Poetry and Politics

Last week, like everyone I can imagine reading this, I struggled terribly with what is happening on the southern border -- and continue to do so, of course. One day it sent me into a dark place that reminded me of where I was in winter 2017, before the writing started. My writing and the journey I'm on felt so false then, the private realm of self-development possible only through my immense privilege (which is true) and through the cultivation of a space of denial or at least blocking out the political situation and the suffering of others, so that I am able to focus, to create.

But what can I do? I gave money, shared information, made a few (not enough) calls. Meanwhile, by the next day at least I could see clearly that if I don't write, don't follow what I care about, it feels like not wanting to live, and that's not helpful to anyone. And what I create might do something in the world someday, more than my tight nervous phone calls, anyway.

Anyway. I've written three poems since that day, and I can say that they all feel aware of the world, and not written from any kind of denial.  [poems taken down during submission for publication]

The third I just wrote last night, though the need to write a Mary Dyer poem about borders came to me last week. This was one thing that made me feel my writing is important. Because if up to now a key link between Dyer and the present has been the "nevertheless she persisted" idea, I suddenly realized that, my God and of course, the thing she determinedly did, the thing she died for, was crossing borders in defiance of anti-Quaker laws -- presenting herself as a banished "illegal" -- both out of love for Friends imprisoned on the other side, and to challenge the law through direct defiance.

So late last night the words and incantatory structure came to me, and I drafted this. And then I really couldn't sleep, I felt so charged up ("in me the afflatus surging and surging," as Whitman said, and that's what I felt). But I'm happy. This feels powerful to me, it feels like it matters.

[poem taken down during submission for publication]

It's a serious poem, but I found this bit amusing to include.

I don't think it detracts, though I'd have to hear from others.