Amanda Gorman

That's all you get today.

Amanda is still sick, and the voice has gotten even worse.

So she has sent me her typed up responses, and that's as good as it gets for you today.

On day two of season 111.

Our first question asks us for three letters that MPAA President Jack Valenti called to the American film producer and public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone while testifying before Congress.

Amanda says, because this was testimony before a House committee, my mind went right to federal agencies that have three letter acronyms.

I put NEA thinking of the National Endowment for the Arts.

back to george uh yeah i kind of had the same thought like maybe it was the fcc or some other agency that was like uh censoring things like the like the hayes commission i think it was uh i don't know i don't know even know whether that was actually governmental or what that was i just remember it was a censorship thing but from like way before 1982 um so i i thought about it and i came back to it and then i thought well what's what's the president of the MPAA, which makes movies, what is he gonna care about the FCC, which deals with TV, not movies? So then I thought, well, what back then was kind of in the 80s was threatening movies per se.

I'll be all right.

But you know what, though? We have your favorite topic.

Yes.

Benzos.

Come on.

That's nobody's favorite.

In the absence of the barbiturates.

Hey, by the way, I forgot to question.

I've been feeling that end of year slump creatively and just feeling tired, but then I ran into something that completely switched my passion back on and reminded me what's so fun about all of this.

It was poet Amanda Gorman in her class on MasterClass talking about close reading a poem or a brief passage of literature.

Her close reading process looks like reading it once for pleasure, twice to think about why the creator is doing what they're doing and three times to think about what she might do differently.

This sort of deconstruction of my favorite creative things always lights me on fire and I love that framework.

I mean, I love a lot of that, like a lot of that work, right? From different, you know, from different genres, styles, subject matter.

I think a high point, and it's not that recent, but like a really high point in the public realm in poetry Um, for poetry, uh, Amanda Gorman, like, like at that inauguration, like it just, they could not have picked a better poet for that moment.

And her performance of it was so on point and it really spoke to the moment.

And, um, I remember sitting there going like this, like publicly at this scale, like poetry may not have a moment like this for a long time.

Yeah.

It was beautiful.

And I remember when that I remember watching it and and then I remember thinking shortly after she was finished and after like the inaugural speech and everything, I remember thinking, And now I hope people realize there are more folks like Amanda Gorman out there.

Yes.

On the contrary, if a historical wound like slavery does not find a shared symbolic recognition and the causes and effects of racism persist, the past remains present.

Now I come to my question, can such a past be repaired? The possibility and impossibility of creating a more inclusive national narrative or script was succinctly summed up in two lines of Amanda Gorman's powerful poem that she recited on the occasion of President Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20th, 21.

She said, Being American is more than a pride we inherit.

It's the past we step into and how we repair it.

I'm Judy Carmichael, and this is Jazz Inspired.

Here is Lynn Ariel on Soul from her CD, Being Human, dedicated to the poet Amanda Gorman.

Bye.

Talk about the concept for this CD because it's absolutely beautiful and just what we need, obviously, because it inspired you, the state of the world today, to do this.

I just adore him.

No, you shouldn't be embarrassed.

This is like, I've had people bring me poetry or books, you know, not bring me music.

Of course, I can't play it, but I've had them read.

that I love.

And you knew, like for instance, when Amanda Gorman stood up and gave the inauguration poem.

I mean, I don't think I could have pulled it apart technically, but it was a moment.

I knew what she was trying to say.

Seems like...

What's her name? Amanda Gorman.

That's how bad that shit is.

But...