Mary Novaria

 PUBLISHED IN  Patriarchal Poetry Slam: Amanda Gorman's Poems Surpass Criticism Photo Credit: REUTERS / Alamy Stock Photo FF2 Guest Post by Mary Novaria FEBRUARY 12, 2021 Historically, people watch the Super Bowl for one of two reasons. They are football fans, or they want to see the ads. Sometimes both. This year, we had a fresh and compelling motivation to tune in when Amanda Gorman became the NFL Championship’s first-ever poet. Talk about winning the Super Bowl! The poet created “Chorus of the Captains” as an ode to three frontline workers who were named honorary Super Bowl captains. The poem lauds Los Angeles educator Trimaine Davis, Marine veteran James Martin, and Florida ICU nurse Suzie Dorner, who performed the opening coin toss, for their extraordinary leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic.  Once again Ms. Gorman captivated the nation and proved last month’s inaugural triumph was no fluke. Social media gushed with admiration, just as it had a few short weeks be...

“My friends all tell me I should write a book,” she said, “because I’ve had so many experiences. But I’m really not interested in doing that.” “What I've found,” I told the person I’d just met, “is you kind of have to feel compelled to write. If you’re a writer, you can’t not write.”  Please pardon the double negative. “I don’t understand why people put their personal lives out there. Why do you feel like you want to do that?” “Because I want people to know they’re not alone,” I said. “So if they’re going through something, they’ll know they’re not the only one. “Hmmm. Really? I don’t read things like that.” Sigh. Thankfully, not everyone feels that way, as judged by the likes of popular self-disclosers like David Sedaris, Joan Didion, Augusten Burroughs, Mary Karr, Anne Lamott, Cheryl Strayed, Dani Shapiro and, very recently, Tara Westover, whose memoir Educated was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, to name a few. These au...