In This Place (An American Lyric)

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2017

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The Importance of Poetry

In every stanza of this poem, Gorman uses the word “poem” or “poet” to suggest that poetry and writers of poems can come from any situation or life circumstance. The 12th stanza emphasizes that poetry is not a rarefied medium—rather, there is “a poem in America / a poet in every American” (Lines 87-88). Gorman encourages poetry writing and reading as an art form that is specifically relevant to the times in which her audience lives: Poetry is the genre of hope for the future, resistance against tyrants who “fear the poet” (Line 67), and the way to memorialize the everyday heroes that truly embody America’s ideals.

Having declared that poetry is the province of every American, the poem urges its listeners to make their voices heard: “[W]e must bestow it / like a wick in the poet” (Lines 78-79). Only by making sure to think of ourselves as poets that belong will we have “stories to rewrite” (Line 82). In other words, to improve the injustices and inequalities of the present, we must use our own life “stories” to “rewrite” the past. Examples of how to do this can be found in the poem. For example, in the fourth stanza, the figurative language of a flower blooming becomes a permanent memorial to activist Heather Heyer; her life is thus enshrined in a “meadow of resistance” (Line 25). Moreover, once poems like these are written, they will serve as models to future generations, who will continue working on making an idealized version of America a reality: “our poems penned / doesn’t mean our poems end” (Lines 93-94).

The Potential of America

In her poem, Gorman addresses many issues of strain the country has faced; her left-leaning politics and interest in social justice mean that she focuses specifically on the resistance movements that sprang up in the wake of the presidency of Donald Trump, whose controversial policies were calculated to play on social and political divisions within the US.

The poem describes the progressive protests and marches throughout the country by people eager for America to live up to its ideals of inclusion and equality. For example, “thousands of students march[ed] for blocks, / undocumented and unafraid” (Lines 45-46) in favor of the DACA program when it was under threat from the Trump administration. These protestors were filled with the relentless hope that their voices would be enough to stop or countermand policy changes: “[Y]ou can’t stop a dreamer / or knock down a dream” (Lines 51-52). Even when people feel the government has failed them, they continue to fight for a stronger future.

The 11th stanza is explicitly about the optimism necessary to continue redefining who counts as an American—a project that began with the nation’s founding. Gorman emphasizes the ongoing nature of nation building, insisting that the country we live in today is a work in progress, “a nation composed but not completed” (Line 85). This metaphor compares the US to a poem, which must be edited many times before it can be presented as a finished piece of writing. So too America, a newer nation in relation to others in the world, must constantly increase opportunities for change and advancement. This is the story America, and Americans, “are just beginning to tell” (Line 98).

The Divisiveness of a Year

Many of the events in the poem took place in 2017, a divisive year in contemporary history. It was a year when the devastating effects of human-made climate change manifested in the many destructive hurricanes that ravaged parts of the United States, including Texas and Florida.

At the same time, when President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, his often conservative policy decisions prompted those affected and their allies to take to the streets to express their viewpoints about the role of government in social justice and other matters affecting the country. For instance, Boston was the site of protests against Trump’s banned travel list known by critics as the Muslim ban, while in California, “undocumented and unafraid” (Line 46) protestors gathered to block the government from ending the DACA program that allowed the children of undocumented immigrants to remain in the US.

In response to progressive organization, counter-protests by the far right also escalated. The poem describes the terrifying “men so white they gleam blue" (Line 20)—the white nationalist marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, who killed Heather Heyer. The poem isolates these racist, misogynist, and antisemitic fascists as a small minority whose voices should be drowned out: “[L]ove of the many / swallows hatred of the few” (Lines 15-16). The ninth stanza lists these “many” diverse, distinct identities of Americans, which comprise all religions, all genders, and all other kinds of inclusive affiliations. These distinctions, as long as they do not exclude one another, are the real parts of America.