What poem would Trump like to see on the Statue of Liberty?
Donald Trump recently proposed to cut legal immigration to the US by half over in the next decade and to establish a merit-based immigration program. Under the plan, applicants with certain credentials, such as English proficiency, doctorates, high salaries, Olympic medalists and Nobel prizes winners would be given preference.
Many people viewed the proposal as an attack on American values like equality and opportunity. Trump’s plan also led to a heated exchange in a press briefing when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked White House aide Stephen Miller if the Emma Lazarus poem The New Colossus that is at the base of the Statue of Liberty is still relevant. In response, we’d like you to write poems that riff on the final lines Lazarus’s work:
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!
We’d like to invite our readers to join the Guardian’s Lady Liberty poetry challenge What poem would Trump like to see at the base of the Statue of Liberty? How would Trump rewrite the message of American compassion? We’ll publish a selection of our favorite reader-submitted poems. The Guardian also asked 21 American poets to imagine in writing what type of poem would Trump like to see at the statue? For inspiration, read the submission from the poet John Yau below.
The New Colossus as Donald Trump
I don’t need more tired or poor
Let the mucky masses camp on their own dirty shore
Let them stay wretched, it is what they deserve
Send me only those who know how to bow, scrape and
serve
Or else I will close the gate to my golden hotel
— John Yau
(Adaptado de: What poem would Trump like to see on the Statue of Liberty? The Guardian. (Online) 10 ago. 2017. Disponível em: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/10/trump-poem-statue-of-liberty#top Acesso em 10 ago. 2017. Huddled masses? Losers! Trump v the Statue of Liberty. The Guardian. (Online) 10 ago. 2017. Disponível em: https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/ng-interactive/2017/aug/10/the-new-colossus-emma-lazarus-poems-donald-trump-immigration. Acesso em: 10 ago. 2017.)
A partir da leitura dos dois poemas presentes no texto, atribua V (verdadeiro) ou F (falso) às afirmativas a seguir.
( ) Em seu poema, John Yau usou o mesmo eu-lírico do poema de Lazarus como estratégia para acrescentar ênfase às atuais mudanças ideológicas.
( ) No poema de Yau, o uso de “or else”, no início do último verso, reflete o temor do eu-lírico frente à ameaça da chegada de imigrantes.
( ) No verso “Give me your tired, your poor” do poema da Lazarus, a escolha verbal enfatiza o desejo de acolher os imigrantes. A oposição a essa vontade é expressa pelos versos “Let the mucky masses. . . ” e “Let them stay wretched...”, no poema de Yau.
( ) No último verso do poema de Lázarus, “the golden door” refere-se literalmente à passagem pelo departamento de imigração americano.
( ) No poema de John Yau, o verso “Let the mucky masses camp on their own dirty shore” denota o desprezo que o eu-lírico tem pelos imigrantes e suas origens.
Assinale a alternativa que contém, de cima para baixo, a sequência correta
