How was the poem?

Elizabeth Alexander delivers for President Obama.

Topics: War Room,

It was wonderful. Amid the grand pageantry, Elizabeth Alexander evoked the individual, without blatant symbolism, every politician’s favorite ploy, and her Inauguration Day poem was all the more powerful for it.

Its simple images — “Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire” — were as pungent as Jacob Lawrence’s paintings of the black Diaspora from the South, and every bit as moving. Yes, she carried the big theme of black America’s struggle, but carried it lightly. With a black president about to call the White House home, she conjured the “dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce.”

After Obama’s ministerial eloquence, her reading, stressing the poem’s meter, may have seemed choppy to some. Not true. That’s how poetry works, distinguishes itself from prose, from preaching. In her rhythmic delivery, her images held. (Not that the TV cameramen had a clue. They blunted the poem’s impact by constantly taking the camera off Alexander and scanning the uninterested crowd.) I guess I wish Alexander didn’t veer off her dirt roads into an exposition of love in the end, where she seemed to spin her tires in sentimentality. But I heard her faint echo of Walt Whitman nonetheless.

Yet the poem’s end quickly fades and what remains are two images that capture the promise of the new president with indelible beauty. “A farmer considers the changing sky/ A teacher says, ‘Take out your pencils, begin.’”

Kevin Berger

Kevin Berger is the former features editor at Salon.

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Gripping photos: The people of the Turkey protests (slideshow)

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  • The protests take on a festive element as police forces move out of the park and square. Wearing a gas mask, this young man dances to traditional Turkish music in front of Taksim Square’s Ataturk Monument.

  • In Gezi Park since March 31st, this protester, originally caught off-guard by the Government’s teargas and water cannons, went out and bought a Russian army mask from WWII, preparing for what was to come.

  • This rambunctious boy seems to be enjoying the chaos. After taking this picture he threw a stone at the already destroyed building in the background.

  • Forming a line, the police face off directly with protesters in Taksim Square. After a while, they retreated and there was a general cheer – a back-and-forth dance that has been common since the beginning of this protest.

  • An elderly woman in Gezi Park reads the news. The tent community occupying the park was violently destroyed on June 16th.

  • Many different groups had set up booths to promote their cause in Taksim Square and Gezi Park. Standing in front of one, this man waves his flag while posing with conviction.

  • Many home-remedies are used to minimize the effects of tear gas. This woman has put a milky solution on her face, removing her mask after the tear gas dissipated. Before sunrise, the police came again for another round of teargasing.

  • People capitalize on the uprising -- selling flags, beer, gas masks, sky lanterns and spray paint to name just a few of the popular items.

  • On Monday morning, June 11, the police execute a strong offensive. Many plain-clothed police officers, like the ones seen here, clash with protesters in the side streets away from the main stand-off in Taksim.

  • The authorities seem to be most aggressive in the night, pushing protesters away from the square and park. After being teargassed this young woman catches her breath with other protesters on Siraselviler Street.

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