The World Is Waiting for You

February 1, 2015
A collection of recent graduation speeches meant to inspire, edited by New Press education editor Grove and recent Harvard grad Ostrer. A great deal of importance is placed upon graduating from college, that day of pomp, of endings and beginnings, and colleges have become very competitive in seeking out luminaries to deliver those rousing speeches to the graduates. With nearly 2,000 speeches to be given every year-and that's just the private, four-year institutions-it's a tall order to put together a speech that lives on after the mortarboards launch skyward. The ones that do transcend, though, can be powerful calls to take heed of what came before. With a mix of speeches from journalists, scientists, musicians, novelists and others, the forms of inspiration found here run the gamut. Thoughts from recognizable names are recognizable in content but also offer few surprises: Oliver Stone speaking about treating the mind like a garden, for example. Toni Morrison, speaking of a time when "the language at the feet of the Statue of Liberty has been paved over," attempts to close the imagination gap required to move that notion from an impossibility to an inevitability. Tony Kushner says "hope grapples endlessly with despair," and it rings true. Reading the speeches from before 9/11 and after is both heartbreaking and uplifting, and the tonal shifts are apparent. The contributor list is impressive and includes Anna Quindlen, Barbara Kingsolver, Noam Chomsky, Gloria Steinem, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Howard Zinn, Ursula K. Le Guin and Bryan Stevenson. Not all the speeches break new ground, but they are uplifting in their overarching focus: There is important work to be done in this world, regardless of the large and small events of our lives.

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March 1, 2015

Grove (education editor, the New Press) and Ostrer (recent Harvard Univ. graduate) present 19 college and university commencement speeches from the 21st century by a diverse selection of authors and notable figures--Howard Zinn, Barbara Kingsolver, and Wynton Marsalis, to name but a few--with one well-chosen outlier from the 1980s. The focus on current addresses ensures that readers comprehend context regarding these troubled times, but a bit more historical perspective may have been useful. While compilations of inspirational commencements abound, greater breadth in this volume could have enhanced the speakers' messages of hopefulness by showing readers that, despite the urgency of today's woes, this is not the first crop of graduating classes to face an uncertain future. A few contributors do include that viewpoint, and nearly all successfully bring it around: "it" being their narrative and "around" meaning moving from bleak realities to luminescent possibilities, just as a graduation speech ought. VERDICT This collection runs the gamut with speeches ranging from inspiring to bleak with a few loopy or boring for good measure and accuracy.--Jewell Anderson, Savannah Country Day Sch. Lib., GA

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