I appreciate being given this opportunity to share one last time, and although at first I was going to focus on some European poets of protest, I found some really good quotes from our own US poets that I wanted to share. Most of them I got from a wonderful book by Bill Moyers, “Fooling With Words: A Celebration Of Poets and Their Craft” (Morrow, 1999).
I really believe that poetry has the power to stir people and to reach core places that prose cannot. Jane Hirschfeld told Bill Moyers, “A good poem takes something you probably already know as a human being and somehow raises your capacity to feel it to a higher degree. It allows you to know your experience more intensely.” And so I think poetry has a large part to play in our resistance to the evil and greedy men who have temporarily taken over our government.
This story from the book really struck me, not just about the power of poetry but how it could be a more effective and less dangerous tool in the resistance.
African-American poet Kurtis Lamkin told Bill Moyers: “…There was an incident in St. Louis. During the day I would sit in the library reading Langston Hughes, and at night I went out looking for trouble. One day I was about to get on a bus to carry on down in Little Rock and a policeman stopped me. The first time a policeman stopped me that summer! And he asked me what I had in my bag. I showed him the bag and he went through it. He found what I have been writing at the library. He said, “these are poems?” I said, “yeah.” He said, “you a poet?” I said, “yeah.” He threw them on the ground and cursed me. I guess he didn’t like people like me writing poetry. And I said to myself, “oh God, oh God. On any other day he could have stopped me and found the shotgun I was carrying. Now he’s only found poems – and he still cursing me.” He had a gun on his hip and I knew where mine was. But it hit me. The guns didn’t make either of us a better man. I came to my senses. I decided that if I’m going to die, then let me starve as a poet. I changed my ticket and went back to Philly and started writing. And that was it.”
He and others have been writing poetry of protest for years. This is one of his about a well-known gathering:
. . .
The Million Man March
we do right
we do wrong
we do time over time
we do what it takes to shake the snake
that coils around our humble lives
whatever we can do
we do
we do lunch
we do meetings
we do fundraisers we do marches
we send 1 million men
to carry peace to the heart of a cold cold nation
some say we don’t count
we do
we always do
suppose there’s a god
who thinks that we are god
who loves us so deeply she followed us here
we work so hard every trick looks like a miracle
and then we name the trickster god
if there is a god
who thinks that we are god
do we hear her prayer
do we?
in the deep dark hour
when we are all alone
what is that sound what is that prayer
what is this faith
we do
But it’s not just protest that poetry helps with – it can also help with the trauma of life and so has a lot to offer us as we anticipate at least a few years of turmoil. Jane Hirschfeld has a group of poems, The Lives of the Heart, which she called “a series of recipes for getting through difficult periods, times you feel you’ve walked over a cliff, times Winston Churchill referred to as ‘visits of the black dog’.” It includes this wonderful poem:
. . .
Mule Heart
. . .
On the days when the rest
have failed you,
let this much be yours –
flies, dust, and unnameable odor,
the two waiting baskets:
one for the lemons and passion,
the other for all you have lost.
Both empty,
it will come to your shoulder,
breathe slowly against your bare arm.
If you offer it hay, it will eat.
Offered nothing,
it will stand as long as you ask.
The little bells of the bridle will hang
beside you quietly,
in the heat and the tree’s thinned shade.
Do not let its sparse mane deceive you,
or the way the left ear swivels into dream.
This too is a gift of the gods,
calm and complete.
. . .
And although I do not put myself anywhere near these wonderful poets, I would like to share one of my poems that was recently published in Main Street Rag, about where I feel poetry takes me right now:
. . .
Brink
. . .
“when you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
. . .
Between the in breath and the out
between the crack and the rumble
trembling on the moment, uncertain.
Between the touch of my pen to pad
and the long black scrawl –
the deep crevasse of Now –
dare I pause, teetering?
Though multitudes take Churchill’s advice,
swarming through Hell, scattering moments
like spittle – surging ahead – I pause.
Between one step and the next
between the terror and the cry –
the unheeded moment follows…
haunting, dogging. What does it want?
Below the bridges we’ve built, traveling in air,
beneath the veneer we layer on Now,
the tidepool of the dark ones,
the black nests of dour birds,
the bones of those who leapt the guardrails
to plunge into some imagined grace.
Almost possible to pause here –
between the in breath and the out.
Almost graspable, the moment,
everything poised, naked,
before it spins away
and the gears of our making
catch and grind forward again.
. . .
Have any poets poems inspired you recently? Any that you’re holding to your heart right now as you struggle to find a way to deal with the new administration?
. . .
Dec 20th: I prepared the post early, but today, after our last hope was dashed, I want to add a very moving poem I found at Poetry Foundation:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/91751
Borberbus
By Juan Felipe Herrera
A dónde vamos where are we going
Speak in English or the guard is going to come
A dónde vamos where are we going
Speak in English or the guard is gonna get us hermana
Pero qué hicimos but what did we do
Speak in English come on
Nomás sé unas pocas palabras I just know a few words
--
You better figure it out hermana the guard is right there
See the bus driver
--
Tantos días y ni sabíamos para donde íbamos
So many days and we didn't even know where we were headed
--
I know where we're going
Where we always go
To some detention center to some fingerprinting hall or cube
Some warehouse warehouse after warehouse
-
Pero ya nos investigaron ya cruzamos ya nos cacharon
Los federales del bordo qué más quieren
But they already questioned us we already crossed over they
already grabbed us the Border Patrol what more do they want
--
We are on the bus now
that is all
--
A dónde vamos te digo salí desde Honduras
No hemos comido nada y dónde vamos a dormir
Where are we going I am telling you I came from Honduras
We haven’t eaten anything and where are we going to sleep
--
I don’t want to talk about it just tell them
That you came from nowhere
I came from nowhere
And we crossed the border from nowhere
And now you and me and everybody else here is
On a bus to nowhere you got it?
--
Pero por eso nos venimos para salir de la nada
But that’s why we came to leave all that nothing behind
When the bus stops there will be more nothing
We’re here hermana
--
Y esas gentes quiénes son
no quieren que siga el camión
No quieren que sigamos
Están bloqueando el bus
A dónde vamos ahora
Those people there who are they
they don't want the bus to keep going
they don't want us to keep going
now they are blocking the bus
so where do we go
--
What?
--
He tardado 47 días para llegar acá no fue fácil hermana
45 días desde Honduras con los coyotes los que se — bueno
ya sabes lo que les hicieron a las chicas allí mero en frente
de nosotros pero qué íbamos a hacer y los trenes los trenes
cómo diré hermana cientos de
nosotros como gallinas como topos en jaulas y verduras
pudriendóse en los trenes de miles me oyes de miles y se resbalaban
de los techos y los desiertos de Arizona de Tajas sed y hambre
sed y hambre dos cosas sed y hambre día tras día hermana
y ahora aquí en este camión y quién sabe a dónde
vamos hermana fijate vengo desde Brownsville dónde nos amarraron
y ahora en California pero todavía no entramos y todavía el bordo
está por delante
It took me 47 days to get here it wasn't easy hermana
45 days from Honduras with the coyotes the ones that — well
you know what they did to las chicas
right there in front of us so what were we supposed
to do and the trains the trains how can I tell you hermana hundreds
of us like chickens like gophers in cages and vegetables
rotting on trains of thousands you hear me of thousands and they slid
from the rooftops and the deserts of Arizona and Texas thirst and hunger
thirst and hunger two things thirst and hunger day after day hermana
and now here on this bus of who-knows-where we are going
hermana listen I come from Brownsville where they tied us up
and now in California but still we're not inside and still the border
lies ahead of us
--
I told you to speak in English even un poquito
the guard is going to think we are doing something
people are screaming outside
they want to push the bus back
--
Pero para dónde le damos hermana
por eso me vine
le quebraron las piernas a mi padre
las pandillas mataron a mi hijo
solo quiero que estemos juntos
tantos años hermana
separados
But where do we go hermana
that's why I came here
they broke my father's legs
gangs killed my son
I just want us to be together
so many years hermana
pulled apart
--
What?
--
Mi madre me dijo que lo más importante
es la libertad la bondad y la buenas acciones
con el prójimo
My mother told me that the most important thing
is freedom kindness and doing good
for others
--
What are you talking about?
I told you to be quiet
--
La libertad viene desde muy adentro
allí reside todo el dolor de todo el mundo
el momento en que purguemos ese dolor de nuestras entrañas
seremos libres y en ese momento tenemos que
llenarnos de todo el dolor de todos los seres
para liberarlos a ellos mismos
Freedom comes from deep inside
all the pain of the world lives there
the second we cleanse that pain from our guts
we shall be free and in that moment we have to
fill ourselves up with all the pain of all beings
to free them — all of them
--
The guard is coming well
now what maybe they'll take us
to another detention center we'll eat we’ll have a floor
a blanket toilets water and each other
for a while
--
No somos nada y venimos de la nada
pero esa nada lo es todo si la nutres de amor
por eso venceremos
We are nothing and we come from nothing
but that nothing is everything, if you feed it with love
that is why we will triumph
--
We are everything hermana
Because we come from everything
I will continue to use poetry to resist our incoming menace, and will share what I find with you as I can. Thanks, all, for your love of poetry and your willingness to share!