“Hope,” that slippery angelfish, has not completely slipped from Barack Obama’s rhetoric though it has been switched out for the less charged, party-approved “change.”
I should say HOPE and CHANGE. Both words have hardened into all-caps, emblazoned on the soft stuff of campaigning. I’m curious how the H word will swim out in Denver this week. Are its services not required now that “the audacity of hope” has run its impassioned, tumultuous course? Will “hope” still slip and activate an audience? The ferocious sell-sell-sell of the campaign needs some shattering: time for these winking words to be refreshed, re-meaned. I can only hope (!) that the DNC speakers will accomplish some of this and surprise us.
My favorite hope-monger, Emily Dickinson, took the word out for two very different and serious flights. Hope was a difficult and worthwhile activity for her; defining it twice, she opens it again:
“Hope is a subtle glutton”
“Hope is the thing with feathers”