Surprising Sentences, Part 5: Taylor Simone Ledward's Golden Globe Speech

"He would thank God. He would thank his parents. He would thank his ancestors for their guidance and their sacrifices."

With these words, Taylor Simone Ledward, began her acceptance speech on behalf of her late husband, Chadwick Boseman, for winning the Golden Globe for best actor in a motion picture drama for his unforgettable, transcendent performance as Levee Green in August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. The emotional impact of a young widow tearfully speaking for her deceased husband from her the privacy of her home during for a pandemic is visceral. Ledward adds to the poignancy of the moment not by introducing herself and her relationship to Boseman, not by mentioning Boseman's name, and not by any self-reference, all which would be expected. Instead, she chooses the third-person he for the first eight sentences of her speech. This technique brings an immediacy and intimacy that make us feel we too have lost someone special in our life. And we have.

In only 12 sentences and 178 words, Ledward graciously fits in the given and family names of 18 people who collaborated with Boseman on the last performance of his life while terminally ill with colon cancer at age 43. She also masterfully uses repetition with plain yet powerful language, as in this sentence: "He would say something beautiful, something inspiring, something that would amplify that little voice inside of all of us that tells you you can, that tells you to keep going, that calls you back to what you are meant to be doing at this moment in history," those final words so apt for the character her husband played.

Another surprise comes in the final four sentences, when Ledward freely shifts persons with the abandon of the jazz musician her husband portrayed in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. She uses them all, from the first- and third-person singular, to the first-person plural, and, most remarkably, the second person, when she addresses her husband directly: "And honey, you keep 'em coming," making the final two-word sentence, "Thank you," wonderfully ambiguous. Is she referring to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which just endowed Boseman with the Golden Globe, or to Boseman himself for their all-too-brief relationship?