Political Poetry - Trump and Palin

Woody Guthrie’s landlord was none other than Donald Trump’s dad! Their relationship made for some interesting lyrics, reports The New Republic. “Guthrie lived for two years in a Brooklyn apartment the elder Trump owned, but grew upset at the racist policies that the real estate developer used to exclude blacks from his property.”

Writing in Raw Story, [scholar Will] Kaufman quotes some song lyrics Guthrie wrote to denounce “old man Trump”:

I suppose

Old Man Trump knows

Just how much

Racial Hate

he stirred up

In the bloodpot of human hearts

When he drawed

That color line

Here at his

Eighteen hundred family project

As Kaufman notes, both Fred Trump and his son would be investigated by the government for allegedly racist leasing practices.

Gawker has more from Kaufman himself:

In 1979, 12 years after Guthrie had succumbed to the death sentence of Huntington’s Disease, Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett published a two-part exposé about Fred and Donald Trump’s real estate empire.

Barrett devoted substantial attention to the cases brought against the Trumps in 1973 and 1978 by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. A major charge was that “racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents” had “created a substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity.” The most damning evidence had come from Trump’s own employees. As Barrett summarizes:

According to court records, four superintendents or rental agents confirmed that applications sent to the central [Trump] office for acceptance or rejection were coded by race. Three doormen were told to discourage blacks who came seeking apartments when the manager was out, either by claiming no vacancies or hiking up the rents. A super said he was instructed to send black applicants to the central office but to accept white applications on site. Another rental agent said that Fred Trump had instructed him not to rent to blacks. Further, the agent said Trump wanted “to decrease the number of black tenants” already in the development “by encouraging them to locate housing elsewhere.”
Guthrie had written that white supremacists like the Trumps were “way ahead of God” because

God dont know much about any color lines.

Guthrie hardly meant this as a compliment. But the Trumps – father and son alike – might well have been arrogant enough to see it as one. After all, if you find yourself “way ahead of God” in any kind of a race, then what else must God be except, well, “a loser”? And we know what Donald Trump thinks about losers.

One thing is certain: Woody Guthrie had no time for “Old Man Trump.”

 

Palin's Song: Her Speech Endorsing Trump, Compressed Into Short Poems

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jedediah-purdy/palins-song-her-speech-en_b_9024152.html

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/27/sarah-palin-channels-her-inner-slam-poet/

• http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/01/19/sarah_palin_s_rambling_donald_trump_endorsement_was_post_apocalyptic_poetry.html

• http://www.utne.com/arts/sarah-palins-poetry.aspx

• Sarah Palin's Poetry

 The Soviet artist Vagrich Bakhchanyan hoped to subvert his government by using its own language against it in his art: “He made works on paper in which appropriated texts and images were combined and layered using transfer techniques, some utilizing official notices by Soviet administrators—the terse, usually handwritten flyers that punctuated the everyday life of Soviet citizens with warnings, admonitions, and exhortations. One such announcement scribbled on a page torn out of a logbook reads: ‘Comrade residents! On Monday the 19th there won’t be any cold or hot water. We ask you to close the taps and shut off the heating system.

We’ve known for a while that fairy tales are old, but only now have we discovered that they’re in fact really, really, really old—an important distinction. Stories like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Rumpelstiltskin” originated thousands of years ago, researchers suggest, in “prehistoric times, with one tale originating from the bronze age”: “Using techniques normally employed by biologists, they studied common links between 275 Indo-European fairy tales from the world and found some have roots that are far older than previously known, and ‘long before the emergence of the literary record.’ ”

Yet Another Screed about Political poetry

Even a year and more before the election, it's getting pretty hard to get away from politics.

I was reading Nin Andrews' blog post about political poetry, "Of Course Men Suffer From Vagina Envy--a few thoughts on political poetry"-- and, once again, thinking about political poetry.

I hate political poetry too*, but on the whole, I rather agree with Nin.

What it is that I really dislike is bad political poetry, by which I mean superficial political poetry, but "bad political poetry" is what far too much of it is.

• If your poem says nothing but how outraged you are about things happening to people you've never actually met and don't know anything about except what you read in the same paper I read
• if you are shouting at me opinions I could have read in the editorial page of the Plain Dealer--or for that matter the Wall Street Journal  
• If your poem is nothing but a long scream of rage about unjust society
• If you think your poem is funny because it lampoons cartoon stereotypes about people who disagree with you*
• If you've never actually listened when people who disagree with you are talking, but are nevertheless burning to explain to me why opinions that you've never listened to are wrong...

--I don't want to hear it.

On the other hand, if your political poem has vividly-observed details about real living breathing people--people you actually know, or at least have seen in real life, and not cardboard imitations--  people with stories of their own-- people who don't fit any stereotypes and have quirky and even contradictory viewpoints... if you have insights that are more than soundbites that fit on an index card... if you see society as a complicated interactions among humans no two alike, all with differing goals, without easy solutions... in short, if you see the world in swirls of vivid color, not black and white certainties...  yeah, maybe that one's for me.  Bring it on!

---

*although sometimes I write it anyway.

Poetry as Propaganda

A friend once told me, "It's very easy to die for a cause. It's very difficult to live for a cause." This is something that surely every poet understands.

That being said, apparently ISIS is now using poetry as propaganda to rally their troops into martyrdom. This is certainly nothing new, but is still disheartening.

In defiance, I wonder if readers could write their own propaganda. What changes would you like to see made in Cleveland, and what would the rewards of such changes be? What could we do to make Cleveland more friendly, beautiful, prosperous, artistic, healthy, successful? Where is that poetry? Identify a problem--little or big--and then promise the people who commit themselves to solving that problem the most glorious, celebratory, visions of delight. If terrorist martyrs get 72 virgins to die for their cause, what do the people get if they live for your cause?

I can't wait to see your poems.

Poetic Justice on January 17th!

Click here for more info.

Ohio Senate Passes Bill Establishing Ohio Poet Laureate - House Next!

Steve Abbott testifying on behalf of S.B. 84 on May 21st
in Columbus [photo by Michael Salinger]

Click here to read about it on the Ohio Senate's minority caucus blog.  

Many thanks to the senators, including many from our area and from both political parties, who have stepped up and supported Senate Bill 84.  Letters from poets and other bill supporters from across the state, as well as great support from the Ohio Arts Council and Ohio Poetry Association have helped immensely.  But our work's not done yet.

Now Senate Bill 84 is moving on to the Ohio House for consideration and this is the perfect time for us to write to our state representatives and express our support for the establishment of a Poet Laureate position in Ohio.  It doesn't seem right that Ohio, the home of so many fine poets statewide, is one of only five or six United States not to have such a position.

So please write to your state representative and urge him or her to pass this bill.

Click here to find your representative.
Click here to read Senate Bill 84, the Ohio Poet Laureate bill.
Click here to read Michael Salinger's testimony before the Senate in support of S.B. 84.
Click here to read John Burroughs' testimony before the Senate in support of S.B. 84.
Click here to read a statement by Steve Abbott on the O.P.A. blog in support of S.B. 84.

Thoughts after an open mike

In the beginning of his book, Buffalo Head Solos, Tim Seibles writes the following:

AN OPEN LETTER

I want to talk about some of the things I’m after when I write, my sense of the American predicament, and what I hope for poetry and for people in relation to words. I know I’m also talking to myself here, and I can’t speak to the success or failure of what transpires in the poems that follow. I simply hope that this short rant can provide a clarifying context, a brief look at what confounds and compels my efforts. I realize, of course, that this could be bone-headedly presumptuous, but there are things far worse than speaking out of turn.

In fact, part of what energizes me is all the nay-saying I hear about what poets and poetry can do. Poetry will never reach the general public. Poetry shouldn’t be political or argumentative. Poetry will not succeed if it’s excessively imaginative. Poetry can’t change anything. Because the first people I heard saying such things were poets, I used to believe these notions were born of thoughtful consideration and humility, but now I see them as a kind of preemptive apology, a small-hearted justification for the writing of a hobbled poetry– a poetry that doesn’t want to be too conspicuous, a poetry that knows its place, that doesn’t mean to trouble the water, that is always decorous and never stomps in with bad breath and muddy boots.

But why not? Why not a rambunctious and reckless poetry, when the ascendent social order permits nearly every type of corruption and related hypocrisy? Why not risk everything, at least more often if not always? So much is at stake. This culture, deranged by both spoken and unspoken imperatives, mocks the complexity of our loneliness, our spiritual hunger for dynamic meanings, our thirst for genuine human community, for good magic and good sense. And, given the growing heap of human wreckage, why not approach language and its transforming potential with the most tenacious eye, with a ferocity bordering on the psychotic? What the hell happened to the notion of poet as town crier, rabble rouser, shaman, court jester, priestess, visionary, madman?

Given the way things have gone, it’s almost impossible not to be overtaken by despair. Writing poems in SUV-America can feel like fiddling amidst catastrophe, but if one must fiddle shouldn’t one play that thing till it smokes? And in stirring the words with our tongues, our paws, our long nights, and the simmering tangle of our brains, maybe we could move our general kin to listen.

The mainstream discourse is dominated by pop muzak, murderously repetitive police dramas, spineless newscasts, insipid movies, and simple-minded talk-shows. Even if we, as poets, do find ourselves regularly locked in the attic, we assist in our own erasure if we accept this gag without a fight, without trying to make poems whose clarity and relevance can’t be denied. I have grown sick to death of meeting people who say they don’t like poetry, can’t understand poetry, when they probably haven’t read any since high school when they were offered a few leaden standards whose anemic music was further muted by a number of teachers who taught the poems lovelessly in a “unit,” then gave a test. And it goes on and on. Why act as if this were just the way it is, as if there were little we– as poets– could do to renovate the house of living words. Maybe we could measure more critically the distance that separates us from, say, a non-academic audience. Maybe we can speak more irresistibly, more often, and to more people, unless the prevailing lack of essential speech has so defeated us that we’ve simply decided to die quietly at our desks. I can’t believe this is the case, and I can’t stop thinking that good poems– in a kind of chorus on the loose– could comprise a general invitation to a much needed wakefulness.

A lot of people are starving for better light to see by, searching as they are in the well-worn shadows. At the very least, poetry could be one tasty dish in a much needed feast: we should serenade those who don’t know poems, who fear poems, who don’t trust words that ask them to step into new sensations and unsanctioned territories. We should pursue them as though we are love-struck and cannot help it. I’m only half-kidding. How else can people enlarge their grasp of what being alive means? And why else are we here? The alternative– stoically scratching our heads while the world burns down– is simply too degrading to the helpful purpose of language and to our lives as people who work to illuminate the possibilities of consciousness.

I think about being in America, being a citizen and poet living in the American Empire, home of truly virulent strains of racism, sexism, moneyism– and now, a wildly aggressive nationalism which may force us to live with war and its omnivorous machinery for far longer than the Bush Regime holds sway. Why write as if the socio-political atmosphere doesn’t have direct bearing on how everyone makes it through each day? Isn’t bad news a kind of weather, a surging storm we lean into every time we open our eyes? The intricacies of our various travels between optimism and cynicism are utterly shaped by the society we inhabit– and the delight or rage each of us lives with hour by hour defines our style of travel, the tenor of our lives. The growing presence of the zombie must be a sign that for many it’s simply better to be blind than to see and respond to the world that surrounds us.

Doesn’t a working Democracy require a full-hearted willingness to voice everything, to insist upon a chance for the most hopeful outcomes? Isn’t the current prevalence of smiling apathy and timid speech an emblem of a whelming fascism? Whether this is driven by The State, The Church, The General Opinion, or all of these in concert doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be a member of a society famous for its massive yet poorly distributed wealth, its high-tech fire-power, its environmental stupidity, and its somnambulant, sports-loving population. And, if I must be a citizen in such a place, I certainly don’t want my poems to be in cahoots with the nightmare. Why should poems merely add quirky spice to a cultural medley that affirms a plague of perpetual consumption and really loud cheering?

I believe poetry can be proof that dynamic awareness is alive and kicking, a constant reminder to ourselves and to our fellow citizens that being alert, both inwardly and outwardly, rewards each person with more life? Doesn’t a good poem return each reader to that deeper sense of things, to that commonly muzzled vitality that can’t be bought off or shushed? I think being fully human demands this, demands poetry.

I say let the poems move in all ways; at least, then, we’ll have a chance to reach the bridge– and if we go mad let it be because we believed too much in the heart’s voice. Where else will we find the most cataclysmic wing of the imagination revealed in words? The dim-witted drowsiness that remains so pervasive is a sign of the gradual asphyxiation of the sweetest human yearnings, a kind of spiritual anorexia. Consider how much of our story we’ve already conceded to science and its robotic objectivism. Consider how the big religions seal our lips and drive the herd with that locked-down, self-congratulatory, God-says-what-we-say-He-says language. Perhaps even the realm of The Sacred might be rescued from dogma and returned to all of us in its broadest expanse– through poetry– if the poets dare to sing wilder hymns.

How else can we begin to free ourselves from the entrenched muck that is currently up to our necks? How can we learn how to live if the words don’t live with us? (A country that chatters with outrage over Janet Jackson’s breast, but remains all but silent about repeated displays of Saddam Hussein’s killed sons is a country to fear, indeed.) What strange, anesthetic winds have scoured the streets of this nation?

In a free society there is a central place for acute attentiveness, for uncompromising honesty and feeling– and for whatever inspires and sustains them. Enough tittering. Enough clever ballooning. Enough. There has to be a way to stop this dying, a way to make a literature that does more, a poetry with the kiss of a shark and the feet of a sparrow, a poetry at intervals beautiful then ruthless, friendly but full of useful delusions. If I lack the vision or if my own fear proves insurmountable I pray that those with the necessary instruments will soon bring the right noise.

– Tim Seibles
February 28, 2004


In 2011, the following things happened:

• A Tunisian street vendor immolates himself in protest of harassment and government corruption, starting "Arab Spring"
• Osama Bin Laden is murdered in a firefight with elite American forces at his Pakistan compound, then is quickly buried at sea in a stunning finale to a furtive decade on the run. 
• Outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warns that the future of the NATO military alliance is at risk because of European penny-pinching and a distaste for front-line combat. 
• Chinese President Hu Jintao uses his White House visit to acknowledge "a lot still needs to be done" to improve human rights in his nation accused of repressing its people. 
• AOL Inc. announces $315 million purchase of news website The Huffington Post.  
• Protesters swarm Wisconsin's capitol after Gov. Scott Walker proposes cutbacks in benefits and bargaining rights for public employees. 
• Obama approves the resumption of military trials at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ending a two-year ban.  
• Magnitude-9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami strike Japan's northeastern coast, a combined disaster that will kill nearly 20,000 people and cause grave damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. 
• Portugal becomes the third debt-stressed European country to need a bailout, following Ireland and Greece; prime minister announces request.
•  Obama makes four-hour visit to Puerto Rico, the first president since John F. Kennedy to make an official visit to the U.S. territory. 
• Rupert Murdoch's media empire unexpectedly jettisons News of the World, Britain's best-selling Sunday newspaper, after a public backlash over claims it used phone hacking and other illegal tactics to expose the rich and famous, royals and ordinary citizens.  The scandal escalates with the arrest of Murdoch's former British newspaper chief and the resignation of London's police commissioner. Prime Minister David Cameron calls a special session of Parliament to address the scandal; Murdoch will testify that he's humbled but accepts no responsibility.
• Citing a "gulf between the political parties," credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgrades U.S. debt for the first time since assigning the nation's AAA rating in 1917. 
• Federal jury convicts three New Orleans police officers, a former officer and a retired sergeant of civil rights violations in the 2005 shooting deaths of a teenager and a mentally disabled man crossing a bridge following Hurricane Katrina.  
• Afghan insurgents down a U.S. military helicopter, killing 30 Americans and eight Afghan commandos, the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-old war. 
•  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he will ask the U.N. Security Council next week to endorse his people's decades-long quest for statehood but emphasizes that he does not seek to isolate or delegitimize Israel. 
• A demonstration calling itself Occupy Wall Street begins in New York, within weeks prompting similar protests around the U.S. and the world. Perceived economic unfairness is behind the frequent chant, "We are the 99 percent."
• Vladimir Putin's decision to reclaim the Russian presidency next year foreshadows a continuation of the strongman rule that many in the West call a retreat from democracy. 
• After 46 seasons as Penn State's head football coach and a record 409 victories, Joe Paterno is fired, along with the university president, over their handling of child sex abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky; two top university officials step down following grand jury indictments. 
• The flag used by U.S. forces in Iraq was lowered in a Baghdad airport ceremony marking the end of a war that left 4,500 Americans and 110,000 Iraqis dead and cost more than $800 billion.

In 2012, the following things have happened, are happening or will happen:

• A fire in a Honduran prison kills more than 250 inmates, starting a call for reforms in that country
• French Election
• Mexican General Election
• Egyptian Presidential Election
• The United States General Election

So, my question is, if one accepts Seibles' arguments, that "Writing poems in SUV-America can feel like fiddling amidst catastrophe, but if one must fiddle shouldn’t one play that thing till it smokes?", then what poems have you written about these events or others that have happened? How are you, as a poet, writing poems that are not " in cahoots with the nightmare" and how are you getting them into the hands of the public?

The Public Responsibilities of Poets

Christina Brooks pointed out this article from The University Bookman, "The Public Responsibilities of Known American Poets," and suggested it might be a good post for the Clevelandpoetics blog, saying "It makes some really good points in it about poetry... and a poets role in society."

"But if poetry has a greater purpose because ostensibly it is capable of directly advancing a collective social good, one must commiserate with those sincere poets who are excluded from these inner circles. Under these conditions one hopes that their love of their art will sufficiently inspire them despite their long treks towards probable nothingness."

The News

For those poets who read the news, a spot you might want to follow is the New Verse News, a site that publishes poetry dealing (mostly) with the day's news and current events. Maybe it's not as good a source of news as the Plain Dealer, or even the Scene... but then again, who says poets might not be the best people to interpret the news?

I was astonished to see that quite a few of our local poets are regulars there, including at various times (among others):

• Jill Lange ("Weather Report")
• Mary Turzillo ("Spirit at Troy")
• Mary C. O'Malley ("When Fog Invades Cleveland")
• J.E. Stanley ("Dream Deferred")
• Nin Andrews ("Bananas")
• Michele Cooper ("Unexpected Off-Site")
• Fred Schraff ("Covered")
• Robert Farmer ("On News of the 2nd Batallion, 503rd Infantry (Airborne)")
• Roger Craik ("Monumental")
• Erika Feigenbaum ("For These Reasons")
• Marcus Bales ("Stopping by Woods with a Snowy Vandal")
• Diane Kendig ("Some Women Just Give Up")
• Jan Snow ("Urban Story: a Synopsis")
• Mary Weems ("Tanorexia")
• and even me ("Fall Haiku")

--New Verse News admits that it tends toward the "politically progressive" (although a lot of the poems aren't political), so if your opinions tend more toward Glenn Beck, your mileage may vary--

While I've brought up political poetry sites, by the way, let me also mention Mobius, for no other reason than that I have a piece in the most recent issue (but then, isn't that a good enough reason for me to mention it?)

So, politics in poetry-- does it make for good poetry? Well, heck, maybe it does, maybe doesn't-- but when did poets ever stay away from politics? And it looks like Cleveland poets are in the middle of it!

Politics in poetry?

I recently attended a reading
where the feature stated, “I hate political poems,” as he then proceeded to read what may or may not have been construed as a “political poem.” But this begs the question: Is there a place for politics in poetry?

I would argue that any thought-provoking topic has a place in poetry (or art), be it nature, religion, unrequited love, or even politics. I would argue that the problem is whether or not politics is approached with open-mindedness by both the audience and the artist.

Yes, that’s right. The artist too.

Exhibit A. I once attended a reading where this very issue became more than just a hypothetical question. A young man, who said he had never attended a poetry reading before, stood up to read during the open mic portion of the evening. He introduced himself as just having returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, and he read a few very sincere pieces about his personal experience with war.

The very next open mic reader of the evening stood up and read a bombastic, anti-war piece.

Shortly thereafter, the young veteran stormed out the door. I’ve never seen him at a reading anywhere around town since.

Exhibit B. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but often at readings, I’m approached by people (often those who don’t know me very well) who begin a political monologue with me. Regardless of whether or not I agree with the speaker, I’m immediately made uncomfortable because the speaker almost always approaches in such a way that he or she assumes that I automatically agree. I generally answer with polite silence, and the person strolls off happily, assuming, still, that I agree.

Yes, I know that as writers, we’re supposed to espouse the values of freedom of speech and all that entails. Yes, I know that, as artists, we need to be open-minded to other, often conflicting opinions.

But isn’t open-mindedness a two-way street? Doesn’t the poet need to be open-minded enough to recognize that even though someone may disagree, he or she shouldn’t be made to feel immoral, ignorant, stupid, evil, Neanderthal, or insert your disparaging adjective of choice here. Opinions can be stated and complex issues SHOULD be discussed, but in such a way that there is enough wiggle room left for someone to state an opposing opinion without being subject to—pardon the reference—a pre-emptive strike.

Dogmatism, whether you’re talking about religion, politics, or the best brand of ketchup, does nothing to improve inter-human relationships. And more often than we care to admit, I think political poetry unfortunately veers into dogmatism. Shouldn’t poetry be opening the doors to discussion and free exchange rather than closing them to maintain a pool of homogenous opinions?

Alls Fair...

LONDON _ A fight over who gets to be Oxford University's top poet has set Britain's pens racing _ and weakened the careers of two well-known wordsmiths.

St. Lucia-born Derek Walcott pulled out of the race for Oxford's Professor of Poetry after letters were distributed highlighting sexual harassment allegations made against him at Harvard and Boston Universities in the 1980s and 1990s.

His rival, Ruth Padel, resigned from the prestigious post Monday after admitting she sent e-mails to journalists publicizing the claims.

Some commentators called the move poetic justice, but others say the controversy uncovered the racially and sexually charged undercurrents still coursing through the uppermost reaches of academia.

Padel, the first female Professor of Poetry since the job was created three centuries ago, was elected only after Walcott, a Nobel Literature Laureate, dropped out under pressure from an anonymous letter-writing campaign.

The mysterious missives, dropped in Oxford University mailboxes, reportedly recapped a 1982 incident in which officials at Harvard admonished Walcott for pressuring a freshman into having sex with him, as well as a 1996 sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by a former Boston University graduate student.

Walcott called the letters an attempt at character assassination. Padel denied having anything to do with them, but The Sunday Times revealed that she had drawn attention to the charges in e-mail exchanges with unidentified journalists. Some of her previous backers called on her to stand down.

"As soon as I was told yesterday that there were people in Oxford who were severely against me I thought it was the right thing," she told BBC radio Tuesday. "I didn't want to divide the university, I wanted to offer it my services, so of course I stood down immediately."

Speaking of bad poetry...

Former GOP Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee writes:


Fancy Nancy

Here's a story about a lady named Nancy
A ruthless politician, but dressed very fancy
Very ambitious, she got herself elected Speaker
But as for keeping secrets, she proved quite a "leaker."

She flies on government planes coast to coast
And doesn't mind that our economy is toast
She makes the Air Force squire her in their military jets
There's room for her family, her staff, and even her pets.

Until now, she annoyed us, but her gaffes were mostly funny;
Even though it was painful to watch her waste our tax money.
But now her wacky comments are no laughing matter;
She's either unwilling to tell the truth, or she's mad as a hatter!

She sat in briefings and knew about enhanced interrogation;
But claims she wasn't there, and can't give an explanation.
She disparages the CIA and says they are a bunch of liars;
Even the press aren't buying it and they're stoking their fires.

I think Speaker Pelosi has done too much speaking;
And instead of her trashing our intelligence officials, it's her nose that needs tweaking.
If forced to believe whether the CIA and her colleagues in Congress are lying;
Or it's Speaker Pelosi whose credibility and career is dying.

I believe in the integrity of the men and women who sacrifice to keep us safe;
Not the woman who has been caught flat-footed, lying to our face.
I say it here and I say it rather clear-
It's time for Nancy Pelosi to resign and get out of here.

White House Poetry Slam

Arizona lawmaker Kyrsten Sinema has been invited by President Barack Obama to attend the first-ever White House Poetry Slam on Tuesday.

The assistant Arizona House Democratic leader is among 100 people nationwide invited to attend a night honoring America’s writers and poets.

The president will speak at the event, which also will be attended by First Lady Michelle Obama.

“It’s an incredible honor any time to receive an invitation from the White House and President Obama,” Sinema said. “But to see our nation’s talent and be a part of history at the first-ever White House Poetry Slam is amazing. I’m very excited to be a part of this moment.”

She added, “This event just displays President Obama’s commitment to the arts and his support for emerging and non-traditional forms of art. He is an amazing president, and I hope to continue to work with him in the future.”

The White House Poetry Slam will feature: James Earl Jones, Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldeman, Jazz pianist ELEW, poet Mayda Del Valle and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Who do you think will be more insulted - the nose in the air poets who consider Slams to be nothing if not low brow - or the self important practitioners of the competition who were not invited to perform?

What is a Community of Writers?

The word
"community"

stems from the Latin "communis," meaning "common" or "universal". This Latin word is made up of two parts--"com" or "cum," which means "with" and the root "-mu," which means "to bind." In other words, a community is bound together by commonly held ideas, values, etc.

What, then, is a writing community and how does it function? I am thrown back to a meeting at Naropa where the first and second classes of students of the Low-Residency MFA program were in a meeting. Bobbie Louise Hawkins, who was one of the professors who began the program, insisted that we send our work out to be published because only through the success of the students would the program be successful. Many of the students balked at this idea, and were angry that they were asked to do such a thing; their work was their own, and what they did with it was their own business. They were individual writers, and had no obligations to the group.

I wonder if there is some balance necessary. As a writer, I indeed am individual. I write differently than others, I take away different lessons from the books that I read than others do, etc. However, in calling myself a poet, I have an obligation to follow through with the practice of my craft: to write poems and to get those poems into the hands of the public, whether it be through publishing, the internet, etc. The way that I accomplish these goals may be totally different than other people, but I still have an obligation to do it. In calling myself a Cleveland poet, I take on other obligations. I, in some sense, represent Cleveland in every poem I write and every poem I read at readings. If my poems are dreck, then Cleveland and it's poetry community are taken down a notch. If my poems are solid or successful, or if I, as a poet, am successful, then Cleveland and it's poetry scene is raised up a notch.

However, there are other communities I belong to--Science Fiction Poetry Association, etc. Where these communities intersect, like the Cleveland Speculators, wonderful things happen. Where these groups clash, I find myself at a conflict of interest. For example, how does a member of the HSA approach some one writing abstract verses in 5-7-5 and insisting they're writing haiku. Does one community--the national or international--supersede the local or individual?

There is also a question of responsibility in response to the actions of other members. If a member of the Cleveland poetry community doesn't send their work out to be published, doesn't read at readings, etc. what should the other members of the community do? What happens when a local poet publishes a bad poem, or worse, a bad book? Should the other members of the community celebrate their success, or question their work. There is something to be said about supporting one's community, but there is also something to be said about setting a communal standard, or even establishing a communal discussion, to rebuke those members who may misrepresent the community or, through their mediocre work, bring the community down.

So, the question remains, what responsibility to poets have to their community of writers, and what responsibilities does that community have to the poets? Where do you fit in to the discussion?

shame on u Elizabeth Alexander i want the briefcase

Elizabeth, you spoke in a godawful drone,

a quite patronizing, over-enunciated tone. you bored! you disappointed how many million people? and this, perhaps the coolest opportunity for performing poetry live that anyone in the history of this country has ever had. (ever!)

i cld not listen to you, Elizabeth. i laughed with my husband about things having to do with work. mundane things, Elizabeth. i recall i asked him if i shld throw a load in, of laundry, while you droned on, vague and unsewn trite image, by vague and unsewn trite image,

saying nothing, Elizabeth. you said nothing, as if to no one special. perhaps you can write good poetry. perhaps Ted Turner wrote this poem for you, and you, against your best ethics chose to read it, since he is such a powerful man, and you hesitate to make waves.

maybe Rupert Murdoch wrote this poem for you, and threatened to take away your tenure if you chose to read a good poem, one that you wrote with the whole country in mind. i bet you would have preferred to read one of your best poems, a poem which would have spoken to people, to cause them to pause, to breathe deep. to smile or sigh and shake their heads saying yes! yes! aloud, to one another.

maybe you grew nervous about how you would come off. or maybe, and i truly hope this is the case, maybe you left the great poem you wrote for the great occasion at home, in your briefcase. and of course, we would all understand. i mean, in the traffic like that it would have been impossible to go and retrieve that good poem you wrote to wow the people.

or perhaps you are a whitebread plain jane simpleminded fearful person, who does not feel what a poet feels, and this is why, on this greatest occasion you did not deliver a poem with feeling, containing even the most basic elements of what people in their basic receipt feel inside to be a good poem. i hope Elizabeth, that poem waiting in the briefcase will be heard and repeated ten thousand times by true admirers.

in fact, i will buy that whole briefcase from you. i will pay whatever you ask, up to 1000 dollars, since i do have 1000 dollars to trifle with, if it does mean being blown down after Obama's grand lifting,,, we poets in America, Elizabeth want to be blown down! immediately!

send the case or its contents to Green Panda Press 3174 Berkshire Road
Cleveland Heights OH 44118

((also, if you are not Elizabeth and want to Blow America, you can send yr own poems to the same address. i am interested to print poems by poets who know how to say great things regarding this great occasion))

Inaugural Poem by Elizabeth Alexander

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Elizabeth Alexander to read at inauguration

This just in

from the poetry and politics department. Elizabeth Alexander, a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher, has been selected to read a poem at Barack Obama's inauguration. Read a story about the selection here. I'm hoping that this choice is better than the selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation. While I'm not familiar with Alexander, she is the author of four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, Antebellum Dream Book, and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. She is also a scholar of African-American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays, The Black Interior.

She has read her work across the U.S. and in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, and her poetry, short stories, and critical prose have been published in dozens of periodicals and anthologies. She has received many grants and honors, most recently the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954,” and the 2007 Jackson Prize for Poetry, awarded by Poets and Writers. She is a professor at Yale University, and for the academic year 2007-2008 she is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

I enjoyed the poem On the Pulse of the Morning, that Maya Angelou read at Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Maybe Alexander can top it. Question: Do you think it's any coincidence that only democrats select a poet to read at presidential inaugurations?

Poetry and Politics

Images of Peace Celebrated in New Book

“Come Together: Imagine Peace”

is the title and theme of this new anthology from over 100 poets beginning with Sappho, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. The collection includes such modern poets as Denise Levertov, William Stafford, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg, and a broad spectrum of contemporary voices ranging from Carolyn Forché, Jim Daniels, and Jane Hirshfield to Daniel Berrigan, Sam Hamill, and Diane di Prima. Co-editor, Larry Smith, has stated, “This was such a gifted project from the start, to render a poetic tradition of peace poetry and see it manifested in today’s writings.” Smith is the founder and director of Bottom Dog Press and professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University’s Firelands College.

The book’s editors Ann Smith, Larry Smith, and Philip Metres provide the prefaces and introduction to the 208 page collection. Metres’s introduction concludes:

“The work of peace-making, and the work of peace poetry, is at least in part to give voice to those small victories—where no blood was spilled, but lives were changed, justice was won, and peace was forged, achieved, or found. And words bring us there, to the brink of something new. Peace poetry is larger than a moral injunction against war; it is an articulation of the expanse, the horizon where we might come together.”

Metres is an associate professor of English at John Carroll University who authored Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront Since 1941 (University of Iowa 2007).

Come Together: Imagine Peace is the Ohio press’s sixth anthology in their Harmony Series. Others include the award winning O Taste and See: Food Poems; Family Matters: Poems of Our Families; Evensong: Poets on Spirituality; America Zen: A Gathering of Poets, and Working Hard for the Money: America’s Working Poor. Ann Smith explains, “From the thousand poems that were submitted we were able to select and group them into: Poems of Witness and Elegy, Exhortation and Action, Reconciliation, Shared Humanity, Wildness and Home, Ritual and Vigil, Meditation and Prayer. It’s an affirmation of peace and hope.” Ann Smith is professor emeritus in nursing education at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo, a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Adult Mental Health, and previous co-editor of the Family Matters book.

Sixteen Ohio poets are represented in the collection, including Alice Cone, Maj Ragain and David Hassler (Kent), Tom Kryss (Ravenna), Robert Miltner (Canton), Jack McGuane (Lakewood), Mary E. Weems, Geoffrey Landis, and Philip Metres (Cleveland), Michael Salinger (Mentor), Larry Smith (Huron), Steve Haven (Ashland), Richard Hague (Cincinnati), Jeff Gundy (Bluffton), Angie Estes (Worthington), and Jeanne Bryner (Newton Falls).

Publication of this book by is supported in part through a grant from the Ohio Arts Council, and by John Carroll University and Mr. William C. Wright.

A series of group readings are planned for around the country in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. In Ohio initial fall readings include: November 23 at 4 pm at The Thurber House for Writers’ Ink organization in Columbus, and December 7 at 2 pm at Mr. Smith’s Coffeehouse in Sandusky. The book may be purchased at on-line bookstores or by sending $18 to Bottom Dog Press, PO Box 425, Huron, Ohio 44839.

New book on peace from Bottom Dog Press

New book by Bottom Dog Press....to be out in early December

I know I'm getting a little ahead of myself here as editor-publisher of Bottom Dog Press, but with all the bad news going around lately, it's good to know some relief is on the way. Phil Metres has joined Ann and me as editors of this fine collection of poems that bring us together to envision a way of peace. If we lose the ability to imagine peace for us and our children, we are lost. This book says no. Poets have always brought us sanity and hope...they are the namers and sayers of courage and beauty.

Phil has an excellent introduction....Relief is on the way.

Come Together: Imagine Peace
Edited by Ann Smith, Larry Smith, and Philip Metres
With an Introduction by Philip Metres

“Peace poetry is larger than a moral injunction against war; it is an articulation of the expanse, the horizon where we are one. To adapt a line by the Sufi poet Rumi: beyond the realm of good and evil, there is a field.” -from the Introduction by Philip Metres

Precedents: Sappho, Whitman, Dickinson, Cavafy, Millay, Patchen, Rexroth, Shapiro, Lowell, Creeley, Rukeyser, Ginsberg, Levertov, Lorde, Stafford, Jordan, Amichai, Darwish;
Contemporaries: Ali, Bass, Berry, Bauer, Bly, Bodhrán, Bradley, Brazaitis, Bright, Bryner, Budbill, Cervine, Charara, Cording, Cone, Crooker, Daniels, di Prima, Davis, Dougherty, Ellis, Espada, Estes, Ferlinghetti, Forché, Frost, Gibson, Gundy, Gilberg, Habra, Hague, Hamill, Harter, Hassler, Haven, Heyen, Hirshfield, Hughes, Joudah, Jenson, Karmin, Kendig, Kornunhakaa, Kovacik, Kryss, Krysl, LaFemina, Landis, Leslie, Lifshin, Loden, Lovin, Lucas, McCallum, McGuane, Machan, McQuaid, Meek, Miltner, Montgomery, Norman, Nye, Pankey, Pendarvis, Pinsky, Porterfield, Prevost, Ragain, Rosen, Rashid, Rich, Roffman, Rosen, Ross, Rusk, Salinger, Sanders, Seltzer, Schneider, Shabtai, Shannon, Sheffield, Shipley, Shomer, Silano, Sklar, Smith, Snyder, Spahr, Sydlik, Szymborska, Trommer, Twichell, Volkmer, Walker, Waters, Weems, Wilson, Zale ...

Larry

Chief Wahoo blow-up!

Terry Provost, a person I respect and admire, posted the below on the clevelandpoetics listserv in response to Ray McNiece's video clip on SportsChannel (check out a few entries down.) Many people have strong opinions on this. How would you answer the questions that Terry poses at the end of his comments?

"For my part, when I see Chief Wahoo, I do not just see a racist caricature and a malignant celebration of a history of US genocide against native Americans, but, since he is overwhelmingly displayed as a head detached from a body, I see a decapitated racist caricature.

There is nothing I can do to separate that image from the team it represents, at least in my perception.

Anything that promotes that team, endorses an attitude of racism, and a gleeful indifference to genocide.

I therefore cannot join the celebration of any commercial however well done, by anyone, especially anyone who I would consider a part of my community (and yes I do consider Ray to be a good guy, and a member of my community.)

In fact, the better the ad, the worse, a la Leni Riefenstahl (did she really only die in 2003?)

In fact, according to the historian John Toland, Hitler based his ideas for the Holocaust on the American extermination of the native population (how Riefenstahl can you get?)

I've always thought that one of the best things about this list serve is people¢s readiness to celebrate the success of others. Whereas, yes, I can see a Debbie Downer aspect to saying what I have, I can also see a real problem with boosterism.

To maybe make this non-personal I suggest the following 3 questions:

1. Is Chief Wahoo a racist caricature?

2. Is it possible to separate Chief Wahoo from the Cleveland Indians?

3. What is the right attitude that a poet, artist, or any sentient human being should have towards the Wahoo/Indians complex?

I expect it makes sense to continue this conversation, if at all, at the clevelandpoetics blog rather than the list serve. But since the congratulations went out on the list serve, it seems appropriate that the demurral should as well."