"When power corrupts, poetry cleanses." John F Kennedy

This quote has struck me as this week I have been reading about euphemisms which the dictionary defines as: words that obscure, words that are purposely ambiguous Euphemisms in essence are words that lie, that 'protect' us from ugliness by those that feel they can and will decide for us what is in our best interest to know. Politicians use words that lie and somehow the media which is supposed to keep us informed of the truth is complicate in this deception. Collateral damage : killing of civilians during war, Friendly fire: killing you own troops. Another one that I came across that was equally horrifying Dead checking: what soldiers are required to do when they go into a house of 'suspected insurgents' If they find any such people who are wounded they must put two bullets (very precise!) into said insurgents and kill them. Note they only need to be suspects....whatever happened to that highest of values innocent until proven guilty!! Hence Kennedy's quote that poetry cleanses. Isn't that our job, to tell the truth however unpalatable or ugly it may be???? Is it wrong to make the reader look at the raw truth?? How can citizens make informed decisions unless someone is telling the truth. But does this work have a purpose other than voyeuristic societal gawking at road kill? Poet MartinEspada says " In fact perhaps the most remarkable characteristic found in the poetry of the political imagination is the quality of hopefulness, testimony to the extraordinary resilience of that human quality. The prophetic voice resonates throughout the poetry; the poets sing of the possibility, the certainty of eventual justice."



Lots of stuff coming up this week, I was reading Sharon Olds collection The Father. It brought up the pain of my parents deaths, especially my Mum. I feared I might be dragged in the black hole of depression again, but no. It allowed me to get close enough to the beast to smell its scent, see it clearly, without getting eaten!!

Finished a biography by Peter Ackroyd of Edgar Allan Poe Poe a life cut short. His life a perfect study in how a lack of resilience destroys your life, even if you are a fucking genius!!! Poe was orphaned in childhood and never fully recovered from that. He had a constant need to feel wanted and accepted especially from females. Every woman he met was somehow the mother that he lost. His relationships were disasterous as he drank heavily to forget his demons. He died unloved and penniless in mysterious circumstances.
I read somewhere that creative people where more likely to suffer from this lack of resilience to life's problems and traumas.

Something that deeply effected me was a video I saw on You tube of Adam Duritz of Counting Crows singing Colour Blind ( watch it it's totally moving. Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwXPjMb7 and type in Counting Crows Colour Blind Pink Pop)
Adam has struggled with depression and mental illness for years and I was just blown away by this performance, he basically stripped himself to the bone in front of thousands of strangers...god what guts!! He somehow has ability to keep exploring his inner landscape (which is often painful) with his music, through it all he chooses life and strive to be honest even when its tough. My brother in law also an Adam also a musician had similar problems but chose suicide....and I was so struck with how difficult it is at times to choose life, to dig for that resilience that keeps you going for one more day. The poem I wrote, Colour blind references these two amazing men.

Also at the moment reading Margaret Atwoods collection Morning in the Burned Houses. For me there is a sense of something familiar in her work like an old memory that you keep going back to. Here are a couple of my favourites:

Man in a Glacier

Now see: they've found a man in a glacier
two thousand years old, or three
with everything intact: shoes, teeth and arrows,
closed eyes, fur hat, the charm he wore to protect him
from death by snow. They think he must have been
a messenger, done in by bad weather,
and still fresh as a mastadon. Then there's

the box of slides in the cellar
my brother found, the kind we used to
tape between glass. As it turns out
the wrong thing to do for mildew.
Some cleaning, scraping away those little
flowers of crystalizing earth, and the
a wand of light, and here's my father,
alive or else preserved, younger than all
of us now, dark- haired and skinny,
in baggy trousers, woolen legs tucked into
those lace-up boots of our ancestors
by the lake, feeding a picnic fire
in the clear blue- tinged air of either
a northern summer or else a film
of aging gelatin spread thinly
with fading colours,
the reds pushing towards pink, the greens greying.

but there. There still. This was all we got,
this echo, this freeze framed
simulacrum or slight imprint,
in answer to our prayers for everlastingness,

the first time we discovered
we could not stop, or live backwards;
when we opened
our eyes, found we were rocked
with neither love nor malice in the ruthless
icy arms of Chemistry and Physics our
bad godmothers. It was they
who were present at our birth, who laid
the curse on us: You will sleep forever.


AVisit

Gone are the days
when you could walk on water.
When you could walk.

The days are gone.
Only one day remains,
the one you're in.

The memory is no friend.
It can only tell you
what you no longer have:

a left hand you can use
two feet that walk.
All the brains gadgets.

Hello, hello.
The one hand that still works
grips, won't let go.

That is not a train.
There is no cricket.
Let's not panic.

Lets talk about axes,
which kinds are good,
the many names of wood.

This is how to build
a house, a boat, a tent.
No use; the toolbox

refuses to reveal its verbs;
the rasp, the plane, the awl
revert to sullen metal.

Do you recognise anything? I said.
Anything familiar?
Yes you said. The bed.

Better to watch the stream
that flows across the floor
and is made of sunlight,

the forest made of shadows;
better to watch the fireplace
which is now a beach.