In This Place (An American Lyric)

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).