If you watched Biden's inauguration (my condolences), you've probably noticed that this black girl's bloviating ''poem'' was one of the highlights. Amanda Gorman is the inaugural holder of the title National Youth Poet Laureate. Let's check it out, shall we? Commentary thread:

We'll start with her personal title briefly and proceed with the text before returning to some background circumstances. What is a poet laureate? These poets are appointed by governments and other institutions for special occasions and services, like an inauguration in her case.

We can trace their existence to ancient Greece and the myth of Apollo and Daphne. The god Apollo chased the naiad Daphne who rebuffed his romantic advances and begged her father, the river god Peneus, to save her. He did so by turning her into a laurel tree.

Apollo couldn't have her now but vowed to make the laurel tree his symbol.

"My bride, since you can never be, at least, sweet laurel, you shall be my tree. My lure, my locks, my quiver you shall wreathe.'' - from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''.

Since Apollo is a god of poetry, among other things, it became a custom for honored poets to wear a laurel wreath. You can see an image of the Italian poet Petrarch wearing one. He lived during the Renaissance, a time of cultural renewal when elites looked to the classics.

Amanda here lives in a different era and different values permeate her land. Now we'll get into the meat of the poem. It's called "The Hill We Climb". Rather than emulating an ideal past, we see an ideal future and a very terrible past, including the very recent past.

The start does resemble a poem. It sounds like an epic poem of an unknown nation and its struggles. It could be anyone really. But things go terrible as soon as this part ends even if on purely aesthetic grounds. ''just-ice''. Really?

Brighter days are ahead we are told. ''We the successors of a country and a time'' is demographic triumphalism. The Black (sic) girl is the author inserting herself & personal circumstances into the national story. The lines about the president make it clear it's an ad hoc poem.

Fake humility at the start and a stated goal of forging a multicultural union rather than a perfect union. This is a direct repudiation of the preamble of the United States constitution where the founders strived for a ''more perfect union for themselves and their posterity''.

This isn't really a call for unity so much as another example of triumphalism. They gaze at ''their'' future and what stands before them because the foe has pretty much already been vanquished. They are the ''successors of a country and a time'' if you recall a previous line.

The first two lines mention arms but different kinds of arms. The first line calls for you to surrender your guns and they'll be magnanimous in their victory. Also, a reminder that you're tied to them forever whitey.

These lines are your usual creative appeals to Christian scripture. God supports everything progs like. And it's such a joke telling people everyone will sit under their own vine and fig tree if they're forced to put up with stuff they don't like at the threat of state coercion.

Orange Man Bad lines too. She references something that happened two weeks before the poem was recited on national television. These lines are heavily overt on political platitudes about democracy too. It's more of a speech or opinion column than a poem.

''In this faith we trust'' - admission that progs have a religious view of the world. More triumphalist assertions that they are now in control.

This is the most odious part. An overt mixture of ''might makes right'' and ''I'm a merciful God''. They're so confident that they don't even need an optics check.

This last portion is like an announcement of a war campaign, a mop-up job really. ''We will rise'' + a list of geographic regions of the United States. And those who emerge will be ''diverse and beautiful''. A reminder that they'll chase you to every corner.

Now that this literary leprosy is finished, let's turn back to this girl and the astroturf that made her 5 minutes of fame even possible.

The title of National Youth Poet Laureate is very recent, it was created in 2016. The inaugural holder, our Amanda here, was chosen in 2017. Gee, why those years? Youth initiatives didn't start yesterday. The first Junior Eurovision Song Contest was held in 2003 for comparison.

And look at the finalists for the first competition. Lagnajita Mukhopadhyay of Nashville, Tennessee. A Southern belle I see! Forget Tom Sawyer, Nkosi Nkululeko is the new all-American boy!

These are the first four holders of the title. I think I'm noticing a pattern here. It'll be a historic day if, not when, a white male gets this ''honour''. Britain's poet laureate Lord Tennyson famously mourned his friend's death but what is the leitmotif for these gurls?

Our charming Amanda writes on race, gender politics, and the changes in Los Angeles she's witnessed during her lifetime. Groundbreaking stuff really but I recommend @Peter_Nimitz for all of these things.

Patricia here writes about the gentrification of Chicago, her childhood, her grandmother, and other issues affecting young queer and diverse people. I think Chicago has more interesting stuff than this claptrap.

Kara here is also from Chicago and she's a prison abolitionist. They really are progressives, progressively worse than preceding title holders.

Oh wait, a breath of fresh air. Maybe they were going a bit too far. Meera from New York here is the first non-black woman winner (the Obama of Indian-American poets) and writes about normie gay shit like astroturfed youth campaigns and civic engagements.

I think I've had enough of America's youth poetry . America's youth doesn't send their best. I'm not sure if anyone else has done a symbolic analysis of the ''poem'' but share it with your friends if they might find this smol thread interesting.

What's really scary is that these people will be in literature textbooks, their quotes on federal buildings, their murals on residential buildings in major cities. I'll do another quick thread on Martin Luther King's ''I have a dream'' speech.