Addressing Darkness – How?
What 'interesting times' we do live in! No sooner do we finally put out raging fires, experience some small relief from drought, deal with severe floods in various countries ... than we get hit by a global pandemic and its resulting fear and divisiveness. As well as trauma, hardship and death, it will no doubt result in some powerful new writing*.
Meanwhile, many of us have already been struggling with how to address, in our writing, the evils and traumas of the world we inhabit – the wars, disease, environmental disasters … not to mention more personal things such as grief, depression, poverty. Do we take issue with them in our writing? Do we vent the emotions that arise from them? Do we turn away from them to more uplifting subjects? Do we let them paralyse our writing hands (and minds) altogether? Can we transform them into something beautiful in our art – and if so, should we?
Perhaps the world has always been a mixture of the beautiful and the terrible, but it does seem these days that the worst things are writ large – in the media in particular. As recipients of these messages, I think we all try to make choices between, on the one hand, staying informed and responsible, and on the other, allowing the intrusion of too much negativity into our consciousness to influence us for the worse. It’s never an easy choice! Where is the balance? Is there some sane middle point, somewhere between putting one's head in the sand and succumbing to panic?
And, as poets, with our own messages to convey...?
We also have options. The best thing is that we’re not limited to only one option forever; we are free to take different approaches at different times. Here are some of my favourites from our online community, illustrating various possibilities.
Bearing Witness
One way – and a powerful way it can be – is simply to record what we observe and let those facts speak for themselves. That often means focusing on the particular rather than the world-wide, as in this piece by the poet we know as dsnake1 (aka Cheong Lee San or Lawrence Cheong; I call him Lee San) who blogs at urban poems and i write too.
the stories are a bit grim
It's tough when you have almost nothing. No water. No electricity. Just a hut. And your wits.
In the morning the sun brushes our squatter huts
with loving fingers of gold.
The politicians thump chests and assure us
that our squatter village is safe.
An old man lives in an abandoned pill box
and sells candy by day.
Aunt goes early to the market to pick
discarded vegetables to make achar.
Little Brother is playing with the mothballs again,
oh please not the mouth!
Some out-of-towners lost their way
but we do not speak English well.
Me and cousins raid the pill box for candy,
find only old books and blades.
The kind fisherman gives me and sister
a big catch of wrasses, all for 30 cents.
Dad comes back from work and says
someone is shipping missiles to Cuba.
Some nights, the groans and noises from
the neighbours' thin walls are too loud
We get very paranoid when the police come visiting,
it has to be something big.
Surely, we are not having pigeon soup
with wolfberries again, it's awful!
Mother says go back to sleep but the neighbours
are fighting like wild cats.
Little Sister is out in the yard playing
with the chicks, squeezing them.
Some shore-leave sailors lost their way
and pretend to take pictures of us.
Uncle asks how does a man flies three times
around the world, folding his paper.
For a week the cops come, plain-clothes,
shoving mugshots into our faces.
We are expecting something better
for dinner tonight other than missiles.
Government officials come and tell us
that our huts have to make way for a port.
Dad says we are moving to the city core
but the stories there are a bit grim.
I asked Lee San (pictured on his recent visit to Japan) for more details.
Me: Would you like to say a bit about how you came to write that poem, the impetus for it and/or the back story? I'm also interested that you describe it, on your blog, as a 'variant of a ghazal'; would you care to elaborate on that?
Lee San: Yes, I do believe that a poet is in a way, a witness to events that move or excite him or her, as a painter or photographer might be too.
Actually, I spent many nights fine-tuning this poem. It started when I wanted to write about the tough, but also innocent and carefree times of my childhood. When I was a kid, I lived in a squatter colony, and followed my father to some political rallies, not that I know or care what the politicians were shouting about. Later we moved to an apartment in the city core, a notorious part of town. And came to hear about the horror stories of the place. (There was a lot of exaggeration but it really was a hotbed of gangland activity). I can't remember what triggered the response, perhaps some online news or article, that's how sometimes my mind meanders.
Anyway, it started out as 4-line verses, and I found the imagery a little mixed up and muddled. So to tidy it up, I chopped them into a ghazal-like form, to let the reader focus easier on the images. It is not a true traditional ghazal because there are no repeating words, but there are recurring themes or images in the different lines. For example, Little Brother/Little Sister playing, going to the market, the police, the neighbours, and so on. So I called it a variant of a ghazal, for want of a better name. I think I have earlier posted another poem with this same form, "every morning the sun looks in". I have started to fall in love with this "form". :)
Me: I too love to try variants of the ghazal, and sometimes even the more traditional version. It's a form I fell in love with too.
Lee San: I find the variants of the ghazal allow me the flexibility and freedom to write imagery otherwise only possible with long prose. I have some poems in progress that are of these variants.
I for one will be looking out for those!
Imagining the Future (1: Elegaic)
Others, looking at the larger picture, may use imagination to project a possible future. Lately, a number of us have been postulating dystopian scenarios – based very much on the present global problems we are forced to confront. Some of these projections are horrifying, and/or filled with grief. Some are resigned, as if our doom is assured. Some also offer a glimmer of hope, a tiny light in the surrounding darkness – such as this by the poet we know as Brendan, of the blog Oran’s Well, who says that Brendan is ‘my online name; in real life I go by David’.
Nearer My God
The future arrives just as water
survives our exhaustion, wells empty,
seas full. A conveyance drowned.
Get used to it. Become that glass
that matters even as it buries
in silt. Grow wings for harrowing smoke.
Sing where no marrow remains
for voices once dearly invoked.
I think of the string ensemble
bowing the old cheer while the
Titanic sank, sowing comfort while
not enough lifeboats were boarded.
Offering distant glints of Paradise,
something still to be richly said,
daring a sort of welcome into
the waters’ icy rise. Such is the path
to the stars they played as they drowned.
Nearer, my God, to Thee. A music
for history. Dark waters and starlight
and voices gone vast undersea.
This seems to me an uncompromising poem, looking squarely at what we have done to our only home. The final lines are unutterably sad, elegaic. And yet the poet urges us to ‘Become the glass that matters … grow wings … sing….’ Even if we cannot escape the doom, he suggests, we can defiantly assert that we lived. Yes, it’s one way to deal with impending doom – and not only in poetry.
In the past Brendan has shared his poetry at imaginary garden with real toads, dVerse and (our previous incarnation, still accessible) Poets United.
Oran’s Well is his personal blog. This year he has also created earthweal* as primarily a place where poets may share their responses to the current state of the planet, but inclusive of other topics too.
I asked Brendan: ‘Is there anything you'd like to say about the poem – its genesis, its crafting, anything?’
He replied: For the past several years, most of my poetry has been increasingly shadowed by our rapidly changing Earth. The poetic vantage ranges from fleeting hope to political rage, humorous aside to deep despair. “Nearer My God” is of the most latter ilk. Yet there is strange serenity in such surrender. A voice drifts in from Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus II, 13 (eg. “be the glass that shattered even as it rang”) and points to the quintet of musicians who played on while the Titanic sank. To me it’s an apt expression of comfort in despair: The ship is going down, there’s no stopping that; but there are songs which can ease the transition.
Seeing into that, even celebrating it, goes back to the Rilke’s sonnet, which begins,
Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.
(Steven Mitchell translation)
Maybe the comfort really belongs to the world, to see humanity sink in its tide.
Ah, what can one add to that? It's hard not to think the planet and its other life forms might be better off without us.
Imagining the Future (2: Explosive)
Chrissa Sandlin, of the blog Moon Pools and Mermaids, also gets imaginative in the following poem. Her vision (or dream) is quite personal.
Some Other Light
I almost get the picture but my brain and thumb
Are out of synch, one dreaming, the other balancing stuff.
It's an old dream in a new-ish city, oil leaking skylights
Across the entire dome of tomorrow until we see
The universe and the blue sky in the same puddle;
Until the flight that carries and the flight that punctures
Are the same thing, explosions and ribbons
Ripping and lacing the sky open and whole simultaneously.
We are dreaming in gloves and calipers, only a little
Star stuff and gunpowder before the colors rend
Our sight from darkness and give us light.
Daydreaming in the city already smothered
By creeks and bayous and rivers dreaming of salt depths,
Of the deep darkness where islands are born,
Some other current, some other light
One facing the heart, one facing the heights.
Chrissa says: Re-reading the poem, I'm pretty sure the impetus was (as it's been for a while) the way that Houston begins in the very swamp and reaches out until the last vestige of mud seems to be gone...only to discover that we're always going to carry that vestige in ourselves and it's always going to provide a spillway for whatever flood of humanity (good or bad) we open ourselves to while trying to refine ourselves. It was composed sitting at my desk, window to my right, feet curled beneath me to leave space for a dog to dream under my desk.
We know what Chrissa looks like, from seeing her smiling at us in the profile photo on her blog. Here instead is Arthur under Chrissa’s desk – a homey image in contrast to the wild scenarios of her futuristic poem. Yet there's a touch of the fantastical even so. She says, ‘We picked the name Arthur because our oldest dog is Merlin.’ (I love that!)
Accentuating the Positive
Finally, a poem of triumph, joy, hope fulfilled. Many turn to the beauty and restorative power of nature in troubled times. Jae Rose’s ‘Howl’, from her Jae Rose blog, is a lovely example of that – even though I always read Jae’s poems, including this one, as metaphorical. It works either way, or both.
Howl
A million years howl
When voices whisper among the trees
We are on the forest floor
Looking up
The leaves are crisp and brown
Spidery veins patterned from root to tip
We collect them up
They are like ancient paper in our hands
Stories unfolding
Wishes scattered
Our feet ache from the wooded path
We imagine taking off our shoes and socks
Let the moss cushion our steps
The damp ground moisten our blisters
But we decide to keep walking
Following the path
Listening to the trees
It is as if it has always been
And will continue to be
An owl hoots in the distance
We would like to see his wings unfold
As he flies off to the moon
But he is too quick for us
All we can feel is his song
The trees are full of life
They breathe and dance
They have borne witness to many a traveller
And dreamer
They are a guide and a light
They understand the whispers
Absorb up all the howls
We are glad to tread this path
It will lead us to morning
And carry us home.
I asked Jae, too, for her comments on the poem I chose.
Jae: I can’t remember how Howl evolved. I like the physical sensations – the moss and wetness.
I like the sense of journeying, particularly with Alice [Jae’s familiar companion in her poems]. This feels like a night time adventure and a sense of looking both outside and inside. Noticing the world around us – be it real or imagined
I always like the sense of ending with home. It feels like a cycle – a comforting pattern. Home is a feeling not just a roof over your head. And home wouldn’t be home without Alice. She is a faithful companion.
Many of Jae’s poems have dealt with struggle and
despair – not shirking the truth of that, yet managing to make the
poetry beautiful even so. I was happy to see one that feels more
positive. She also sent me this beautiful photo illustrative of that
mood, and of her trees 'full of life'.
I wasn't sure where this exploration would end up when I began it. Now that I've had a closer look at these pieces, it seems evident that all possible responses to trouble and evil are valid in poetry – and I think all these examples demonstrate that we can make art out of any subject matter, without destroying or diluting the truth of our messages. Perhaps that is all that we can hope to do. It certainly seems to be what we are called to do.
*Note: In the current weekly challenge at the new 'earthweal' site, we're invited to
share some of our writing on, and/or read how others have been addressing,
the pandemic. I'm particularly struck by pieces from Sarah Connor,
grapeling and Misky – whose work (along with that of others there) is
known to many in this community.
Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of their copyright owners, usually the authors.
