Amanda Gorman. Anyone who’s interested in literature and poetry today is talking about her, the Afro-American poet who read at President Biden’s inauguration. All American feminists have elected her as a new idol. Just as she became an idol of the Obamas and of all the major Democrat charachters of the poltically correct drama.
And to me – maybe because I read the Bible – idols scare a lot. Especially when they are built with specific purposes.
To understand what is behind Amanda Gorman just read what she writes. Political, strongly militant, divisive words, belonging to a single faction. Some rarefied poetic reference.
Let’s see for example what she read at the inauguration of President Biden:
THE HILL WE CLIMB (by Amanda Gorman)
When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true: That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried. That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith, we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves. So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’ We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain: If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left. With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the golden hills of the west. We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked south. We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover. In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country, our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.
It’s always hard to tell whati s or isn’t poetry. This is certainly a political speech, seasoned with some images taken from Walt Whitman and other American poets.
On the other hand, Amanda Gorman expressly declares it: she wants to be president. Her ambition is political. And hers is a simple political speech, a speech addressed to half the Americans, those who vote Democrats.
She defines, biblically “the belly of the beast” the Trump presidency. Which (the reference is really obvious) “would destroy our country”.
In some places it seems a celebratory poem of a battle: “Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division”. But the subject of the verb is not “America”, this battle was not fought by the nation. But only by a part of it against another part.
So why should we call poetry her first public speech as a political militant who wants to be president?
The content of her words
The content, if analyzed, even in its simplicity is frighteningly ideological. It starts from the usual egalitarism:
“we must first put our differences aside”
as if the differences were the enemy to be broken down. Dogma number one of the politically correct. To which Amanda Gorman seems to adhere fully. Those who do not believe in the politically correct think that if this wants to be an era of peace, it cannot be based on a lie – that is, that differences do not exist – but on the truth, that is, that there are differences and the human challenge is to make them live together.
“It’s the past we step into and how we repair it”.
The idea of rewriting the past is a central theme for the radical fringes of politically correct thinking. As with any “single thought”. Let us not forget that in the United States the statues of Christopher Columbus or other figures of the past, branded, with the ideological filter of today, as “racists” or “sexist”, are demolished. That is, yes, terrifying. these people didn’t even read Orwell.
“This is the era of just redemption”, defined as “a terrifying hour”.
But what does that really mean? A further reference to the cultural revolution with which the American politically correct thinking is rewriting history and human identity? What’s Amanda Gorman going to mean with that “terrifying”?
She tells us what will be: “A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce”.
Fierce. Like those who burned the country down before the elections? Or like those who entered the palaces of institutions? What should we expect from the United States?
And she adds: “We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation”.
Amanda Gorman reminded me of the Khalisi, Daenerys Targaryen of Games of Thrones. She convinced all of us at the beginning with her bleeding heart slogans so easy to understand. We know how it ended.
I, sincerely, from this Amanda Gorman and her so blind, superficial and partisan “ferocity” of the words she writes I am simply terrified.