Amanda Gorman, who was widely praised by the media after serving as the official poet for President Biden’s 2020 inauguration, wrote her own version of the US National Anthem mocking the original.
Gorman wrote the piece, titled “The Scar-Mangled Banner” instead of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, for the 4th of July in a criticism of the United States.
The “new” version starts by describing a fleeing a bloody army, causing the stripes “flawed” and covered in scars, leaving it’s people screaming.
“O say can we see, by the Gone’s early flight, What so loudly we failed at the mornlight’s past gleaming, Whose flawed stripes and strifed scars, through the perilous plight, Our wan hearts, we watched, stirred and valiantly screaming.”
It then turns into a critique of gun rights, describing a rifle shooting up the flag and what it stands for. She uses this to explain why the flag was “mangled” before questioning if we are really “free” and “brave” at all.
“And the rifle’s dread glare, bullets bursting in air, Gave truth in our sight that our flag was not spared. O say does that scar-mangled banner yet save Our land of the free and the home of the brave?”
While the comments beneath the poem were generally positive, some users expressed their anger with the poet’s decision to rewrite the anthem.
One user said than the US is the only country that would do this to our own anthem, suggesting it makes us the “laughing stock” of the world.
Another described the work as being “as profound” as a bowl movement they had earlier on in the day.
A third Twitter account suggested that Gorman was free to move to another country if she was unhappy living in the United States.
Gorman shot to fame in 2021 when she became the youngest inaugural poet in American history when she read “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of President Joe Biden. She also became the first poet to ever perform at a Super Bowl that same year.
It seemed that the general atmosphere online was more in favor of Gorman’s new national anthem than against it. How do you feel about what she wrote? Do you respect her right to criticize the government and the country?
