National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman reads her work, “An American Lyric,” at the inaugural reading of Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at the Library of Congress, September 13, 2017. Photo credit: Shawn Miller / Library of Congress
Who Is Amanda Gorman?
In case you’re a bit clueless, Amanda Gorman is the young female poet who read at Joe Biden’s inauguration. At 22, her style and poise attracted a lot of attention. The trouble, no disrespect intended to Mrs. Obama or to Oprah, is the actual poem. Take the poem away from the moment of delivery and look at the actual text, critiques Melanie McDonagh in the Spectator, and ‘The Hill We Climb’ turns out, I think, to be just a bit rubbish.” The whole thing – structurally, grammatically – didn’t make sense.
This past Tuesday, Amanda lamented that her poem had been banned by a Florida school library, Cockburn reports in the Spectator.
America’s 1 National Youth Poet Laureate:
“Just found out my inaugural poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ has been banned from an elementary school in Miami-Dade County because it causes “confusion and indoctrination.”
Before you get your party dress all ruffled up, hold on, advises Cockburn.
Instead, according to the Miami-Dade school district, “The Hill We Climb” was moved from the elementary section of the library to the middle-school section.
No Literature Has Been Banned
From the Miami/Dade School District:
“It was determined at the school that ‘The Hill We Climb’ is better suited for middle-school students and, it was shelved in the middle-school section of the media center. The book remains available in the media center.”
The Media Fact Checks Itself
Naturally, shares Cockburn, the media responded to Gorman’s ban claim “by checking how true it was before regurgitating it… just kidding!”
Like his comrades in the media, Cockburn is upset about the parent’s complaint. But the true threat from Gordon’s poetry isn’t that it will make our children hate America but that it will make them love bad poetry.
Seriously, have you read “The Hill We Climb?” It’s like slam poetry without any of the excitement. As The Spectator’s Melanie McDonagh wrote upon its release, it’s tough to try “to make the whole thing cohere, structurally and grammatically — and in terms of sense.”
Amanda Gorman Doubles Down on “Ban”
“A school book ban is any action taken against a book that leaves access to a book restricted or diminished. This decision of moving my book from its original place, taken after one parent complained, diminishes the access elementary schoolers would have previously had to my poem.”
Cockburn, however, is not dispirited. He has hope that, in the future, “America’s favorite wordsmith can find the proper words to express her victimization.”
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