Wild Fridays #32: Roving the Web

Opportunities

Via my inbox (from Tinywords):

Hello tinywords readers and poets! We are now accepting submissions, through the end of August, for our 20th anniversary issue.
To submit haiku, haiga, or other short poetry, use the form here: https://tinywords.com/submit/   

The Editors

On a friend’s Facebook page:

Full details here.


I Wish I'd Written This

But I think it would be overkill to feature Caitlin Johnstone again so very soon, even if Consent Rescinded is a white-hot, brilliant manifesto. And besides I wouldn't be able to find anything illuminating to say about it, as in this she says it all. So you may have a look for yourselves at the link on the title of her piece, above.


Haiku Havens

Those who love haiku and related forms will no doubt already be well aware of the colourful CARPE DIEM HAIKU KAI website, created by the indefatigable 'Chevrefeuille'. I know several people in this community respond to his prompts, as I do myself from time to time. It's also a great source of education about haiku, renga, tanka, etc. etc., imparted in a very readable, easy style. And you can find a number of free downloadable ebooks there too. (Some are by Chevrefeuille's friend and mentor, the noted haiku scholar and haijin, the late Jane Reichhold.) All the links at the top of the page and in the side columns are very interesting to follow. One of them leads to a blog featuring works by the great Basho, and Chevrefeuille's own writings inspired by them.

As you see, GRACEGUTS is the website of Michael Dylan Welch. Unlike Carpe Diem it's not interactive, but here too you can find a wealth of material on haiku and related forms, by Welch himself and others. It's all very detailed and scholarly, and it takes account of the modern 'English language haiku' and such, whereas Chevrefeuille is more traditional in his approach.

I find Carpe Diem a delightful place to play, while Graceguts is endlessly (and to me fascinatingly) informative and includes many excellent examples of haiku.

Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors.

Wild Fridays #31: I Wish I'd Written This

Do  Not Let Them Train You Do not let the news man train you how to see. Do not let the pundit train you how to feel. Do not let the teacher train you how to think. Do not let the preacher train you how to love. Do not let the banker train you how to value. Do not let Hollywood train you how to be. Don't let them train you. They were appointed by the powerful to teach you how to live in a world that is small, too small for wild humans. Too small for humans who haven't been house trained, groomed, spayed and neutered, and taught parlor tricks like how to ignore life's intrinsic breathtaking majesty. Too small for humans who perceive their own boundlessness, their own vast unpredictable inner wildernesses, their own beauty, their own holiness, their own worthiness, their own innate equality with those holding their leash. So they train us. They train us to believe the world fits neatly into flat, finite conceptual boxes. That life is predictable, that our nature is well-mapped. That we live in a 2-D colorless cage from which there can be no escape and about which everything is known. As though narrative could even touch this blazing cacophony, let alone encapsulate it. They are lying to you, my beloved. They are lying each and every time they open their pixelated mouths. This life is so much more than they will ever allow you to believe. So very immense. So very unexplored. So very unpredictable. So very juicy. So very sexy. So very, very, very beautiful. The unknown unknowns dwarf the known unknowns, and the known unknowns dwarf the knowns. But they will never let you know this. So don't ask their permission. Take off that leash, wild apeling. Unblinker those eyes and unshackle those legs. Those chains are not there to protect you from the world, my beloved. They are there to protect your trainers from you. – Caitlin Johnstone – Yes, her again. Told you I was pretty impressed. I had been thinking that after all the heavy, serious stuff I've been dishing out of late, you might be due for some relief.  Something sweet and lovely, I thought, as counter-balance to all the stressful and horrifying things we face. Then I saw this. I couldn't not share it. (And after all, we've recently had Sanaa reminding us not to overthink and Rommy inviting us to focus on what makes us smile, so it hasn't been unrelievedly serious around here.) To be truthful, while I think Caitlin Johnstone is a brilliant journalist, I don't think she's all that wonderful as a poet (though she's not all that bad either). But her journalism has taught her how to make her points powerfully. And oh boy, the things she says! That's what I wish I'd written.  I think that we poets and storytellers, because our writing teaches us to analyse words and meanings, are probably better than many others at resisting being told how to think and feel.  The training is insidious, though. When we're bombarded with certain viewpoints over and over, particularly the ones we get from all sides all our lives, do we even realise they're not necessarily (a) correct and true, (b) intrinsic to our human nature, or even (c) arrived at by our own mental processes? So how do we not let 'them' train us? Perhaps the first step is to be vigilant in noticing when and how they are. We can pay attention to what's entering our heads. When I was at primary school, we were taught a subject called Clear Thinking – logic for children, applied particularly to the news media. We were taught how to notice the hooks in a headline, or the way an advertisement appealed to the emotions. We learned how to précis a news article to get to the guts of what it was really saying, without all the fluff around that. We learned to recognise when something was presented in 'coloured language', slanted a certain way rather than being told straight. It was very useful stuff! But it's a long time ago that I was in primary school. It's pretty clear that kids aren't now being taught to read critically like that. Perhaps we need to hone our own critical skills and teach them to our children and grandchildren. I'll leave you to mull it all over. I'd be interested to read your thoughts in the comments. Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. Thanks to Chaz McGregor on Unsplash for the picture of the chained tiger.

Wild Fridays #19: I Wish I'd Written This

Show Me An Old Rebel 

Do not show me a young rebel,
whose eyes are bright
and whose tail is bushy.

Young rebels are fine and good,
but they are merely doing
what the young are meant to do.

Show me an old rebel.
One who keeps punching
when his hands are arthritic,
when her hair is white,
when his friends are all dead,
when her knees are shot,
when it hurts him to pee,
when her shoulders are so bad
that it would be much easier to punch down
than to punch up.

Show me an old rebel
who keeps standing up after being knocked down
over and over again,
year after year,
decade after decade,
who after the thousandth blow
merely spits out a tooth
and says "Son, you have no idea what you're dealing with,
do you?"

Are you a young rebel?
Are you Sticking it to The Man?
Are you upsetting the gray brainiacs
and knocking over their word castles?

That is fine.
Youth will youth.

But show me a young rebel
who became an old rebel,
who stuck with it through the setbacks
and the beatings and betrayals,
and the beatings and betrayals,
who watched the hippies become yuppies
and the protesters become pundits
and still kept a fire lit
amid the monsoons of infiltration
and the hurricanes of disappointment.
Who will close their tired eyes for a final time
without ever once having cast them to the ground
or peered up in imploring subordination.

That, my friends,
that is a true spirit.

If you are still a fiery rebel
even as everything is ripped away from you,
I will be humbled and awed by you,
because I will know that you will carry that with you to the grave.
And I will know that whatever you find on the other side
will be met
with that same defiant glare.

And I will sing your song when you are gone.

– Caitlin Johnstone 



Yes, I’m somewhat enamoured of Caitllin Johnstone just now. This poem turned up in my inbox this morning, and I immediately gave a mental cheer for the sentiments expressed. In fact I’d love to think I am one of the old rebels she depicts!

When I visited the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1998, my husband Andrew – who had been there before, and was keen to show it to me – obviously found Lincoln's statue and the Gettysburg Address deeply inspiring. It’s not that I didn’t, but I was surprised and even more moved by videos of the great freedom marches of the late 20th Century, in support of racial equality and women’s rights – so moved that uncontrollable tears poured down my face as I gazed.  As a young woman in Australia, I took part in our version of such marches, and in some of the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations and later peace marches, too.

Further, I’ve always found the Marseillaise the most stirring of all national anthems – even though a translation of the words, when I looked for one, revealed them to be very bloodthirsty, which gave me pause. I fire up in much the same way to some of the songs from Les Miserables. I want to grab a flag and start defending some barricades! (But do I want to kill or die? Well, no.)

Recently, a psychic who had only just met me channelled the phrase, referring to me, 'a woman who wants freedom'. It hit me in the middle of the chest, as a core truth about me. And yet, when it comes right down to it, I have to admit I’m pretty law-abiding despite some fiery convictions. And when I look back over my life, I see very few restrictions on me. So I’m not sure where this rebel spirit and freedom impulse come from, but this poem thrilled me this morning.

Perhaps that makes sense. After all, poets have always been in the forefront of freedom movements. If we don’t march, we do write. I remember Joan Baez (a great revolutionary in both words and actions) saying, when she herself had become grey-haired, that she had been wrong to try and shame Bob Dylan into coming out and marching with her and others. ‘He was writing the songs we marched to,’ she said, ‘It wasn’t his job to be on the streets as well.’ (Or something like that. I’m quoting from memory.)

I will aver that it's true I watched 'the hippies become yuppies / and the protesters become pundits / and still kept a fire lit', even if I have more stamina these days for signing petitions than marching.

As Caitlin herself told us, in the post I shared last Friday – and as she so exemplifies – our words can be our weapons: our magic wands, ‘mightier than the sword’.

Yes! White hair and arthritis (I have both) notwithstanding: ‘Aux armes, citoyens'!  



 

(Yes, that's me – posing defiantly in 2016. The graduation which the t-shirt refers to actually happened in 1962, when I was a young rebel.)

 Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. However, Caitlin Johnson states at her blog that 'Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.'

Wild Fridays #18: Moonlight Musings

The Importance of Narrative

Today I'm turning you over to Caitlin Johnstone, who, at her website CAITLINJOHNSTONE.COM, describes herself as, 'Rogue journalist. Bogan socialist. Anarcho-psychonaut. Guerilla poet. Utopia prepper.'  

I learn she's also an Aussie, from Melbourne. Not that I needed telling; only an Aussie would use the word 'Bogan', let alone proudly apply it to herself. [What's a Bogan? Think 'Kath & Kim' – no, NOT the deservedly one-season-only American version which completely missed the mark, turning a wicked satire into a fairly pointless sitcom. Well ... perhaps you'd have to be an Aussie....]

But never mind that; it's a side issue. She takes a world view – albeit she says, in her Wikispooks bio, 'I place emphasis on the United States, because that’s where the largest amount of power appears to be centralised.'

The important things about her in regard to this post are how well she knows her material, how well she writes, and – even more important to this community – what she has to say in this piece, specifically. It's all about the power of words and how they shape our lives. Not least by manipulating us. You have very likely had some of the same thoughts she articulates, but this is a particularly well-thought-out reminder.

Her own political position is clear enough. But the central tenets of the article are beyond that. I think we all know by now there's 'fake news' and worse out there, even if we disagree about who's guilty of it. That it exists at all is the point.

Also, she reminds us what we can do about it. We, as poets and storytellers – who can be manipulated like anyone else, and who are prone to the same fears and despairs as others when we wake up to that fact – can use all the encouragement we can get. As an excellent prose writer and author herself, not to mention a 'guerilla poet', she's well qualified to give it.

Here's the piece. As always, I'd love to hear your views and responses in the comments below.

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We Are Ruled By Wizards

Bending reality is as simple as bending people’s perception of reality.

Throughout history, the mythology of civilizations around the world has been full of tales of men and women who mastered a mysterious, esoteric art which enabled them to use language in a way that bends reality to their will. They’ve been called wizards, witches, magicians, sorcerers, warlocks or enchanters, and the utterances they speak have been known as spells, magic, incantations, conjurations or enchantments, but the theme is always more or less the same: a member of a small elite group with the ability to voice special utterances which shape reality according to their will in a way that transcends the mundane mechanics of this world.

People have long held a general intuition that language holds a power far beyond what ordinary mortals use it for, especially since the advent of the written word which was long mysterious to all but the most elite classes in a given society. This intuition has been spot on, though perhaps not exactly in the way that ancient mythologies have envisioned.

When I say “Bending reality is as simple as bending people’s perception of reality,” I’m not making some sort of mystical or otherworldly claim; I’m just making a factual observation about the influence that narrative control has over events big and small which transpire in our world. Many people whose brains lack a healthy empathy center–i.e. sociopaths, psychopaths and other narcissists–already understand this on some level.

Humans are storytelling creatures; everything about our understanding of the world is made up of narratives that are made of language. “My name’s Alice and I was born in Detroit” is a narrative. “The universe is 13.772 billion years old” is a narrative. “If I drink that bottle of bleach I’ll probably die” is a narrative.

Narratives don’t need to be based on any objective fact at all. “I can fly by flapping my arms” is a narrative. “God says you should mail me ten percent of your income” is a narrative. “You live in a free democracy and everything you read in The New York Times is an accurate representation of reality” is a narrative.

Ordinary people use language and narratives to understand and connect with each other, so they tend to favor narratives that are true. People who lack healthy empathy centers have no interest in understanding or connecting beyond the extent to which it can get them what they want, so they’ll happily use lies, half-truths, distortions and lies by omission to obtain power, control, money, sex, or whatever it is they’re after. They have a completely different relationship with language and narrative than people with healthy empathy centers, and they learn to exploit that difference.

Anyone who has escaped from a relationship with a manipulator will have an experiential understanding of what I’m talking about here. You start off under the mistaken impression that the abusive partner uses language the same way you do, so you keep trying to use it to form an understanding and connection, but it’s like your words just get turned around and twisted and used against you in a way you can’t really keep up with. You are fed narratives about yourself which have no bearing on reality: “You’re crazy”, “You’re not remembering things correctly”, “You’re dishonest”, “I’m not abusing you, you’re abusing me”, etc. You are fed narratives about your abuser which have no bearing on reality: “I’m the only one who’ll ever love you”, “I’m too nice, that’s my problem”, “I’m the real victim here”, etc.

When you escape from such a relationship it’s common to have to spend months or years afterward sorting out fact from fiction, reality from narrative distortion. Depending on the skill of the manipulator and how long you were with them, they may have inserted some very disorienting beliefs deep inside your consciousness in order to control you, and they can take a lot of work to uproot.

Large-scale manipulation of entire populations works more or less the same way small-scale manipulation of individuals does, and unlike abusive partners who have to more or less figure out their infernal art on their own, there’s been a concerted collaborative effort to refine the science of propaganda for well over a century.

Our world is set up in a way that rewards sociopathy with wealth and power, which means adept manipulators tend to rise to the top in business, government, and media. This is no accident: while ordinary healthy people were concerning themselves with learning the truth and forming connections, those in our world with no interest in such things have been engineering power structures to reward a lack of empathy. People who are willing to manipulate narratives toward their advantage without regard for truth or justice rise above those who aren’t in such systems.

We now therefore find ourselves ruled by those who use language not to connect and understand, but to bend reality according to their will. We are ruled, in a sense, by wizards.

Vast troves of treasure are poured into controlling the dominant narratives in our society as they relate to those in power and what they want to achieve. The government is your friend. The news man is trustworthy. You live in a democracy and your countrymen can influence government policy and behavior by voting. That bad guy in that other country needs to be taken out. Those people telling you we’re lying are Russian propaganda and need to be censored.

The spells are cast, and before you know it the bombers are deployed, the sanctions are implemented, the dissident is censored, the journalist is jailed, the political leader has been installed, the consent has been manufactured. Reality has been bent by simply using language to bend people’s perception of reality.

The more powerful the government, the more skillful the wizards. Chomsky once said that “Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the US media.” Narrative spells are cooked up by wizards in opaque intelligence agencies and uncritically regurgitated in anonymously sourced news reports, and before you know it Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, Russia is attacking American democracy and China cooked up the coronavirus in a Wuhan laboratory, and as always please know that the status quo is normal and is totally working great for everyone.

The good news is that this kind of word magic is not only accessible to esoteric masters reciting incantations from the pages of a dusty grimoire (which interestingly has the same etymological root as the word “grammar”). Anyone who understands malleable nature of narrative is capable of fighting back against the enchantments which pull the wool over the eyes of the rank-and-file public day in and day out, and can advance narratives that are based on facts and reality rather than lies and distortions.

You can be a wizard too. You can use language to influence the world by pushing back against the narratives spouted by the establishment spellcasters.

The better you understand the nature of narrative and its all-pervading role in our consciousness and our society, the better a wizard you can be. Pay attention not just to the large-scale narratives believed by masses of people, but the small-scale narratives believed by yourself as well. Find out what subtle stories you’ve been holding onto even in the darkest recesses of your subconscious mind which have been bending your perception of reality in a way which does not benefit you. If you want to master narrative wizardry, you must first attain mastery over its role in your own operating system.

Put truth first always, in all ways. Set the intention to use your healthy empathy center to connect, to understand, and to be honest: with those to whom you speak, and with yourself.

The more lucid you become in this way, the more potent your linguistic magic will grow. Narrative control is too important to be left to the manipulators, propagandists, liars and sociopaths.

See through the illusion. Shine truth on the lies.

You’re a wizard, Harry.

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Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors.

All Caitlin Johnstone's writing is freely available for people to share further in any way they like, without it constituting copyright infringement, as stated at her website.