“Running up the hill we climb”
How Amanda Gorman and Kate Bush might comfort Brittney Griner
Amanda Gorman charmed every decent, wholesome part of America when she recited “The Hill We Climb” at Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Perhaps her youth, poise, and charm overshadowed her poetry. For a time.
It’s worth thinking of her words in the context of Brittney Griner’s captivity in Russia, not because Griner will be thinking about them, but because those words exist for Griner to think about and perhaps, to connect with, and to connect with the rest of us as well despite her captivity.
The strange magic of culture surpasses any superpower, because our wondrous brains may link everything they encounter together into a “self” — and by choosing to connect one tidbit here with another, we connect into a ‘we.’ In our brains at least. Even if we are held captive.
Here’s a refresher on Gorman’s poem:
When day comes we ask ourselves,
‘where can we find light in this never-ending shade,’
the loss we carry,
a sea we must wade?
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn’t always just-ice.from Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb (emphasis added)
Brittney Griner has been held in Russia for 142 days now. Last week, she confessed to having carried cartridges with CBD oil in her baggage as part of her vaporizer. She may languish for some time to come.
“The belly of the beast” indeed.
She feels alone in this. But is she? On one level, of course she is. But on a different level…perhaps our view of ‘alone’ is upside down.
What is this “we” Gorman proposes? A “we” that questions, carries burdens, learns lessons, climbs hills? Is “we” limited to people who know Ms. Gorman? Or those who hear her words? What about the “we” that knows Ms. Griner? A “we” of people who look like one another somehow? This nation? These nations?
“Quiet isn’t always peace,” but what words do we say in the face of injustice? Perhaps, it doesn’t matter so much which words, but rather, that we speak something — offer OUR words to the world. Try to connect. Only to connect.
Maybe our words help color in meanings of “we.” Sometimes, “we” may need other bits and pieces of culture to give shape to the context, to help ‘words’ penetrate through one form of cage or another — to ‘color in’ the meaning. Words like “red, white, and blue” have meaning — in America (and in Russia, and elsewhere too). Those meanings may penetrate to even our lonely, terrified oblivious isolation. Words, sounds, colors — all together make for a strange magical power that helps convert ‘stranger’ into part of the ‘we.’
Griner is surely wrongfully detained as a pawn in other people’s games. Who is playing?
Vladimir Putin, for one. Hoping he can set a price on Griner’s freedom. Holding her weakens Joe Biden’s party, which is almost certain to help Putin in Ukraine.
Biden won Georgia by a few thousand votes in 2020. In early 2021, Raphael Warnock won a senate seat in Georgia as well. This occurred because powerful words and deeds drove a vast swathe of infrequent voters to actually turn in their ballots for once: many (like Griner herself) voting for the first time. Will those voters turn out in 2022? Fewer will if they think their votes make no difference.
What happens if Mitch McConnell becomes the Senate Majority leader again? In 2012, Putin’s client Bashar Assad used chemical weapons to murder civilians in Syria. When Barack Obama asked Congress to authorize the use of force to retaliate for this atrocity, McConnell refused to give that authorization. Then he mocked Obama for failing to respond while his colleagues mocked Obama for overstepping his authority.
McConnell took his potshots. Putin took his concessions in Syria. Putin hopes McConnell will also prove useful in Ukraine. Donald Trump certainly did…
Putin doesn’t need to ‘control’ or ‘collude’ on any of that — it’s just a gamble for him, but one that costs less than a rusty tank division to pull off. If he gets a few prisoners while delaying things until after November 2022, if the enemy of his enemy gains power, if his adversaries divide against one another — a win-win-win for Putin. And if none of that happens, what has he lost?
By confessing last week before the cameras, Griner may have decided she would be no man’s pawn. Throwing herself before the mercy of courts not known to be merciful or fair, in a country where fairness eroded precipitously, she declared that whatever happens, she will not WILLINGLY be Putin’s pawn. Biden’s, or McConnell’s. Gutsy choice.
Imagine the scene from Stranger Things 4, with Griner in Max’s place — pinned to a tree by vicious Vladimir “Vecna” Putin…
Amanda Gorman’s words and her poem might help Griner through the days ahead.
But for those of us watching from the sidelines, the images sprouting in my mind link two distinct cultural zeitgeists — “The Hill We Climb” with “Running Up that Hill” — both circulating in the strange cultural ambience that is American creativity. Nothing connects the two together: but we, trapped outside the reality where Griner and others languish, may watch, and form connections as we choose.
Let’s depart from grim fate toward a happier ‘escapist’ fantasy for a second, before knitting these streams together.
*SPOILER WARNINGS AHEAD IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED THE SHOW*
The highlight of “Stranger Things, Chapter 4" is a scene in which “Max” Mayfield (played by Sadie Sink) faces imminent, gruesome death at the hands of a horrifying monster. Max is a teenager, struggling with severe depression after her brother’s death. Just as she is about to succumb to her fate, she hears friends play her favorite song which brings with it a flood of memories of good times. She recaptures the will to live, and escapes.
Cue “Running Up that Hill” by Kate Bush.
In context, it’s a heart surging, goosebump sparking, fist pumping, tears of joy/relief/catharsis sort of scene. Metaphor for teenage suicide? After 2+ years of Covid-19 isolation, how many teenagers clung to Netflix for comfort during the dark and lonely times? How many fight variations on the despair that Max channeled? How many others lost friends or family in shootings or ‘random’ violence as the monsters of the real world committed wanton atrocities? How many suffer quietly with survivor guilt?
Was ever a desperate escape in any “escapist fantasy” so earnest?
In a cynical universe, so thick a slather of melodrama would choke and stutter the whole story under clouds of rotten saccharine. But for me, this time, it worked. Careers were risked on this production. The risk paid off. Kudos.
Great song.
“Running Up that Hill (A Deal with God)” was released in 1985 on Kate Bush’s album, “The Hounds of Love.” A popular but mostly forgotten ’80s anthem.
Brittney Yevette Griner was born in 1990. Amanda Gorman was born in 1998. Apparently, the music supervisor for Stranger Things wanted to use “Running up that Hill” before the pandemic. Griner and Gorman may never have heard Kate Bush’s song, so there’s surely no connection between the poem as she conceived it and this ‘fantasy universe’ she may never have even experienced.
Gorman finished writing “The Hill We Climb” after the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021. Tasked with composing a poem for Biden’s inauguration,
Gorman managed to write a few lines a day and was about halfway through the poem on Jan. 6, when pro-Trump rioters stormed into the halls of Congress, some bearing weapons and Confederate flags. She stayed awake late into the night and finished the poem…
Source: Alexandra Alter, “Amanda Gorman Captures the Moment, in Verse,” New York Times
Other than the use of the word “hill,” I see no clear link Kate Bush’s song to the Amanda Gorman’s poem. Well, maybe there’s a sly irony in a statement like, “It was like, if I try to climb this mountain all at once, I’m just going to pass out.”
She’d probably pass out even faster if she tried ‘running up that hill.’
Forces working to buy and sell Griner are the same forces that challenge Gorman’s claim democracy “can never be permanently defeated.” It’s an optimistic claim, and one that flies in the face of most of human civilization, during which democracy has been routinely (but never permanently) defeated.
The biggest threats are:
- From within, particularly when humans buy and sell one another, then use that domination to expand power so as to oppress others as well.
- From without, particularly when leaders seek ‘favors’ from foreign powers, including removing a political rival one way or another, serving their personal ambitions at the expense of the nation.
Brutes flying Confederate flags or other banners who stormed the Capitol on January 6? Not a threat to America, at least, not by themselves. But if a President tried to use them? Or a foreign dictator, after discovering such people existed, factored them into calculations in other ways? Not hard to create QAnon 8.0.
Democracy is fragile, as frail as any of its human subjects. So what to do? Hold on to hope and be brave.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
Maybe Joe Biden sent Brittney Griner a message like what Gorman wrote, perhaps adding a few more words like:
SPEAK YOUR TRUTH, DO NOT LET ANYBODY USE YOU AGAINST YOUR WILL. Whatever you say, you will never be forsaken.
And then a few minutes later, Griner confessed before the cameras. Maybe something like that actually happened. I cannot say.
And maybe he also sent her a copy of Amanda Gorman’s poem. Hopefully, she has a copy of one of the books with her during these lonely times. Or something to read with words that can offer some form of comfort.
For those of us back at home, streaming the saga of Brittney Griner and any other sagas put forward by media for us to see, all these things connect within the space of our own brains.
Imagine the scene from Stranger Things 4, with Mrs. Griner in Max’s place — pinned to a tree by vicious Vladimir “Vecna” Putin, facing imminent, grisly death — terrified — then hearing comforting words — from a loved one? from Joe Biden? From her wife? from Amanda Gorman? — through a void, lifting her spirits, giving her hope to persist and fight her way back to the people who love her.
Poetry can have that power.
In my mind, Amanda Gorman’s words trade back and forth with Kate Bush’s lyrics — and the line, “If I only could make a deal with God, I’d get him to swap our places.” Would I actually pray to God to swap places with Griner? Could I do so? Once upon a time…maybe…but now, the thought makes tears brim in my eyes as I think about being separated from my two little girls…and doesn’t Mrs. Griner also feel the reality of that pang? Cut off from those she loves…and so many others are also cut off from their loved ones.
How can we tolerate that? How can we shrug and let so many languish?
Does America have the power to persist in the face of that which seeks to exploit and divide us? What will happen to Mrs. Griner in Russia? To Ukraine? To America after November 2022?
Nobody can say. But we will form connections within our brains, whether we want to or not. We create our own experience of ‘we,’ not based on anything logical, causal, but on the flow of experiences filtered by choices — some of which we make, some of which others make for us.
Perhaps “we” are “running up this hill we climb” together. Perhaps each step is a word — and each word potentially links us together. Maybe there are no words Amanda Gorman, Kate Bush, myself, or any other person reading this can say or do which might alter Mrs. Griner’s fate — but with the magical power of words, we can still connect and contrive all sorts of strange and beautiful things in our union.
That is a sort of liberation Vladimir ‘Vecna’ Putin cannot possibly touch, but poetry can.
