For anyone who believes poetry is stuffy or elitist, Amanda Gorman — the youngest inaugural poet in US history — has some characteristically well-chosen words. Poetry is for everyone, she says, and at its core it’s all about connection and collaboration. In this fierce talk and performance, she explains why poetry is inherently political, pays homage to her honorary ancestors and stresses the value of speaking out despite your fears. “Poetry has never been the language of barriers,” Gorman says. “It’s always been the language of bridges.”
詩が息苦しい、あるいはエリート主義的だと信じている人にとって、米国史上最年少の就任詩人であるアマンダ・ゴーマンには、特徴的によく選ばれた言葉がいくつかある。
詩はすべての人のためのものであり、その核心はすべてつながりとコラボレーションである、と彼女は言います。 この激しいトークとパフォーマンスの中で、彼女は詩が本質的に政治的である理由を説明し、名誉ある先祖に敬意を表し、恐れにもかかわらず声を上げることの価値を強調します。 「詩は決して障壁となる言語ではありませんでした」とゴーマンは言う。 「それは常に橋の言語でした。」
| タイトル | Using your voice is a political choice 自分の声を使うことは政治的選択です |
| スピーカー | アマンダ・ゴーマン |
| アップロード | 2021/01/20 |
自分の声を使うことは政治的選択です（Using your voice is a political choice）の要約
質問とマントラによる自己強化
- 詩のワークショップでは「誰の肩に立っているのか」「何のために立っているのか」という質問から始める。著者は自分を強化するために、祖先に敬意を表すマントラを唱えている。
詩の力とアクセス可能性
- 詩はすべての人に開かれており、橋を作る言語である。詩は人々の言葉であり、政治的な力を持つ。
詩の政治性
- 詩は、語る物語、語るタイミング、語り方の3つの点で政治的である。詩人は歴史を通じて社会運動や変革の原因と結びついている。
詩と民主主義の関係
- 詩は国や世界の最も重要な問いに関わるものであり、正しい答えを持つことではなく、重要な問いをすることが詩の役割である。
詩人としての責任
- 著者は、自分の言葉が独自のものであり、恐れずに勇気を持って物語を語ることの重要性を理解している。彼女は、先人たちの物語を引き継ぎ、未来に新たな物語を書き込む責任を感じている。
文字起こし
I have two questions for you. One, whose shoulders do you stand on?
And two, what do you stand for? These are two questions that I always begin my poetry workshops with students because at times poetry can seem like this dead art form for like old white men who just seem like they were born to be old like you know Benjamin Button or something.
And I ask my students these two questions and then I share how I answer them, which is in these three sentences that go: “I am the daughter of black writers, we’re descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.” And these are words I repeat in a mantra before every single poetry performance. In fact, I was like doing it in the corner over there, I was like making faces. Um, and so I repeat them to myself as a way to gather myself because I’m not sure if you know but public speaking is pretty terrifying. Um, I know I’m on stage and I have my heels, I look all glam but I’m horrified.
And the way in which I kind of strengthen myself is by having this mantra. Most of my life I was particularly terrified of speaking up because I had a speech impediment which made it difficult to pronounce certain letters sounds and I felt like I was fine writing on the page. Once I got on stage, I was worried my words might jumble and stumble. What was the point in trying not to mumble these thoughts in my head if everything’s already been said before?
But finally, I had a moment of realization where I thought if I choose not to speak out of fear, then there’s no one that my silence is standing for. And so I came to realize that I cannot stand standing to the side, standing silent. I must find the strength to speak up. And one of the ways I do that is through this mantra where I call back to what I call honorary ancestors. These are people who might not be related to you by blood or by birth but who are more than worth saying their names because you stand on the shoulders all the same. And it’s only from the height of these shoulders that we might have the sight to see the mighty power of poetry, the power of language made accessible.
Accessible poetry is interesting because not everyone is going to become a great poet, but anyone can be and anyone can enjoy poetry. And it’s this openness, this accessibility of poetry that makes it the language of people. Poetry has never been the language of barriers; it’s always been the language of bridges. And it’s this connection-making that makes poetry yes powerful, but also makes it political.
One of the things that irritates me to no end is when I get that phone call, and it’s usually from a white man, and he’s like, “Man, Amanda, we love your poetry. We’d love to get you to write a poem about this subject, but don’t make it political.” Which to me sounds like I have to draw a square but not make it a rectangle, or like build a car and not make it a vehicle. It doesn’t make much sense because all art is political. The decision to create, the artistic choice to have a voice, the choice to be heard is the most political act of all.
And by political, I mean poetry is political at least three ways: one, what stories we tell; two, when we’re telling them; and three, how we’re telling them. If we’re telling them.
Why we’re telling them says so much about the political beliefs we have, about what types of stories matter. Secondly, who gets to have those stories told? I’m talking about who is legally allowed to read, who has the resources to be able to write, who are we reading in our classrooms. Says a lot about the political and educational systems that all these stories and storytellers exist in. Lastly, poetry is political because it’s preoccupied with people. If you look in history, notice that tyrants often go after the poets and the creatives first. They burn books, they try to get rid of poetry in the language arts because they’re terrified of them. Poets have this phenomenal potential to connect the beliefs of the private individual with the cause of change of the public, the population, the polity, the political movement. And when you leave here, I really want you to try to hear the ways in which poetry is actually at the center of our most political questions about what it means to be a democracy.
Maybe later you’re going to be at a protest and someone’s gonna have a poster that says “they buried us but they didn’t know we were seeds.” That’s poetry. You might be in your U.S. history class and your teacher may play a video of Martin Luther King Jr. saying “we will be able to hew out of this mountain of despair a stone of hope.” That’s poetry. Or maybe even here in New York City, you’re going to go visit the Statue of Liberty where there’s a sonnet that declares, “as Americans give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” So you see, when someone asks me to write a poem that’s not political, what they’re really asking me is to not ask charged and challenging questions in my poetic work. And that does not work because poetry is always at the pulse of the most dangerous and the most daring questions that a nation or world might face. What path do we stand on as a people, and what future as a people do we stand for?
And the thing about poetry is that it’s not really about having the right answers. It’s about asking these right questions about what it means to be a writer doing right by your words and your actions. And my reaction is to pay honor to those shoulders of people who use those pens to roll over boulders so I might have a mountain of hope on which to stand, so that I might understand the power of telling stories that matter, no matter what. So that I might realize that if I choose not out of fear, but out of courage to speak, then there’s something unique that my words can become. And all of a sudden, that fear that my words may jumble and stumble goes away as I’m humbled by the thoughts of thousands of stories a long time coming that I know are strumming inside me. As I celebrate those people in their time who stood up so this little black girl could find, as I celebrate and call their names all the same. These people who seemed like they were just born to be bold. Maya Angelou and Ozaki Shanghai, Phyllis Wheatley, Lucille Clifton, Gwendolyn Brooks, Joan Wicks, Audrey Lord, and so many more. It might feel like every story has been told before, but the truth is, no one’s ever told my story in the way I would tell it. As the daughter of black writers who were descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world, they call me, I call them. And one day I’ll write a story right by writing it into tomorrow on this earth more than worth standing for.