In my small world, poetry has become my go-to place for solidarity, wisdom, hope, and prayer. Once upon a time critical commentary held that post - and I was addicted - reading/watching 8 or more analysts every day. Some were local, others national, and a few hailed from the wider world including the UK, Israel, Beirut and Latin America. A week simply did not feel complete without taking in David Brooks/Mark Shields on PBS as well as Gwen Iffel et al on Washington Week in Review.In the early days of the current political regime in the USA, however, I had to close down cable news: it became too shrill and repetitive. In retrospect, it always was, but the buzz held me captive with their tantalizing tid bits of so-called "breaking news." At the start of Lent 2019, I tried logging off of PBS, too. A previous spiritual director had urged me to fast from the news cycle during Lent 1996, so I wondered what it would feel like 20 years later. Honestly, it was liberating, like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders that I didn't realize I was carrying. These days I read David Leonhardt of the NY Times whose synthesis of the important stories of the day are insightful, peruse the on-line Guardian, and get periodic updates from both Democracy NOW as well as The Intercept.
What turned a Lenten fast into a regular practice of news-cycle abstinence was the ugly, self-righteousness pronouncements made on Facebook by those I had once respected on the Left. It is one thing to be self-assured, another thing entirely to be smug and dismissive. There's a small place in public discourse for rants, of course. Been there and done that myself. But when arrogance born of privilege and rhetorical vitriol become normative, something is out of balance. I can't speak for others, but it leaves me feeling soiled and heart-broken. Not that we should shy away from the consequences of our actions or bury our very real and important differences. Not at all. Rather, let's try to raise the conversation to include a measure of humility and compassion in our complaint.
I think humans as a species are in the process of finding out whether our big brains are a good adaptation or not. Clearly they can get us in a lot of trouble. Whether they can also get us out of trouble depends on the size of our hearts.
That is the key - the size of our hearts - our willingness to be humbled by our failures, informed by Mother Earth, embraced by the rejected, and inspired by small acts of tenderness. The wise, direct, and inspired Lucille Clifton, put it like this in her poem, "Sorrows."
who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be
beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals
that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin
sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls clicking their bony fingers
envying our crackling hair
our spice filled flesh
they have heard me beseeching
as I whispered into my own
cupped hands enough not me again
enough but who can distinguish
one human voice
amid such choruses of desire
In its own quiet way, this reading pointed towards an awakening taking place in America. Unlike Germany after WWII or South Africa after apartheid, we in the United States have not been known for our willingness to practice critical self-reflection. The current regime is proof positive of what a life of selfishness and denial looks like writ large. Without looking in the mirror honestly, however, we cannot repent. Or make amends. Or redress very real grievances. Until we are able to confess and lament our heritage of slavery, genocide, imperialism, class warfare, the objectification and violence against women, and men, and the LGBTQ community, child pornography, immigrant incarceration, the school-to-prison pipeline, and climate disruption of stagger proportions, we will continue to live as loud, boorish,addicted, ignorant beings akin to the walking wounded zombies of cable TV but much more destructive.
We suddenly feel ourselves wrenched from normal reality. For a while, we're seeing, hearing and feeling with new clarity. The urge to share this clarity and its immediate realizations leads to the writing of poems. And why poems Because poetry, particularly traditional rhymed and metered poetry, is at its best a heightened use of language. It's a form of art that can "lock" a realization into place, seemingly for all time. As one of my old professors used to say, "language measured and super-charged" at its best can be short enough to focus upon and even to memorize. It is not unusual to have poems used in ceremonies and rites. (https://www.courant.com/opinion/hc-op-allen-poetry-in-time-of-tragedy-newtown-1223-20121221-story.html) His elegy, "Solace," composed after the massacre at Newtwon, CT is a case in point:
There are the fields we’ll walk across
In the snow lightly falling.
In the snow lightly falling,
There are the fields we’ll walk across.
There are the houses we’ll walk toward
In the snow lightly falling.
In the snow lightly falling,
There are the houses we’ll walk toward.
There are the faces we once kissed
In the snow lightly falling.
In the snow lightly falling,
There are the faces we once kissed.
Incredible how we laughed and cried
In the snow lightly falling.
In the snow lightly falling,
Incredible how we laughed and cried.
Incredible how we’ll meet again
In the snow lightly falling.
In the snow lightly falling,
Incredible how we’ll meet again.
No small hand will go unheld
In the snow lightly falling.
In the snow lightly falling,
No small hand will go unheld.
No voice once heard is ever lost
In the snow lightly falling.
In the snow lightly falling,
No voice once heard is ever lost.
(Solace, Dick Allen, Newtown, CT December 2012)
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