crossed out the text above because I have realized it's really an injustice to Professor Alexander to post her poem in this way. For the correct version, please see my blog entry for 21 January 2009.

Martin, Jimmy, Barack

This week is a monumental one historically, with the annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today, followed by President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration tomorrow. I've been watching TV shows on the lives of these two men this past weekend and noting the interesting interplay between one focus on how their work benefits African Americans and the other focus that the benefits are really for all Americans, all people. Similarly, Obama is lauded as the first African American president, but many also note that of course he is part white, with an upbringing that includes Asian influences and experiences. In fact, in an interesting cultural twist, some Irish Americans as well as some Irish claim Obama as one of their own, through his ancestor who hailed from the Irish town of Moneygall; these relatives pronounce his given name with a stress on the first syllable: BARE-uck.

All of this got me to thinking about how Filipino Americans of my generation grew up in this country: we fit in the gaps and hollows between black and white, and I can recall taking on, as a youth, typical characteristics of African American or European American identity, as needed in various situations. One of those environments was the world of "bagboys" — both boys and men, actually — at the US Army Commissary in the Presidio of San Francisco during the late 60s. I particularly remember one young African American man, Jimmy (whose surname in the poem has been changed).

Jimmy Hurt They called us Schoolboys, the Regulars did. Mostly men in their forties, all black except for that old Filipino, Pablo. We were high school kids, cruised in weekday afternoons and Saturdays to bag for tips at the Army commissary on the Presidio. The baddest of us schoolboys was Jimmy Hurt. He would float in, with rust alligator shoes, red piping on his socks, double-breasted Edwardian, gold-tipped mahogany cane, and a Billy Preston natural. The rest of us came in our white shirts and blue aprons, but Jimmy would change in the back room, among the piled-up bales of grocery bags, then swagger out. The royal blue of his apron folded under, an ironed crease just where a Nehru coat would be hemmed. And man, could Jimmy bag! Half-gallon Coke and Pepsi bottles spinning in his hands like Cisco Kid's six-shooters. Gerber's jars orbiting in air before the swish into the sack. The ruby on Jimmy's right ring finger glinted as his hand swooped down on a 16-oz. can of Del Monte peaches, then right hand behind back, the can materializing over left shoulder, the left hand plucking it from the air like a Willie Mays blind catch. Square as Euclidean angles, Jimmy's bags had edges sharp as his dark Ben Davis pants. He always made fifteen to our mere five per hour. And then we might not even get home with that. Jimmy'd hold court in the back room, playing "Tonk" for five dollars and ten. He never lost. I heard he later played secret agent for the cops, when police stations in San Francisco were under siege by pipe bombs and other explosive devices. Jimmy, in black turtlenecks and cords like some Hollywood commando, lurked outside Fillmore Station with a walkie-talkie, reporting any "suspicious individuals" besides himself. Anyway, last week, Danny McVeigh and I were shooting nine-ball for beers at the Town and Country on Geary, when Jimmy walked in, carrying a glossy cue case, no cane, sporting a charcoal-gray knit with red accents. I called a three-ball combination: 4-5-9 into the left corner. Jimmy stopped to watch. Purple clicked into orange, yellow on white sliding two feet seven inches into the pocket, sweetly. Jimmy reached up slowly, pulled his bottle-green shades down to the tip of his nose. Looking at me over gold rims, he said, "How much you want to shoot for?" —  Vince Gotera, from Forkroads: A Journal of Ethnic American Literature (Winter 1996).

I really looked up to Jimmy back then. He was eternally sharp, always dressed "to the nines," an unbeatable pool shark, never off-balance, always in charge. The Regulars, the bagboys who were shagging tips to support families, treated Jimmy as an adult, though he was probably eighteen or nineteen when I knew him. I would have been fifteen, probably. And of course he lorded it over us, the other "schoolboys" &mdash Peter Pan to our Lost Boys, though Jimmy would have sneered at that comparison, would have thought of Pan as fey, no street cred. Jimmy was the ultimate hipster, cool and composed, a ladies' man, a cardsharp, con man, player, dancer, hustler, entertainer — the way he bagged groceries was what got him 2-3 times as much in tips as the rest of us (we all worked only for tips, even the Regulars). Jimmy exhibited the mastery and command of James Brown with the poise and looks of Marvin Gaye.

Jimmy would be about sixty now. I wonder what he ended up doing? Could the alleged "secret agent" phase have turned into a career in law enforcement? Did Jimmy perhaps win something enormous in a game of nine ball? A Lincoln Continental with a white shag rug? Maybe his very own pool hall? Or maybe Jimmy became a man of the cloth? A pastor in some AME church in a big-city ghetto. Though part of me sees him as more of the TV-evangelist type, raking in lots of moolah, checks and cash. I bet he didn't end up a bagboy Regular. I bet he didn't end up in prison (maybe you were thinking that; it certainly occurred to me). Jimmy was too much the entrepeneur, a young black man who made the most of the space society allowed him and enterprised beyond that space.

As I was writing that last paragraph, I couldn't quite figure out what I would say about poetic craft in this poem. There is my usual play with line breaks, using enjambment to push double meanings. The usual sound play: "double-breasted Edwardian" paralleled with "Billy Preston" — not just the ən sound at the end but also the echo of rest. The element that jumps out to me in this poem, which I don't think I've discussed before in the blog, is narrative.

Like a movie, the poem begins with an establishing shot: the commissary, the men and boys bagging groceries for tips, the social hierarchy. Then the presentation of the protagonist, Jimmy: both how he looked and what he did. Told in little flashes, micro-vignettes. All in past tense, a distant past: customary, repeated actions. Then, in typical storytelling fashion, the narrative flashes forward to a later time, to something Jimmy was said to have done between the bagging days and today, a kind of "middle past." And finally the transition to a very recent past — "Anyway, last week" — for all intents and purposes, the present, really. We see a scene played out: characters named, a real location, the landing of the combination shot. And finally the kicker: Jimmy, who apparently doesn't recognize the speaker or maybe does but plays coy, starts up his hustle, his con, his game. Always the playah.

For what it's worth, it's all based on "true stories" from my own past. During those bagboy days, I did shoot pool one time with fellow bagboy Dan McVeigh at the Town and Country pool hall on Geary Blvd. Jimmy came in and witnessed me sinking that exact 4-5-9 combination. And he did say, "How much you want to shoot for?" I don't recall now if I played Jimmy then, but I'm sure he would have figuratively cleaned my clock, walked away counting all my money. The difference in the poem is that I build in an implication that time has passed, perhaps quite a bit of time, but Jimmy hasn't changed. Still the playah. And of course that's Jimmy's strength, his attractiveness.

Not sure what else to say about the narrative. What do you think?

Today, I wonder where Jimmy is. And what he thinks of Dr. King and President Obama. Maybe in the nation we have been becoming between Dr. King's day and Obama's presidency, grown men won't have to bag groceries only for tips — no wage, no insurance — to put food on the table. I guarantee, Jimmy would have something really striking to say about all of that. And the man would be dressed up, yo. Slick.

One Veteran's Day

Today, November 11, is my father's birthday. Martin Avila Gotera would have been 87 today, and he has been gone for almost twenty years.

Today is also Veterans' Day. It has always seemed fitting to me that Papa's birthday is the same day as Veterans' Day. Formerly called "Armistice Day" . . . in other words, a day of peace, of cessation of war.

From the day he was born, soldiering was Papa's life. His father, my Lolo Felix, a "lifer" in the US Army, Philippine Scouts. The beginning of a kind of dynasty . . . Felix, a brigade master sergeant; Martin, a second lieutenant; and then two out of Papa's three sons also in the US Army, Pepito and Vince, one a Vietnam vet, a combat grunt, and the other a Vietnam era vet.

When I was a child, my father worked in the Veterans Administration as an adviser and contact rep for vets. So just about each of his twenty-four hours was spent with former soldiers, sailors, and Marines, making sure they got their veteran's pensions by day, and then at night he would suffer through combat flashbacks and nightmares.

During that same time, my father also gave community service for vets; he started a grassroots organization, FAVADA . . . the Filipino American Veterans and Dependents Association. This organization, as far as I know, was the first to work on what is now called the Filipino Veterans Equity issue. My father and his organization worked on the first class-action suit against the US government to reclaim the rights and privileges stolen from Filipino vets in the 1946 Rescission Act.

I wrote the following poem as a response to the National WWII Memorial, in particular from hearing that Filipino American writer Bino Realuyo was condemning the memorial because of his father being denied burial at Arlington Cemetery . . . again because of that damned Rescission Act.

Looking for Double Victory

Written in response to the dedication of the
National World War II Memorial, 29 May 2004

“The V for victory sign is being displayed prominently in all so-called
democratic countries which are fighting for victory over aggression,
slavery, and tyranny. If the V sign means that to those now engaged
in this great conflict, then let we colored Americans adopt the
double VV for a double victory. The first V for victory over enemies
from without, the second V for victory over our enemies from within.”

—

James G. Thompson, letter to the Pittsburgh Courier, 31 January 1942 (quoted by Ronald Takaki in Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II)

Around and through these fifty-six pillars
of white stone hung with wreaths of bronze,
drift and dive four hundred thousand ghosts —
keening, unheard, indignant desert birds.

The war to uphold FDR’s Four Freedoms,
fought by Americans who never in their lives
tasted freedom of speech, freedom of worship,
freedom from want, freedom from fear. Never.

Dorie Miller, black Navy messman
at Pearl Harbor, firing an ack-ack gun,
a weapon he was forbidden to touch, downed
four Japanese bombers . . . strange fruit.

Ernest Childers, Muscogee infantryman
With the “Thunderbird,” single-handedly
cleared two German machine-gun nests . . .
first Indian to win the Medal of Honor.

Guy Louis Gabaldon, Chicano
Marine from East LA, fluent speaker
of Japanese, captured eight hundred
prisoners on his own without a shot.

Susan Ahn, daughter of Ahn Chang Ho,
renowned Korean freedom fighter . . . first
Asian American in the US Navy, first
woman gunnery officer in 1944.

My Papa, my Lolo — Martin and Felix Gotera —
trudge through a fog of kayumanggi dust
lit by sword blade’s sinister flash. Bataan!
Bloody but unbowed. Survive. Mabuhay.

My friend Bino curses these pillars, calls
them “horns.” His father, death-march survivor, denied
burial at Arlington. “No Filipinos Allowed.”
The Rescission Act. Give then take away.

Friends, although eight eagles lift here two
laurel wreaths for victory, the “Double VV”
has yet to be fully won. The demon vanquished
abroad still lives, here, at home. Flourishing.

We still recall with anguish Truman’s bombs,
two hundred thousand victims, mostly women
and children, black rain, skin burning. Legacy
of dishonor. Not a military necessity.

Today, let us remember these honored dead.
Let us remember the civilians — many women —
who riveted planes, who lived behind barbed wire.
Live up to the vision of all these heroes . . . all.

Let us win the second victory, at last.
Make the Four Freedoms real for each and all.
Then let these four hundred thousand ghosts, angels,
Rest their fiery wings in God’s breast, and sleep.

— Vince Gotera, from Mirror Northwest (2006)

Papa, with your interest in and passion for civil rights, you would be amazed to know that now we have an African American president-elect. So that in some measure, the "double VV" is becoming real. Rev. Jesse Jackson was interviewed on TV at Grant Park in Chicago, where Obama's election was being celebrated on the night of Election Day, and he talked about the double VV . . . the "enemies from within" not yet vanquished but certainly defeated that night.

As a birthday and veterans' day present to you, Papa, I want to highlight this stanza from the poem above, because it highlights the spirit in which you held your Bataan death march and prisoner-of-war camp experiences:

My Papa, my Lolo — Martin and Felix Gotera —
trudge through a fog of kayumanggi dust
lit by sword blade’s sinister flash. Bataan!
Bloody but unbowed. Survive. Mabuhay.

Happy birthday, Papa. I love you. And I miss you. Rest your fiery wings in God's breast and sleep. This is YOUR veteran's day . . . the celebration of one veteran.

NOTE: For those interested in Filipino veterans equity, check out this background info from the PBS American Experience series.

For those of you whose main interests in reading my blog are poetry and poetics, this poem appeared in the Contemporary Poetry section of the Mirror Northwest online journal. This anthology is collected for students of poetry to use, especially the creative writing students of Wenatchee Valley College. With that pedagogical purpose in mind, I appended the following note to that publication:

To mimic the pillars of the National WWII Memorial, I end-stopped each of the quatrains so that they are all freestanding. Also, to retain the memorial’s spirit of honoring the combatants, I wrote the poem in pentameter — admittedly, loose and rough — to allude to the tradition of the iambic pentameter heroic couplet.

Go check out Contemporary Poetry / Mirror Northwest.

We Won!

Having grown up in America in the 60s, I never thought a person of color could become president of the US during my lifetime. I know it's swiftly becoming a cliché to say that, but it's the truth.

It is indeed a new day, and I applaud the rising of this new sun.

I remember being a young boy who was proud that I too, simply by being a natural-born US citizen, could become president of our country. I just had to turn thirty-five, I thought.

I didn't have to grow half that old before I realized that this possibility resided only in that "America in the Heart," to borrow a famous phrase from Carlos Bulosan.

Well, yesterday, that possibility was again made real for all young girls and boys. It is possible for all of us to become what we want to be in America . . . with luck, hard work, and perseverance.

Best of luck to you, Barack, in your new job. And best of luck to all of us. Let's all roll up our sleeves and pitch in.

Election Day Is Here!

Go vote . . . go Obama!
FIRED UP . . . READY TO GO!
Since Alaska and oil and drilling have been so much in the Zeitgeist of late . . . yet not so much the environment, here is a poem about a devastating event almost twenty years ago. An event we should remember as we make decisions about energy and the biosphere. You too, Governator Palin. Especially you too.

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill


A bear is crossing a beach in this National
Geographic photo. The sand piled up
in dunes like always, scalloped by waves, but black . . .

black sand, black water, black salmon floating upended.
The bear now a motley panda, doomed by the gull
he breakfasted on, covered with black gravy.

In the moments before his stomach begins to cramp up,
is the bear wondering if black snow has fallen,
a warm snow like thick blood? Does he

recognize as water these puddles angling
across his path — obsidian knives reflecting
dark sky? Is he thinking these cramps are only thirst,

nothing fit to drink along this beach?
Later, too weak to stand, his eyesight turning
black as night, will he wonder what jolted the earth

into this monochrome place, the world wrenched
inside out? A photographer's negative. Spring's
greens and purples leaking into black sky.

— Vince Gotera, published in Lyrical Iowa (1996).

This poem was occasioned by a photo in an issue of National Geographic focusing on the aftermath of the spill. I wasn't successful in locating that precise image via Google, but one can kind plenty of equally dramatic shots currently online. Here is one from the "Exxpose Exxon" website, provided by a person named Christine:

Exxpose Exxon website.

Thanks, Christine, for your anti-Exxon, anti-big-business, pro-environment stance. This too is for you.

Anyone . . . who has yet to vote . . . GO VOTE!

On the Eve of the Presidential Election

It's after midnight and I wonder what thoughts flit through the minds of Barack Obama and John McCain as they slide into sleep, as they spiral down the hypnagogic well.

Although much of the election talk these latter days focuses on the ailing US economic system, I trust thoughts of war are not far from the consciousness and conscience of both McCain and Obama . . . thoughts, that is, of American men and women in the war zone at this exact moment.

In the spirit of such necessary remembrance, I offer this poem:

Guard Duty


A young soldier squints into thick black night
hoping no hostile sapper is cutting through
barbed wire, a bayonet and grenades tied
to his waist . . . invisible. This mute scenario

lies at the heart of three generations' bedtime
stories: my Lolo and my Papa in the US
Army, Philippine Scouts, death march in Bataan,
my brother Pepito in the 'Nam, nightmares

of Agent Orange. That young soldier could have been
any one of them . . . or me, on guard mount at Fort Ord
during Vietnam. Almost dreaming machine gun
recoil in our hands. Screaming, an oncoming horde.

Never again . . . young women and men should dream
of breezes in trees, soft rain, sunshine. Never again.

— Vince Gotera, from Poets Against the War (2003).

This poem is inextricably connected to President Bush's policies . . . my own protest against what has come to be called "The Bush Doctrine." I wrote this sonnet as part of the Poets Against the War movement and website . . . you may remember Sam Hamill's outraged response to Laura Bush's suggestion of a poetry symposium at the White House in early 2003. Having just heard of the president's proposal to use "shock and awe" saturation bombing against Iraq, Hamill organized a poets' protest and within weeks, thousands of poets took part.

The First Lady cancelled her planned symposium, but by mid-February, when she had hoped the symposium would take place, over 5000 poets from around the world had contributed some 9000 poems. I am proud that "Guard Duty" was one of those poems and that it was eventually selected for Sam Hamill's Poets Against the War print anthology.

"Guard Duty" is rooted as well in the history of Gotera men serving in the US Army. My father and grandfather were in the elite Philippine Scouts of the US Army . . . both of them fought in WWII, both in the infamous Bataan death march, both POWs. My half-brother Pepito and I both served in the US Army during the Vietnam war; he was sent to "the 'Nam" and I was not, making me a Vietnam Era vet. (All of this is described in more detail in my essay "Love and War, Contrapuntal: A Self-Interview," from Pinoy Poetics, edited by Nick Carbó.)

On a related front, there is no good news for the movement to restore US veteran status to Filipino American and Filipino soldiers of WWII. A little background: a quarter million Filipino men were recruited to fight in WWII, and FDR promised them the same status and treatment as American war veterans. After WWII ended, the US rescinded this status . . . an appalling injustice that now spans six decades.

Earlier this year, the Senate passed a bill to restore veterans' rights and benefits to Filipino WWII vets. Unfortunately, time has run out for the parallel bill in the House, though many complained that the House bill had become too watered down, calling for a relatively small lump-sum payment rather than restoration of full veteran status. As Tuesday's election nears, it's worth noting that Senator Obama was a co-sponsor of the Filipino Veterans Equity Act.

Some background links on the Filipino Veterans Equity issue: (1) a recent call to action from the National Federation of Filipino American Associations; (2) an AP news release on the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and its support for Filipino veterans; and a Pacific Citizen article on the recent failure of the House bill.

In any case, back to poetry and war: although the end of my poem "Guard Duty" could seem overly romanticized to some readers, let us hope nonetheless that poetry can, in the long run, stand up to violence. That words really can end wars, that a true and long-lasting peace is indeed possible.

GO OBAMA!