primeideal: Multicolored sideways eight (infinity sign) (Default)
primeideal ([personal profile] primeideal) wrote2021-01-20 05:09 pm

(Inauguration) poetry

Amanda Gorman delivered a poem at the inauguration today. The Washington Post notes that she has worked to overcome a speech impediment, which included difficulty pronouncing the letter R. "My favorite thing to practice was the song 'Aaron Burr, Sir' from Hamilton because it is jam-packed with R's. And I said, 'if I can keep up with Leslie in this track, then I am on my way to being able to say this R in a poem.'"

And she included a couple references to Hamilton in the poem today! Neat that it's become a cultural touchstone for political stuff. (I did not have "Hamilton" growing up but I also struggled with R, among other letters, so it was great to see that part of her story. Apparently she and Biden had not discussed their speech impediments as of pre-inauguration, but maybe today?) The stylistic turns of "we won't do this, instead we will do that" even reminded me of the book of Psalms, a little.

Go, Amanda!
isis: (politics)

[personal profile] isis 2021-01-20 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)
I loved her performance and her poem, and also noted the consonance of her having had a speech impediment - I actually was amazed that she and Biden hadn't noted that before! I also heard that LMM tweeted that he'd noticed the call-outs and loved her work.