The New Colossus BY EMMA LAZARUS

[elleng]

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus

[Hekate]

1. Thanks for the reminder, elleng

Despite PNAC's hopes, it looks like the American Century came and went, 1900 - 2000. Dubya and cronies blundered, but Trump and cronies are determined to deliberately finish us off as a republic.

Keep the Flame alive, anyway.

[Captain Zero]

2. Read it out loud

Practice it a few times. It takes on even more meaning. This is a good poem for a poetry reading night.

[elleng]

3. I've done it most of my life.

Grew up in NYC, so I feel a strong attachment to the poem and the Statue; I recall studying about it/them in 4th grade, in Brooklyn.

AND the first musical I saw on Broadway was 'Miss Liberty!' Miss Liberty is a 1949 Broadway musical with a book by Robert E. Sherwood and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. It is based on the sculpting of the Statue of Liberty in 1886. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Liberty

[nolabear]

4. America as female. Loving, welcoming, helping.

No wonder 45 and his ilk don’t respect it.

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Her looks, based of of an average Egyptian woman, who was most probably Muslim.

.

The United States has debated immigration since the country's founding, and the Statue of Liberty—a potent symbol for immigrants—is often invoked as an argument for why we should usher in those who seek safety and opportunity with open arms. A little-known fact about Lady Liberty adds an intriguing twist to today's debate about refugees from the Muslim world: As pointed out by The Daily Beast’s Michael Daly in a recent op-ed, the statue itself was originally intended to represent a female Egyptian peasant as a Colossus of Rhodes for the Industrial Age.

That might be surprising to people more familiar with the statue’s French roots than its Arab ones. After all, the statue’s structure was designed by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (yes, that Eiffel), and Lady Liberty was given to the United States by France for its centennial to celebrate the alliance of the two countries formed during the French Revolution.

The statue’s designer, Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, was also French, but he found inspiration in a very different place: Egypt. In 1855, he visited Nubian monuments at Abu Simbel, which feature tombs guarded by gigantic colossus figures. Bartholdi became fascinated by the ancient architecture, developing what the National Park Service calls a “passion for large-scale public monuments and colossal structures.” Eventually, he channeled that passion into a proposal for the inauguration of the Suez Canal.

Bartholdi envisioned a colossal monument featuring a robe-clad woman representing Egypt to stand at Port Said, the city at the northern terminus of the canal in Egypt. To prep for this undertaking, Barry Moreno, author of multiple books about the statue, writes that Bartholdi studied art like the Colossus, honing the concept for a figure called Libertas who would stand at the canal. “Taking the form of a veiled peasant woman,” writes Moreno, “the statue was to stand 86 feet high, and its pedestal was to rise to a height of 48 feet.” Early models of the statue were called “Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/statue-liberty-was-originally-muslim-woman-180957377/

.