The Rising Series

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The Rising Series

1916 - 2021

The Rising Series

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The Rising Series

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The Rising Series A series of poems written by Amanda Gorman, Maya Angelou and Carl Sandburg; book designed by Seb Lansdowne.

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The Rising Series

Preface

Preface

The rising series is part of a wider work, by Seb Lansdowne, UWE Bristol Graphic Design, documenting inspirational poetry and linking it to current events. The series doesn’t dwell on the past or relish reliving the things we have seen it focuses on how we can use these events to move forward, how we can grow and become better because that is what is actually important, not what happened but how we respond to it.

This part of the series is a selection of poems surrounding the same theme, they all have different stimulus and come from very different periods of time but they all contain the same call to action. They have been pulled together now to give some emphasis to the opportunity we hold, in this moment as the COVID-19 pandemic starts to subside and we emerge the other side of catastrophe, we have had the time to reflect on ourselves, to reflect on our society and the direction in which we are headed.

And now is when our opportunity comes.

Now we can implement the change. Now we have to be the change.

These poems perfectly illustrate that point, they give you, the reader, the power to go forth and to do that, to make the change we need to see in the world, to document the stories from the past to inspire our future. Read their words and feel their rhythm these words can bind to your soul and become your way of living.

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The Hill We Climb Amanda Gorman

The Hill We Climb

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Bac kgro und “The Hill We Climb” is a poem written by Amanda Gorman and then recited on stage at the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021. The poem was written in the weeks following the 2020 United States presidential election, with significant passages written on the night of January 6, 2021, in response to the storming of the United States Capitol.

Gorman was twenty-two years old when she recited the poem, making her the youngest inaugural poet in US history.

Amanda Gorman is from Los Angeles, California. In 2017, aged 19, she was named the first National Youth Poet Laureate. On January 14, 2021, the Inaugural Committee, which was organizing the inauguration of Joe Biden, announced that Gorman would be giving a poetry reading at the event on January 20. Gorman said that she began to write the poem in early January by reviewing poems written by past inaugural poets, who have included Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. She also studied famous orators such as Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., and Winston Churchill.

Gorman also actually spoke with Richard Blanco and Elizabeth Alexander, previous inaugural poets.

Gorman was informed of her selection on December 30, 2020, and asked to write a poem that contributed to the inauguration’s overall theme of “America United”, but without any other direction. Gorman wrote several lines a day, and had the poem around half completed when the storming of the United States Capitol occurred on January 6.

Gorman told The New York Times that she had been struggling to complete the poem and worrying about whether it would be adequate. In an interview with CBS News, she said that the storming marked “the day that the poem really came to life” as she worked the events into it. Gorman finished the poem on the night of January 6.

The poem was written to call for “unity and collaboration and togetherness” among the American people and to emphasize the opportunity that the future holds. Gorman’s writing was widely praised for its message, phrasing, and delivery. Critics generally considered the reciting one of the highlights of the inauguration. Many felt that the poem represented a call for unity and would remain relevant beyond the inauguration.

Gorman drew large amounts of attention, particularly on social media, after the poem’s recitation and two upcoming books by Gorman topped best seller lists.

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I The Rising Series

Washington DC

The Hill We Climb

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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.

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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.

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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.

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II The Rising Series

Capitol Hill

The Hill We Climb

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, 15.

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, colours, 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.

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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.

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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.

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III The Rising Series

National Mall

The Hill We Climb

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree 30.

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

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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.

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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 45.

on us.

This is the era of just redemption.

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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?’

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IV The Rising Series

White House Grounds

The Hill We Climb

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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 55.

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.

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Lincoln Memorial + Memorial Gardens

The Hill We Climb

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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.

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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 mid-western 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 70.

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.

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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.

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White House Lincoln Memorial + Memorial Gardens

National Mall

US Capitol

Washington DC

The Hill We Climb

Breakdo wn Gorman makes use of several literary devices in ‘The Hill We Climb.’ These include but are not limited to anaphora, enjambment, and allusion. The latter is one of the most important devices in the poem. It occurs when the poet makes a reference to something but doesn’t clearly describe it. In this piece, she alludes to the struggles America, and the world, faced in 2020, as well as the broader issues associated with the Trump presidency (and the longer history of the country). Enjambment is a common formal device that occurs when the poet cuts of a line before its natural stopping point.

Anaphora is a type of repetition that occurs when the poet uses the same word or words at the beginning of multiple lines of text. For example, “Somehow” as well as “That even as we”.

The hill is at the heart of Gorman’s inaugural poem. It features in the title and is part of every line she recited. It symbolizes the hill that the United States is currently climbing, socially and politically, and how far the country still has to go before it reaches the top of the hill. ‘The Hill We Climb’ mentions, as other inaugural poems have described before hers, that America is not a perfect country. It might arrive there eventually, but for now, everyone has to work together to ensure the country gets where it needs to be–a place of harmony where all people are valued and taken care of.

Although perhaps out of reach in the contemporary moment, unity is the final goal that ‘The Hill We Climb’ advocates for. Eventually, Gorman suggests, America will be able to come together as one people. Different races and religions will be accepted and celebrated for their individuality rather than singled out for it.

Light is a very common symbol in inaugural poems. It can be found within the first and last lines of ‘The Hill We Climb’ and is always contrasted with darkness. Light takes on the traditional symbol of hope, a new day, and peace while dark symbolizes suffering and the mistakes of the past. Gorman uses passages to depict America stepping out of the dark and into the light. Such as the following lines found at the end of the poem: When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid. […]

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.’

Depicting the American people as the light and hope of the future. If everyone listening to her read ‘The Hill We Climb,’ and all those who aren’t can address their differences.

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And, Still I Rise Maya Angelou

And, Still I Rise

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Bac kgro und Like much of Angelou’s work, Still, I Rise contains references to her own life and history, female sexuality, hope, and the struggle of African American people for freedom.

Angelou herself noted in a 1997 interview that she resorted to it during adverse times.

She described it as “a poem of mine that is very popular in the country. And a number of people use it. A lot of black people and a lot of white people use it.”

Written in 1978 it came at a time where race was still very prominent in holding people of colour back in America but it is still relevant today, in the just ended Trump presidency Trump himself started off chants about sitting US congress women, lhan Omar, a Somali refugee. At the rally, the president accused Omar of supporting Islamic terrorism and having no regard for America. “Send her back!” the crowd supporters chanted. Eerily similar to the chants for Hillary Clinton of “lock her up!”. In response to the incident Omar tweeted a section of Angelou’s poem: “You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

The words of the African-American author seem to be particularly fitting to Omar’s plight. The chants echoed Trump’s suggestion earlier this week that she and three other congresswomen of color known as “the squad” “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” The president has accused Omar of being an al Qaeda fan, anti-Semitic, and disparaging of US troops. He even resurfaced dispelled allegations that she married her brother in a visa fraud.

Angelou’s writing is much more extensive than just ‘Still I Rise’ though, it spans 36 titles and 45 years following the publication of her first book, she has unabashedly and eloquently brought to light the horrific realities of racism and sexism. Her poems showcase a real sense of confidence, resilience, and hope. Undoubtedly Angelou has influenced many of the greats, including Amanda Gorman, who even wore a ring to the inauguration of Joe Biden to honor Angelou.

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I The Rising Series

Minneapolis

And, Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

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With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, 5.

like dust,

I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

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‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

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II The Rising Series

Hennepin County Courthouse

And, Still I Rise

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Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

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Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

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You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air,

I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

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Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

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III The Rising Series

George Floyd Autonomous Square

And, Still I Rise

Out of the huts of history’s shame

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I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

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I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

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I rise

I rise

I rise.

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The Rising Series

Hennepin County Courthouse

Lakewood Cemetry

George Floyd Autonomous Square

Minneapolis

And, Still I Rise

Breakdo wn “Still I Rise” presents the bold defiance of the speaker, implied to be a black woman, in the face of oppression. This oppressor, addressed throughout as “you,” is full of “bitter, twisted lies” and “hatefulness” toward the speaker, and hopes to see the speaker “broken” in both body and spirit. However, despite all the methods of the oppressor to “shoot,” “cut,” or “kill” her, the speaker remains defiant by continuing to “rise” in triumph.

Angelou was a staunch civil rights activist, and “Still I Rise” can be taken as a powerful statement specifically against anti-black racism in America. At the same time, its celebration of dignity in the face of oppression feels universal, and can be applied to any circumstance in which a marginalized person refuses to be broken by—and, indeed, repeatedly rises above—prejudice and hatred.

Society relentlessly tries to humiliate and demean the speaker, who has little power to fight back. The speaker acknowledges that society “may” enact violence upon her.

It also has the ability to write “lies” about the speaker and present them as facts. The speaker does not have the ability to prevent any of this, and, in fact, the attempts to harm the speaker only escalate as the poem continues. This “you” may crush the speaker into the dirt; it may “shoot,” “cut,” and eventually even “kill” the speaker with “hatefulness.” An oppressive society, the poem is saying, presents a clear and pressing danger to the speaker’s body and mind.

Yet the speaker responds to this treatment not only by surviving, but by thriving— something that provokes anger from her oppressor. The speaker wonders—her tone tongue-in-cheek—why the oppressor is so “upset,” “offend[ed],” and “gloom[y].” Perhaps, she proposes, it is because of her confident “walk,” generous “laugh[ter],” or dazzling “dance.” In other words, the speaker presents her joy—her refusal to bend to the speaker’s will—as its own act of defiance. Moreover, all of her acts are associated with traditional signs of wealth in the form of “oil,” “gold,” and “diamonds.”

Regardless of the oppressor’s negative and hateful responses, the speaker continues to prosper. The speaker even explicitly rejects the oppressor’s desire to “see [her] broken.”

The oppressor wants to elicit “lowered eyes,” “teardrops,” and “soulful cries” from the speaker, to see her downtrodden. Thus simply living with joy, pride, and dignity is an act of resistance against and triumph over oppression.

The message of this poem resonates with many, not matter their colour or creed, this shows the power of writers such as Angelou. Even nearly 20 years after her death and 50 after this poem was written it can still inspire us to rise above improve ourselves and society.

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I Am the People, the Mob Carl Sandburg

And, Still I Rise

1916

Bac kgro und Poet Carl Sandburg was born into a poor family in Galesburg, Illinois. In his youth, he worked many odd jobs before serving in the 6th Illinois Infantry in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War. He studied at Lombard College, and then moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he worked as an organizer for the Socialist Democratic Party. In 1913, he moved to Chicago, Illinois and wrote for the Chicago Daily News. His first poems were published by Harriet Monroe in Poetry magazine.

“Trying to write briefly about Carl Sandburg,” said a friend of the poet, “is like trying to picture the Grand Canyon in one black and white snapshot.” His range of interests was enumerated by his close friend, Harry Golden, who, in his study of the poet, called Sandburg “the one American writer who distinguished himself in five fields—poetry, history, biography, fiction, and music.”

Sandburg composed his poetry primarily in free verse. Concerning rhyme versus nonrhyme Sandburg once said airily, “If it jells into free verse, all right. If it jells into rhyme, all right.” Some critics noted that the illusion of poetry in his works was based more on the arrangement of the lines than on the lines themselves. Sandburg, aware of the criticism, wrote in the preface to Complete Poems (1950), “There is a formal poetry only in form, all dressed up and nowhere to go. The number of syllables, the designated and required stresses of accent, the rhymes if wanted—they all come off with the skill of a solved crossword puzzle. ... The fact is ironic. A proficient and sometimes exquisite performer in rhymed verse goes out of his way to register the point that the more rhyme there is in poetry the more danger of its tricking the writer into something other than the urge in the beginning.” He dismissed modern poetry, however, as “a series of ear wigglings.” In Good Morning, America (1928), he published 38 definitions of poetry, among them: “Poetry is a pack-sack of invisible keepsakes. Poetry is a sky dark with a wild-duck migration.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.” His success as a poet was limited to that of a follower of Walt Whitman and of the Imagists. In Carl Sandburg, Karl Detzer says that in 1918 “admirers proclaimed him a latter-day Walt Whitman; objectors cried that their sixyear-old daughters could write better poetry.”

Admirers of his poetry, however, have included Sherwood Anderson (“among all the poets of America he is my poet”), and Amy Lowell, who called Chicago Poems (1916) “one of the most original books this age has produced.” Lowell’s observations were reiterated by H.L. Mencken, who called Sandburg “a true original, his own man.” No one, it is agreed, can deny the unique quality of his style. In his newspaper days, an old friend recalls, the slogan was, “Print Sandburg as is.”

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I The Rising Series

Bristol, Eng

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I am the people

the mob

the crowd the mass.

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II The Rising Series

Colston Plinth

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Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman,

the inventor,

the maker of the world’s food and clothes.

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I am the audience that witnesses history.

The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns.

They die.

And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground.

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I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.

Terrible storms pass over me.

I forget.

The best of me is sucked out and wasted.

I forget.

Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.

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And I forget.

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III The Rising Series

Bristol Harbour

When I,

the People, learn to remember,

When I,

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the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget

who robbed me last year,

who played me for a fool

then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,”

with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or

any far-off smile of derision.

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The mob, the crowd, the mass, will arrive then.

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The Rising Series

Bristol Police Station

Colston’s Plinth

College Green

Bristol Harbour

Bristol, Eng

Breakdo wn The main idea of the poem is to bring into highlight the importance of the working class of Chicago. He explains that all the great work circulated in the city is not the attempt of leaders, it is the collective workload that falls on the part of the working class.

The poem is a workforce anthem to realise the mob of its honest and hardworking nature and to praise all the things they can achieve. Sandburg tries to engage the masses through literature so that people can feel involved in the revolutionary phase of industrialisation. The masses go through various problems to gather for a decent livelihood. They struggle for enough money, a house, food and other necessities while they also become the production base of these things. The history, present, and future depend on the appraisal of the masses. The future generations must not forget the blood our ancestors have shed to provide them a comfortable future.

Sandburg’s style is mostly written in free verse so the main technique used is anaphora, is the repetition of a clause to enhance an emphasis on a particular idea. Here “I forget” in the lines 7-10, deliver that the mass never seeks an appreciation note from poets.

Sandburg has taken a moment to thank the honest and hardworking workforce of the city. They patiently wait for a change to take place in their lives, a breakthrough which never seems to come. Their contribution in the history is unrecognised but soon they will be appreciated for their hard work. They form a collective strength which can shut down any mocking remark made towards them.

‘I am the People, The Mob’ reinforces the need for collective action, it shows that this the way change is made and the way progress happens. Sandburg also really stresses the importance of learning lessons from the past through the line “When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year”.

This poem fits so well with the action seen in Bristol over the last year, the city is no stranger to protest and the people recognise their collective power. They know that if they come together they can really show people how they feel, this is what happened when the protest marched from college green through the city centre to the Colston statue, pulled it down and dragged it through the streets to the harbour where Colston’s slave ships docked. This symbolic action sparked this same realisation across he globe and dozens of statues began to be pulled down or removed. Sandburgs words show us this too.

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