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worker poisoned by asbestos isn't inherently better than one about a
lover. Subject matter is not the issue; depth of imagination, and its
articulation in language, is.
In his poem "Dedication," Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz wrote,
"What is poetry which does not save / Nations or people? / A con-
nivance with official lies, /A song of drunkards whose throats will be
cut in a moment . . . " In an interview in Poets & Writers magazine,
Milosz discussed his thoughts on those words, and suggested that
"what those lines mean is that poetry below a certain awareness is not
good poetry and cannot save people, that we move, that mankind
moves in time together and then there is a certain awareness of a par-
ticular moment below which we shouldn't go, because then that
poetry is no good . . . So it's a question of awareness that shapes our
poetry, even if poetry doesn't deal with direct political topics or his-
torical topics." Besides this, there are the words of Adrienne Rich in
her poem "North American Time": "Poetry never stood a chance / of
standing outside history."
Suppose, though, that you do want to deal with those political or
historical topics, somewhere, somehow, in your poetry. Whether
you've endured something personally, or know people who have, or
want to address or to speak for strangers, you will need to fully inhabit
the material so that you don't slip into easy rhetoric or soapbox
preaching. Admittedly the largeness of such issues, their size and
complexity, can leave you feeling somewhat lost in terms of how to
approach them. The important thing here is to look at your personal
truths  not to try and present a comprehensive portrait of the injus-
tice in the world. Describe your own experience, or imagine that of
others, at the level of the human. Let readers in, instead of shutting
them out with the thunder of your convictions and commitment. In
spite of vast cultural differences, there is, at bottom, some common
ground for all of us. Finding that commonality in your poems will
Witnessing 67
bring home the larger issues, render them in terms of their conse-
quences: no "collateral damage" without an understanding of its
effects on someone, a stranger whom under other circumstances you
might have loved, and mourned  or who might, in the next slight
shift between the forces of dark and light, become yourself.
This poem by Linda Hogan begins with a description of a place the
narrator has just moved into, but quickly opens out from the local.
The specific place dissolves, as do the boundaries between self and
other, the living and the dead. Like Walt Whitman, who in "Song of
Myself" claimed "I am large, I contain multitudes," the poet seems to
contain not only her Native American ancestors but the lives of oth-
ers around her, neighbors and strangers. There's a constant interplay
between inner and outer, the mundane and the magical. There is
anger in the poem, and compassion, and historical memory, all pre-
sented with a simple and undramatic clarity.
THE NEW APARTMENT: MINNEAPOLIS
The floorboards creak.
The moon is on the wrong side of the building,
and burns remain
on the floor.
The house wants to fall down
the universe when earth turns.
It still holds the coughs of old men
and their canes tapping on the floor.
I think of Indian people here before me
and how last spring white merchants hung an elder
on a meathook and beat him
and he was one of The People.
I remember this war
and all the wars
and relocation like putting the moon in prison
with no food and that moon already a crescent,
68 THE POETS COMPANION
but be warned, the moon grows full again
and the roofs of this town are all red
and we are looking through the walls of houses
at people suspended in air.
Some are baking, with flour on their hands,
or sleeping on floor three, or getting drunk.
I see the businessmen who hit their wives
and the men who are tender fathers.
There are women crying or making jokes.
Children are laughing under beds.
Girls in navy blue robes talk on the phone all night
and some Pawnee is singing 49s, drumming the table.
Inside the walls
world changes are planned, bosses overthrown.
If we had no coffee,
cigarettes, or liquor,
says the woman in room twelve,
they'd have a revolution on their hands.
Beyond walls are lakes and plains,
canyons and the universe;
the stars are the key
turning in the lock of night.
Turn the deadbolt and I am home.
I have walked dark earth,
opened a door to nights where there are no apartments,
just drumming and singing;
The Duck Song, The Snake Song,
The Drunk Song.
No one here remembers the city
or has ever lost the will to go on. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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