Of "poetry and power," Robert Frost and his inaugural successors have thought big
On that uplifting day of January 20, someone near and dear to me texted for my opinion of Amanda Gorman causes sensation with "The Hill We Climb" Amanda Gorman' s performance of her poem at the Inauguration, and what I thought of "The Hill We Climb" itself. I replied that it suited the occasion, yet seemed too oratorical for my taste. I became more aware of its integrity and skill as poetry once I saw the text: The tone is well-measured, intense, and appealing, and the rhymes (ranging from true rhymes through "slant"or para-rhymes, to assonance [matching vowel sounds]) ring out, sometimes in close-order drill, sometimes more spread out. There's alliteration and the line parallelism known in rhetoric as anaphora. But oratory still seems the main category of discourse in which Gorman's poem takes its historic place. And of course her delivery and poise — her very presence — displayed mastery, a splendor that amounted to more than her bright yello...
