Thank you, a thousand times: Thank you, a thousand times over, for this kind of understanding. Your shrewd understanding, evidenced in your comment, has perfectly explicated the poem and my intention for it. My mother and her five sibs were First Generation Americans, children of two "right off the boat" immigrants. Her father was one of the "dirty Irish" who were treated, in the early 20th century, similarly to the way our society treats Hispanic immigrants and transients now.
This pieace pierces the:
This pieace pierces the patriotic veneer to reveal a haunting truth: that the spirit of independence,
once wielded against empire, was also turned inward—against Indigenous lives and nations.
It compels us to reckon with the deep paradox of freedom born alongside erasure.
The challenge it lays down is stark but necessary:
to remember not just the glory of what was gained, but the gravity of what was taken.
Here, presented is a sharp: Here, presented is a sharp and necessary question: What happens when the gatekeeper forgets the spirit of the gate?
It confronts a kind of patriotism that clings to exclusion while standing beneath a monument built to welcome.
Emma Lazarus, in “The New Colossus,” gave the Statue of Liberty not just a torch, but a voice—one that cried out:
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
That voice was not a whisper of tolerance—it could be seen as a declaration of allegiance to the displaced, the desperate, the different.
Lazarus, herself descended from Jewish immigrants, understood that America’s greatness was not in its walls, but in its open door.
So when the “innkeeper” in the poem speaks of keeping out the “wretched refuse,” he is not defending American values—he is betraying them.
He quotes Lazarus, but forgets her meaning. He invokes the statue, but denies its soul.
To answer the poem’s question through Lazarus’ lens: True patriotism does not fear the foreign—it remembers that it once was.
And it lifts its lamp, not to blind, but to guide.
This excellent poem needs to: This excellent poem needs to be read by evey bullied kid in public or private schools. I wish such a poem had been available during my most difficult time---February 3rd, 1969 to June 7th, 1974.
"Gallery" has quite a ring to: "Gallery" has quite a ring to it and perhaps so due to the effect of Van Gogh and Co on my creative life curriculum and and journey.
This is very beautiful,: This is very beautiful, except for the word "betwixt," which violates the conversational tone. Ought to be "between." Otherwise, this exquisitely beautiful, especially the stanza that introduces the stars.
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