Thank the work of our hands . . .

 

“Mother Country” was the last of the three poems I wrote for the inauguration. I finished it a week after I had completed the first two poems (“What We Know of Country” and “One Today”) and submitted them to the inaugural committee and the White House for consideration. Of those two, they had overwhelmingly selected “One Today” as the poem to be read. But once I completed “Mother Country,” it became my favorite poem; it was closest to me emotionally, and I felt more comfortable with it because it was the kind of poem I was used to writing. I felt my voice came through more naturally than in the other two poems. And so I submitted “Mother Country” for consideration, but “One Today” remained the preferred poem by the committee and the White House.

Disappointed, I wormholed into a creative turmoil for a couple of days, wondering if I had any bargaining power to insist that “Mother Country” be the inaugural poem. I reached out to friends and writing colleagues for advice, most of whom felt as torn as I did between “One Today” and “Mother Country,” mostly because they were such different poems that it was hard to judge. Apples to oranges.

Mark felt that “One Today” was the more appropriate poem from the very first draft, and his instincts would prove to be spot on. But perhaps the biggest champion of “One Today” was writer Julia Alvarez. After I shared a first draft with her, she said without reservation that “One Today” was the perfect poem for the occasion of a country coming together, even if it was for that one moment at the inauguration. She eased my apprehensions by noting that some of the best poems in history use the kind of oracular voice she heard in “One Today,” a voice that captures the zeitgeist of a moment. Her brilliant advice saved me from going into a tailspin. I also shared the first draft with my former professor and mentor, Campbell McGrath, who agreed for similar reasons with Julia that it was the “right” poem.

In the end, all these conversations and feedback gave me the courage and confidence to move forward with “One Today” and also confirmed what I intuitively had not wanted to admit to myself about “Mother Country”: it was too autobiographical for an occasional poem. Though it was a good poem and fit the spirit of the occasion, it didn’t fit the purpose of the inauguration as well as “One Today.” Also, I realized that for years I had subconsciously believed my work had been well received mostly because of my subject matter as a child of exiles, focused on issues of cultural identity, displacement, and a proverbial search for home.

But I discovered that it wasn’t what I wrote about but how I wrote about it that made my poems my poems, namely, the density of imagery and lushness of language that are signatures of my work. Once that clicked, I knew the task at hand was to revise “One Today” along those lines, not by virtue of altering the subject matter but by infusing it with those same qualities and breathing my voice into it. And—as Sandra Cisneros advised—it was important that I approach the poem with the same loving tone as if I were speaking about (or to) my mother.

I returned to the first draft of “One Today,” ready to work on it with renewed enthusiasm and vigor. But by then I only had one week to turn in the final version, which I’d have to read to hundreds of thousands of people and millions more watching on TV all over the world! Like many poets, I usually put poems away for weeks, months, sometimes years before returning to them. The distance allows for fresh perspective, new insights, and renewed inspiration. But without the luxury of that distance and time, my critical skills became clouded. It became difficult to distinguish exactly what was working from what was not working in the poem, difficult to make editorial decisions with the same ease and confidence that I usually do when not under such intense pressure.

There is a popular misconception that poetry—perhaps all art—happens out of sheer genius or inspiration, and that all artists work alone. That hasn’t been my experience. Most writers I know rely on someone they can trust with their work, which essentially implies someone we can also trust with our lives. Luckily, I found both a long time ago in Nikki Moustaki, a brilliant author and poet in her own right, and also my best friend for more than twenty years. I reached out to her, as I have many times before, needing her input more than ever given the circumstances. Here are some suggestions, she wrote after reading my first draft of the poem. Take these in the spirit in which they are intended, with love and wanting you to be YOU. We dove into discussions about the poem through e-mails and telephone calls that drifted well into the early hours. My editorial skills resurfaced and my confidence grew as I looked over the poem, fine-tuning its images and metaphors, pruning language, and scrutinizing every line, word, and sound. Working together through several drafts of “One Today,” it dawned on me that our teamwork was itself a reflection of the poem’s very message of unity and togetherness.