"One Today" is a

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

Richard Blanco Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem " One Today" for Barack Obama's second ...

first recited at the

second inauguration of Barack Obama The second inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States was the 57th inauguration and marked the commencement of the second and final term of Obama as president and Joe Biden as vice president. A private swearing-in ceremony to ...

, making Blanco the fifth poet to read during a

United States presidential inauguration The inauguration of the president of the United States is a ceremony to mark the commencement of a new four-year term of the president of the United States. During this ceremony, between 73 to 79 days after the presidential election, the pres ...

. "One Today" was called "a fine example of public poetry, in keeping with Blanco’s other work: Loose, open lines of mostly conversational verse, a flexible

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called " feet". "Iam ...

stanza form," by Ken Tucker in ''Entertainment Weekly''.

Background

Richard Blanco was asked to write three poems for the selection of the one to be read at the second inauguration of Barack Obama re-elected on his second term on November 6, 2012. "One Today" was chosen among "What We Know of Country" and "Mother Country". The poet said: "I wanted all three to be different facets of my writing, and my experiences, and how we can live in our country and be part of the union"

Analysis

"The images in the poem move from the universal to the specific, so that from out of the millions of nameless, faceless Americans one figure in particular emerges: the immigrant. This is where “One Today” does something very interesting: it shows us the exact point at which the story of the immigrant experience intersects with the myth of the American Dream." "Over the course of its nine stanzas (69 lines), “One Today” offers a sweeping view of America during a single day, from sunrise to sunset. The first stanza links geographically diverse areas of the country through the image of the rising sun:" The incipit is strongly alliterative. Almost each word recalls the following by

assonance Assonance is a resemblance in the sounds of words/syllables either between their vowels (e.g., ''meat, bean'') or between their consonants (e.g., ''keep, cape''). However, assonance between consonants is generally called ''consonance'' in America ...

. A sort of raffinate anagrammatic playing, highlights "us" which is contained in the word "sun" and "rose" which is contained in "shores". The anaphoric "One" of the first and fifth line, emphasizes the diurnal light growing in intensity. The poem is characterised by a musical harmony given by the employment of figures of sound such as

alliteration Alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of initial consonant sounds of nearby words in a phrase, often used as a literary device. A familiar example is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Alliteration is used poetically in various ...

, assonance, paromoiosis , and several onomatopoeic words such as "slide", "whistling", "brush". The style is mostly

nominal Nominal may refer to: Linguistics and grammar * Nominal (linguistics), one of the parts of speech * Nominal, the adjectival form of "noun", as in "nominal agreement" (= "noun agreement") * Nominal sentence, a sentence without a finite verb * Nou ...

and where the lyrical discourse proceeds for

asyndeton Asyndeton (, ; from the el, ἀσύνδετον, "unconnected", sometimes called asyndetism) is a literary scheme in which one or several conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples include '' veni, vidi, vic ...

the speed of the rhythm creates breathtaking poetic-narrative sequences. On the other hand the employment of

prepositions Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

, deixis, particularly spatial deixis, makes images plastic and visual.

References

External links

* 2013 poems American poems English-language poems Inaugural poems Second inauguration of Barack Obama Cuban-American literature {{Poem-stub

Background

Analysis

See also

References

Further reading

External links