Pilgrimage of poems: Choose laughing over fighting

For National Poetry Month today, we’re going to Harare, where members of Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights reached out to voters in last year’s elections through their poems.

I posted on this rather astonishing form of electioneering last summer, after hearing the story reported by NPR’s Ofeibia Quist-Arcton. You should really listen to the story, to hear the poets recite their poems, but here are a couple that were included.

Taste the similarities of the call from slam poets Robson Isaac Shoes Lambada and Michael Mabwe. In the use of repetition and the shaping of the sounds, they both remind me of Gertrude Stein, most of whose stuff you really need to hear rather than read. These poems are meant for performance.

First Mabwe:

What shall we say and do when

Politics is no longer the pattern of ideas

But the conquering of masters

Who control the greatest number of thugs

What shall we say and do when

The dead are more than the living

On the voters roll?

What shall we say and do when

Politicians have become hyenas

Devastating our communities?

And now Shoes Lambada:

What should the youth say and do

when they let them lie to the ah-bodda-bigga-boon?

Wibbly, wobbly walking in a grotesque parody of motion,

with worn out emotions,

and hopeless like skeletons of prehistoric animals.

Voting is the beginning of the ending of complaining.

And abstaining is donating your right to choosing.

I choose to choose by voting

and choose laughing over fighting,

voting over sloganeering and voting over fighting.

Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front party won that election. Sometimes brute force and chicanery trump poetry in the short term.

Pilgrimage of poems: Pleasure all the time

It’s Friday; time for something uncomplicated. So I give you Hilaire Belloc’s “Fatigue”. 

I quite like it. Make of it what you will.

I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme.

But Money gives me pleasure all the time.

Pilgrimage of poems: He always loved larking

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day—the day you copy or print out or memorize a favorite poem to carry around with you and share with others. That generally means it’s going to be short and pithy; unless you have really tolerant friends or are taking a trans-oceanic flight.

Last year my PIYPD poem was “in Just- spring”, by e.e. cummings. And the year before it was another by cummings, “Plato told”. So I’m breaking with my own pattern by going for one by Stevie Smith, “Not Waving but Drowning”. It’s short, vivid and powerful.

Smith reminds me a little of Parker, and Brooks; damn, but the woman packs a punch.

“Not Waving but Drowning”

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he's dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

Pilgrimage of poems: Beauty's summer dead

It’s Shakespeare’s birthday today (or at least the day it’s celebrated, based on his baptismal date of 26 April); one of those big round-number ones (450, if you're asking). So gotta give you some of the good stuff.

As with last year, it’s hard to pluck out just a couple of gems from his treasure-trove. So, as with last year, I’ll give you one sonnet and one of the speeches from a play.

The speech is Polonius’ advice to his son Laertes, from Hamlet—one of the better-known ones, to be sure. The deal is: Laertes (who is pretty much yang to Hamlet’s yin, inasmuch as he sets fist in motion long before he engages his brain; these days he’d be diagnosed with ADHD, and Hamlet with depression, and they’d both be medicated) is getting the hell out of Elsinore, and Polonius (who is the kind of alter kocker you really hope you won’t get seated next to at a royal dinner party) is dispensing words of wisdom, as he often does.

And we know that the words (which in this case happen to be quite wise) don’t even slow down on their way through Laertes’ brain. But here they are anyhow:

“There- my blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,

Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are most select and generous, chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all- to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!  “

Now here’s my teeny tweak on this: one of my favorite fluffy-flicks is Clueless, Amy Heckering’s update of Jane Austen’s Emma. Cher, the Emma character, is not an intellectual giant. (You should see what she does with a debate on immigration policy.) However, she does have a way of grasping some salient points, even if from an unexpected direction:

There you have the ultimate authoritative literary putdown.

Last year’s sonnet was Number 130, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”, which I do love. But Number 104 is good, too. Like Cher, this takes on the subject of aging from another perspective.

“Sonnet 104”

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold

Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned

In process of the seasons have I seen;

Three April pérfumes in three hot Junes burned,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.

  For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:

  Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

Pilgrimage of poems: Feckless as a colt

It may seem that the First World War produced a lot of poets, more than any other war before or since.

But the fact of the matter is that—as with so many other elements of that particular cataclysm—WWI’s circumstances did indeed engender a lot of poems published by its soldiers (at least in the British army), which you don’t see so much of before or afterwards. Especially in terms of expressing its filth, frustration, fear and futility.

In earlier wars, if poet-participants held views against the war, they pretty much kept them to themselves.

But then, the very nature of trench warfare—unspeakably bloody attacks interspersed with long periods of inaction, where you lived exposed to the elements and ankle-deep (if you were lucky) in mud; fended off rats, lice and other vermin; walked continuously hunched over (because if you stuck your head above the trench you might literally lose it), looked forward to nothing much beyond the daily rum ration; and had plenty of time to think—gave room for soldiers to work and rework their thoughts. (By contrast, there’s not a lot of poetry from airmen or sailors.)

And the ones who survived the initial days of “home by Christmas” had time to twig to the disconnect between the glory depicted in the media and the reality that you mostly couldn’t talk about to anyone not there with you. If you had the benefit of an English public school (meaning expensively private) education, poetry was an outlet.

Siegfried Sassoon, along with Wilfred Owen, is probably the best-known of these poets. He started off reasonably gung-ho in a white-flannels sort of way. He was a conscientious officer and exceptionally brave. He was awarded the Military Cross for a specific action in which he remained under rifle and artillery fire while retrieving wounded.

As it happened, that particular action was pointless, and he was not oblivious to this fact. He became increasingly angry about the futility of the war, and his poetry began to reflect this.

Following the death of a close friend, Sassoon wrote a letter to the Times articulating his position. He was something of a celebrity due to his pre-war poetry and his military career, and the published letter caused considerable consternation in the chain of command, all the way up to Parliament. After much hemming and hawing, the decision was made not to court-martial him, but instead send him to Craiglockhart Hospital, the facility for soldiers suffering from shell shock.

It was there that he met Owen, and where he had time to write a considerable body of work—dark, furious, bitter and anguished. It’s remarkable that despite his opposition to the war, when he was discharged from Craiglockhart, he returned to duty in France, suffering another wound, this time in the head from “friendly” fire. Unlike Owen, he survived the war.

It’s hard to decide among his output, but here are a couple.

“Dreamers”

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,

Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.   

In the great hour of destiny they stand,

Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.   

Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win   

Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin

They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,

And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,   

Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,

And mocked by hopeless longing to regain   

Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,

And going to the office in the train.

“Memory”

When I was young my heart and head were light,

And I was gay and feckless as a colt

Out in the fields, with morning in the may,

Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom.

O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free

And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time

Across the carolling meadows into June.

But now my heart is heavy-laden. I sit

Burning my dreams away beside the fire:

For death has made me wise and bitter and strong;

And I am rich in all that I have lost.

O starshine on the fields of long-ago,

Bring me the darkness and the nightingale;

Dim wealds of vanished summer, peace of home,

And silence; and the faces of my friends.

Gratitude Monday: Heartbreak, but never surrender

I’m never going to be a distance runner. I’m not a sprinter, either. In my heyday, I might have been a 10K-er, and my goal was always “just finish; without puking”. These days my pace is more like a stagger, and that’s even just intervals for walking. But I love watching the people who take on any running challenge, and particularly a marathon.

I mean—dang.

It’s Patriot’s Day, so they’re running the Boston Marathon today. There will be a lot more security in place, but runners around the world have been training for the past twelve months, and Bostonians are turning out to cheer them all along the 26.2-mile route.

Because fuck anyone who thinks they’re going to pervert something like this for whatever reason. You really think you’re going to stop people who run hundreds and hundreds of miles a year to be able to compete in this event? An event with a segment called “Heartbreak Hill”?

Yeah, no.

Last year, instead of being a few seconds of footage shown on the network news shows that night, the bomb attack on the Marathon dominated the global media for weeks. And in the run up to today, there’ve been “anniversary” reports on victims, first responders, witnesses and so forth. There will probably be more news teams there than racers. But still—they’ll be running.

It’s Patriot Day, and it’s Gratitude Monday. I’m grateful for everyone—professionals, bystanders, runners—who shot into action a year ago, helping those who had been wounded get to hospital quickly and ensuring that the death toll was so low. I’m grateful for the police investigators who tracked down the bombers so that at least one of them can face the justice system of a country they obviously despise. I’m grateful for the medical and rehabilitation teams that have worked over these months with the victims to overcome their catastrophic injuries (physical and psychological).

And I’m grateful to the Boston Marathon organizers who never for a moment thought of halting or curtailing this magnificent event, which has always been about humans striving to be more than they’ve been.

Pilgrimage of poems: Understand what Ithacas mean

I discovered Constantine Cavafy a while ago, when going through one of those poetry anthologies. I don’t know how I didn’t know him sooner—he’s amazing.

A Greek living for most of his life in Alexandria, Cavafy’s profession was journalism, and then the British civil service. He died in 1933, age 70.

My two favorite poems of his are “Ithaca” (1911) and “Waiting for the Barbarians” (1904).

The Ithaca in question is the home of Odysseus. He had not wanted to leave home when called by Menelaus and Agamemnon to fight the Trojans. After nine years of besieging Troy (recounted in The Iliad) Odysseus set out on a journey home, which eventually took him another 11 years. On the way he is beset by storms caused by an angry Poseidon, escapes captivity by the Cyclops Polyphemus, runs up against the cannibalistic Lestrygonians and outwits the sorceress Circe.

All the man wants to do is go home, put his feet up and reunite with his wife and the son he last saw as an infant.

Last year I gave you Tennyson’s view of Odysseus as an old man ready itching to set out on one last adventure. Here, Cavafy is urging us all to live such a life that by the time we reach the destination we are well and truly full of experiences and memories.

“Ithaca”

When you set sail for Ithaca,

wish for the road to be long,

full of adventures, full of knowledge.

The Lestrygonians and the Cyclopes,

an angry Poseidon — do not fear.

You will never find such on your path,

if your thoughts remain lofty, and your spirit

and body are touched by a fine emotion.

The Lestrygonians and the Cyclopes,

a savage Poseidon you will not encounter,

if you do not carry them within your spirit,

if your spirit does not place them before you.

Wish for the road to be long.

Many the summer mornings to be when

with what pleasure, what joy

you will enter ports seen for the first time.

Stop at Phoenician markets,

and purchase the fine goods,

nacre and coral, amber and ebony,

and exquisite perfumes of all sorts,

the most delicate fragrances you can find.

To many Egyptian cities you must go,

to learn and learn from the cultivated.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.

To arrive there is your final destination.

But do not hurry the voyage at all.

It is better for it to last many years,

and when old to rest in the island,

rich with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaca to offer you wealth.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful journey.

Without her you would not have set out on the road.

Nothing more does she have to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.

Wise as you have become, with so much experience,

you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Until you reach the final line, you might be forgiven for thinking that “Waiting for the Barbarians” is a commentary on contemporary events. Or at least those of the past hundred years. But that’s what makes poetry so powerful: the best of it is universal and timeless.

Those barbarians? What would we do without them?

“Waiting for the Barbarians”

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

       The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything going on in the senate?

Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

       Because the barbarians are coming today.

       What's the point of senators making laws now?

       Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,

and why is he sitting enthroned at the city's main gate,

in state, wearing the crown?

       Because the barbarians are coming today

       and the emperor's waiting to receive their leader.

       He's even got a scroll to give him,

       loaded with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today

wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?

Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,

rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?

Why are they carrying elegant canes

beautifully worked in silver and gold?

       Because the barbarians are coming today

       and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators turn up as usual

to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

       Because the barbarians are coming today

       and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?

(How serious people's faces have become.)

Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,

everyone going home lost in thought?

       Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.

       And some of our men just in from the border say

       there are no barbarians any longer.

Now what's going to happen to us without barbarians?

Those people were a kind of solution.

Pilgrimage of poems: A trace of the traceless

To tell you the truth, every poem I’ve read related to Easter makes me want to hurl. Well, except for Yeats’s “Easter 1916”. But I gave that one to you last year for National Poetry Month, so it’s off-limits this time around.

So let’s put the specific day aside and just think about…humanity. I’m not sure there’s a better take on the basics than “Only Breath”, by the Persian poet/Sufi mystic known just as Rumi.

“Only Breath”

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that

breath breathing human being.