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POETRY FRIDAY - HAMILTON EDITION: Burn

This week, a nod to the impending patriotic holiday and to today's debut of Hamilton: An American Musical, available for streaming on Disney+. (Mr. Jones and I plan to pop some popcorn and some bubbly and enjoy the full experience later today.)

Hamilton took the world by storm in 2015. Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical provided an energizing shot to the theater world, combining traditional musical theater sounds with rap, hip-hop, R&B, soul, and pop and featuring a diverse cast reflective of our contemporary world - the America-of-the-moment confronting and retelling the the story of the America-that-was. Hamilton was (and still is) a theatrical phenomenon, earning accolades pre-Broadway (8 Drama Desk Awards) and on Broadway (11 Tony Awards) and ultimately earning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2016.

So far, I've missed my chance to see Hamilton live. (I was to have experienced it back in April, but a pandemic interfered. I'm still hopeful to see it in Atlanta when it finally arrives - in August 2021!) I've only been able to experience the musical through video clips, awards-show performances, and the original cast recording. Among the many memorable moments in the show - the crisp opening number, "Alexander Hamilton"; the delightful introduction to "The Schuyler Sisters"; Eliza's "Helpless" and Angelica's "Satisfied"; Hamilton confronting his tragic flaw in "Say No This"; the haunting "It's Quiet Uptown" - the song that I return to again and agin is "Burn," both for the intense emotion of Phillipa Soo's performance (video link at the end of the post) and for the fusion of history, poetry, and drama in the lyrics and the music.

In "Burn," Eliza Hamilton, Alexander's wife, comes to grips with the news of her husband's affair. In the scene a devastated Eliza burns the letters that her husband had written her, a cathartic act that gives her some measure of agency in a situation that she did not create. For me, I'm always struck by the power of Eliza's simple, repetitive language - even the pronoun "you" becomes an emotional indictment of Alexander's actions. I love the sound play with "pa-" words - palaces, paragraphs, paranoid. And then there are the various iterations of "burn" - the metaphorical burn of passion, the glow of a burning world, the indirect burning in the allusion to Icarus, the literal burning of the letters, and the hot emotion of Eliza's final admonition to her husband, her searing wish that he will burn with regret.

Burn (from Hamilton)
Lin-Manuel Miranda (2015)

I saved every letter you wrote to me
From the moment I read them
I knew you were mine
You said you were mine
I thought you were mine

Do you know what Angelica said
When she saw your first letter arrive?
She said, be careful with that one, love,
He will do what it takes to survive.

You and your words flooded my sense
Your sentences left me defenseless
You built me palaces out of paragraphs
You built cathedrals

I'm re-reading the letters you wrote to me
I'm searching and scanning for answers in every line
For some kind of sign
And when you were mine
The world seemed to burn

Burn

You published the letters she wrote to you
You told the whole world
How you brought this girl into our bed
In clearing your name
You have ruined our lives

Do you know what Angelica said
When she read what you'd done?
She said, you've married an Icarus,
He has flown too close to sun.

You and your words obsessed with your legacy
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you -
You, you, you!

I'm erasing myself from the narrative
Let future historians wonder how Eliza reacted
When you broke her heart
You have torn it all apart
I'm watching it burn

The world has no right to my heart
The world has no place in our bed
They don't get to know what I said
I'm burning the memories
Burning the letters that might have redeemed you
You forfeit all rights to my heart
You forfeit the place in our bed
You'll sleep in your office instead
With only the memories
Of when you were mine

I hope that you burn.


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