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Politics and Poetry
M.Horrigan
Lesson objectives:
3 Can write essays synthesising information from one or more sources.
8 Can embed quotations and paraphrases appropriately.
11 Can compare key concepts by different authors.
20 Can provide references for academic sources.
Subsidiary aims:
Split reading
Oral summaries
Materials:
The student texts of Amanda Gorman and The Hill we climb
Oral exam version of the above texts for self-study
The Harvard system of referencing document below
Ultimate-Citation-Ch
eat-Sheet.pdf
Access to board/projector/video conferencing software with screenshare and BOR
Procedure
1. Show the students the image of AG
2. Do they know who she is/why she is famous?
3. Students discuss in PW/GW
4. Random FB
5. Divide the students into 2 groups
6. Allocate a text per group
7. READ THE TEXT AND SEE IF YOU WERE RIGHT
8. Check w/peers
9. READ THE TEXT AND IDENTIFY THE KEY INFORMATION
10. Check w/peers
11. PREPARE AN ORAL SUMMARY FOR OTHER GROUP
12. PW from opposite groups for information exchange
13. TAKE NOTES WHILE LISTENING
14. READ YOUR PARTNER’S TEXT AND ADD TO YOUR NOTES
15. LOOK AT THE REFERENCES IN TEXT AND IN THE LIST. WHAT RULES CAN YOU STATE FOR REFERENCING IN
TEXT AND CREATING THE REFERENCE LIST BASED ON THE EXAMPLES PROVIDED?
16. Look at the reference lists on both texts and decide which type of citation is present in each case.
17. With your partner find 2 different sources online that discuss the importance of Amanda Gorman’s poem.
18. Share these with the other students being careful to provide full references.
19. Write 350-400 words on ‘Politics and Poetry’ making reference to at least four these new sources in text and
in a clear reference list.
20. This task is to be presented in office hours only.
M.Horrigan 2021 Politics and Poetry-Citations 1M.Horrigan 2021 Politics and Poetry-Citations 2
Harvard system of Referencing
In the body of a text
Information 1 Author 2-3 Authors 4+ Authors No Author
Needed
Author, year, Mitchell (2017, p. Mitchell, Smith and Mitchell et al (2017, p. 189) states… Use the organisation responsible or the the
page 189) states... Thomson (2017, p. 189) states… Or title in italics:
number(s) Or Or (Mitchell ( A guide to citation , 2017, pp. 189-201)
(Mitchell, 2017, p. (Mitchell, Coyne and et al, 2017, p, 189)
189) Thomson, 2017, p. 189)
In the reference list (always presented on a new page)
How to cite Template Example
a(n)…
Book Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year Published) Title . Edition. Place of Mitchell, J.A. and Thomson, M. (2017) A guide to citation .3 rd edn.
publication: publisher. London: London Publishing.
Edited Book Editor surname(s), initial(s). (eds.) (Year Published). Title . Edition. Place William, S.T. (eds.) (2015) Referencing: a guide to citation rules . New York:
of publication: publishers My Publisher
a Chapter from Author names. (Year published). ‘Title of chapter’ in editor(s) Troy B.N. (2015) ‘Harvard citation rules’ in Williams, S.T. (ed.) A guide to
surname, initials (ed(s).) Title of book . Edition. Place of publication: citation rules . New York: NY Publishers, pp. 34-89.
an Edited Book publisher, page numbers.
E-Book Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year published). Title . Edition. Name of e- Mitchell, J.A., Thomson, M. and Coyne, R.P. (2017) A guide to citation .
book collection [online]. Available at: URL or DOI (Accessed: day month E-book library [online]. Available at:
year). https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager
M.Horrigan 2021 Politics and Poetry-Citations 1(Accessed: 10 September 2016)
Journal Article Print Reference: Author names. (year) ‘Title of article’, Title, Mitchell, J.A. ‘How citation changed the research worls’, The Mendeley ,
volume(issue/season etc), page numbers. 62(9), p70-81.
Online Reference: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of article’, Mitchell, J.A. ‘How citation changed the research worls’, The Mendeley ,
Title of journal , volume(issue/season) [online]. Available at: 62(9) [online]. Available at:
URL or DOI (Accessed: day month year) https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager
(Accessed: 15 November 2016)
Newspaper Print Reference: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year) ‘Article Title’, Mitchell, J.A. (2017) ‘Changes to citation formats shake the research
Newspaper Title (edition), day month, world’,
Article page number(s). The Mendeley Telegraph (Weekend edition), 6 July, pp.9-12.
Online Reference: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year) ‘Article Title’, Mitchell, J.A. (2017) ‘Changes to citation formats shake the research
Newspaper Title (edition), day month [online]. Available at: URL or world’,
DOI (Accessed: day month year) The Mendeley Telegraph (Weekend edition), 6 July [online]. Available at:
https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager
(Accessed: 15 November 2016)
Magazine Print Reference: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year) ‘Article Title’, Mitchell, J.A. (2017) ‘How Citation Changed the Research World’, The
Magazine Title (edition), day month, Mendeley , 6 July, pp.70-81.
Article page number(s).
Online Reference: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year) ‘Article Title’, Mitchell, J.A. (2017) ‘How Citation Changed the Research World’, The
Magazine Title (edition), day month [online]. Available at: URL or DOI Mendeley , 6 July [online]. Available at:
(Accessed: day month year) https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager
(Accessed: 15 November 2016)
Image Photographer’s surname, initial. (Year of publication) Title of Millais, J.E. (1851-1852) Ophelia [online]. Available at:
photograph [online]. Available at: URL (Accessed: day month year) www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506 (Accessed: 21 June
2014)
Film Title of film (Year of distribution) Directed by director's name Rear Window (1954) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Film]. Los Angeles:
[format]. Place of distribution: Distribution Company. Paramount Pictures.
A TV show ‘Title of episode’ (Year of transmission) Title of TV show , Series #, ‘Fly’ (2010) Breaking Bad , Series 2, episode 10. AMC, 23 May 2010.
episode #. Name of channel or streaming service, day month of
M.Horrigan 2021 Politics and Poetry-Citations 2transmission.
Music Artist name (Year of publication) Title of album [format] Place of Beyonce (2016) Lemonade [Visual Album] New York: Parkwood
distribution: distribution company. Available at: URL (Accessed: day Records. Available at:
month year) https://www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/
(Accessed: 17 February 2016).
Full website Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year of publishing). Title of site Mitchell, J.A and Thomson, M. (2017). How and when to reference [Online].
[Online]. Available at: URL (Accessed: day month year). Available at: https://www.howandwhentoreference.com/APAcitation
(Accessed: 21 August 2017).
Blog post Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year of publishing). Title of post [Blog] Defeo, C. (2017). New webinar on research careers [Blog] Mendeley blog .
Blog title . Available at: URL (Accessed: day Available at:
month year). https://blog.mendeley.com/2017/08/04/new-webinar-on-research-careers
/ (Accessed: 21 August 2017).
Tweet Twitter handle. (Year of publishing). Text of tweet [Twitter]. Day Mendeley_com. (2017). We applauded our final @pintofscience talk & feeling sad.
month tweet was published on. Available at: URL (Accessed: day But we literally zoomed from #atomstogalaxies and it was a perfect finale
month year). [Twitter]. 17 May. Available at:
https://twitter.com/mendeley_com/status/864947989797896194
(Accessed: 21 August 2017).
Facebook post Author surname, initial OR group username. (Year of publishing). Mendeley. (2017). The pressure is always on for researchers to fund their
Text of post [Facebook]. Day month post was published on. Available research careers [Facebook] . 16 May. Available at:
at: URL (Accessed: day month year). https://www.facebook.com/mendeley/photos/a.10150156999648611.2916
08.42920143610/10154866770358611/?type=3 (Accessed: 21 August 2017).
Online user Username. (Year posted). Title [Online video]. Day month posted. Mendeley. (2014). Getting started with Mendeley [Online video]. 3 April.
Available at: URL (Accessed: day month year). Available at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv6_HuCYExM
video (Accessed: 21 August 2017).
© Adapted from Mendeley ‘Ultimate citation cheat sheet
M.Horrigan 2021 Politics and Poetry-Citations 3Amanda Gorman
At the end of a political era defined by half-truths, insults and capped by a failed insurrection, poet Amanda Gorman used
her words to heal. Her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb” was a poignant recognition of the pain of America’s past —
particularly its most immediate past — and the promise of its future. Wearing a bright-yellow coat and standing in front of a
Capitol that just two weeks prior was overrun by enraged and radicalized Trump supporters, she offered hope, self-criticism
and self-forgiveness to a country. It captured the national mood, earning her instant respect and worldwide fame. But
Gorman’s poetry, and its activist leanings, don’t spring out of a vacuum. Instead, she’s part of a continuum of writers,
particularly performance poets of color, who’ve used poetry to inspire political action, relying on their art and their
platforms to call attention to the issues of the day.
“Politics is the official business of trying to live together. And that is a very rich subject for poetry,” said Alexander
(2018:89), a former inaugural poet and president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest supporter of arts and
humanities. “Poems envision what is ahead. Poems shed light so that we can see forward.''
Prior inaugural poets have issued similar calls for unity — but never at such a fraught time in American politics. When
Angelou (1994) read her poem, “On the Pulse of the Morning,” at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, she spoke of America’s colonial
history and its disparate impact on Native Americans and African Americans, but also urged other ethnic, religious and social
groups to live and work together as one nation.
Activism has always been an integral part of Gorman’s life. In interviews, she’s talked about how her mother raised her and
her siblings through a social justice lens. At her predominantly white, private high school, Gorman and her twin sister staged
a revolt to protest the lack of diversity in their English class syllabus. As a teen, she was a U.N. delegate, and founded a
nonprofit, One Pen, One Page, a platform for “for student storytellers to change the world.”
Writing poetry, she told the Harvard Crimson, is an inherently activist act. “The personal is political,” the Harvard graduate
said (2019). The fact that you have the luxury as a white male to write all your poems about being lost in the woods, that
you don’t have to interrogate race and gender, is a political statement in and of itself."
Gorman, the youngest poet laureate at 22, is part of a long line of performance poets of color who’ve wielded verse as a
weapon in their activism: Gwendolyn Brooks. Nikki Giovanni. Amiri Baraka. Miguel Piñero. Miguel Algarín, co-founder of
New York’s Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Gil Scott-Heron married politics with poetry, setting everything to a humming beat. His
contemporaries, The Last Poets, sprang out of the Black Arts and Black Power movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
using drums to punctuate fiery, power-to-the-people poems. Along with Scott-Heron, they’re credited as the godfathers of
rap. And today, Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar, who incorporates spoken word in his music, is a muse for the
Movement for Black Lives.
On Wednesday, Gorman carried that legacy with her. Standing at the podium in her red headband and caged bird ring,
Gorman recited lines about the Jan. 6 insurrection that took place on the same steps where she spoke. It was a moment,
she said in interviews, that shifted the focus of her poem and inspired her to deliver a message of unity while underlining
the clear divisions in the country.
Reference list
Alexander, M. (2018) The Politics of Poetry. Cambridge: CUP
Angelou, M. (1994) ‘On the Pulse of the Morning’ in Williams, S.T. (ed.) An anthology of
Presidential poems. New York: NY Publishers, pp. 34-89.
Gorman, A. (2019) ‘The world of words’, Harvard Crimson, 62(9) [online]. Available
at: https://www.crimson.com/reference-example (Accessed: 15 April 2021)
M.Horrigan 2021 Politics and Poetry-Citations 4The hill we climb
Among the firsts in Gorman’s (2021) inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb,” is the concept of democracy that it
assumed. Democracy, according to the twenty-two year-old poet, is an aspiration—a thing of the future.
The word “democracy” first appears in the same verse in which Gorman refers to “a force that would shatter our
nation rather than share it.” The insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th took place while Gorman was working on
the poem, although the “force,” one may assume, is bigger than the insurrection—it is the Trump Presidency that
made the insurrection possible, and the forces of white supremacy and inequality that enabled that Presidency
itself—“it / Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy / And this effort very nearly succeeded” the
poem continues. “But while democracy can be periodically delayed / it can never be permanently defeated.”
Both times the poem raises “democracy,” Gorman pairs the word with “delay,” which tells us that democracy is a
thing expected, anticipated—not a thing that we have built, or possessed, but a dream. This is not the way that
politicians or even political theorists usually use the word “democracy,” but it is one way that philosophers have
used it. Jacques Derrida (1990:230) (, the French deconstructionist, used the term “democracy to come.” Democracy,
he wrote, was always forged and threatened by contradictory forces and thus is always “deferred,” always out of
reach even in societies that adopt democracy as their governing principle.
Gorman’s poem is, explicitly, a text about the future. She exhorts Americans to look not at “what stands between us
/ But what stands before us.” She says, at the beginning, that “we know, to put our future first,” and she ends with a
verse of promises and challenges as rousing as any ever written:
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 gold-limbed hills of the west...
The focus on the future is a direct response to the rhetoric of the outgoing President, who called on his mob to
transport the country back to an imaginary past and forced Americans to live in a present without end. To write
about the future, Gorman also has to write about the past (Mitchell, 2017a, p.111). “Being American is more than a
pride we inherit, / it’s the past we step into / And how we repair it,” she says, in an elegant rebuke to the rhetoric of
return-to-normalcy: “We will not march back to what was / But move to what shall be.” Again, she stresses that the
promise of American democracy is still there, still yet to arrive.
In everyday speech, Americans usually refer to democracy as a thing that we have, or used to have before Trump
came along. In the tradition of American political speeches, democracy often figures as a work in progress. This, too,
suggests that democracy is something we inhabit but continue to work on, an endless fixer-upper with good bones.
Gorman’s explicit assumption is more radical and challenging (Mitchell, 2017b, p. 189).
It’s not only philosophy where the idea of a democracy-to-come can be found. “The Hill We Climb” evokes another
great American poem, Langston Hughes’s “Let America Be America Again.” Hughes wrote, “America never was
America to me, / And yet I swear this oath— / America will be!”—an immortal distillation of the tension between
American aspirations and American reality, and a stubborn insistence that the country continue to reach for its
dream. There is no better place to start for an inaugural poem, or for a Presidency.
Reference list
Derrida, J (1990) ‘Changes to policy formats shake the world’, The Mendeley Telegraph (Weekend
edition), 6 July, pp.9-12.
Gorman, A. (2021) The Hill We Climb and other poems. Cambridge: CUP
Mitchell, J.A. (2017a) A guide to poetry.3rd edn. London: London Publishings.
Mitchell, J.A. (2017b) An overview to poetry.10th edn. London: London Publishings
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