Poetry of War

I'm in England, congested and tired. So this will be brief. Much has happened since my last post, in my life, my community and the world.

But I will now go back in history. I'm currently writing an essay on the poetic contributions of women in the World Wars. It is difficult for me to turn objective, analytical eyes on these poems-- to dissect these women's efforts to pull something, no matter how small, together when everything around them was in shambles. But that is what I am doing. And it breaks my heart. I have not stated this on this blog before, though I'm sure by now it is quite obvious, but I am a pacifist. I believe in non-violent reconciliation. It is not easy or simple, and often times it is not logical by the standards of many. I understand this, and do not seek a debate, just to preface what I have to share tonight.

Reading the poems of women faced with war, some of them pacifists, many of them not, I lose myself to their pain and the little hopes they tell themselves to believe. I lose myself in wanting them to believe for the sake of their sanity and perseverance that what their men are doing is just. And I lose myself in the sadness that I know these men are broken (I'm also reading poetry by men). This makes me want to visit the places where these poets walked and lived, like St. Giles (I walk there every day) where May Cannan was born and raised, and Somersville College where Vera Brittain visited friends after receiving news her fiancee, Roland, had been killed at war. What will happen if I go there, stop there for a moment? Will I be able to walk away?

Questions to Ask Our "Enemies"

Today, after making berry custard ice cream and what I will call "toasty toffee," I found an issue of World Magazine and began reading it (not something I normally do with that publication, if ever, but it was there). In an article titled "Trial of the Century," I read, according to Lynn Vincent, the World contributor (I will assume her figures are accurate), there were 2,973 people involved in the event of violence and brokeness that shattered us on 11 Septemeber, 2001. 2,973! As the article continues, Vincent discusses the question of whether these individuals detained on the charge of terrorism should be entitled to the rights of habeas corpus. My question is: Are they human? Then shouldn't they be alloted what we have deemed a basic "human right"? There are, of course, exceptions and conditions applied to habeas corpus. Something to think about, I suppose.

Let us step back a little and look at that number again-- 2,973.

2,973.

My first question, as I sat in shock, was not "How could a group of people be so violent?" or "Why are Muslim fanatics so plentiful?" Rather, all I could think was "Why?" "Why would that many people hate another nation so strongly?"

I am reminded by something Wendell Berry writes in his essay "In the Presence of Fear". Berry advises that now we are in a conflict with peoples of the Middle East, that we learn their history, they culture, their arts and fears. And then we can perhaps learn why they hate us. Berry, being who he is, uses strong language by employing the term "hate us." Perhaps the people we think "hate us" don't hate us, but simply an idea of us. And I think we need to ask why. Peace is an open dialogue of questions, images, feelings, histories mingling with one another.

We ought to ask our neighbors with whom we find ourselves in conflict:


Who do you think I am?
What do you think I do, believe, value that is in such sharp contradiction to your own convictions?
What are your convictions?
Tell me about your life.
What kinds of poems do you read? Books? Plays?
Do you like your food spicy, bland, sweet?
Did your parents read to you at night before bed?
What do you want to be when you grow up, and why?
What do you mean by what you say and do?
What has brought you to this point (think personal and national history)?
What can I do to bring peace to this relationship?

And we should also ask ourselves:

Do I know this person who I supposedly hate or who supposedly hates me?
Am I acting on a belief that someone hates me who may not actually hate me?
Has something been lost in translation?
Are we even bothering to translate?
Have I confused defensive thinking with offensive thinking (I must be proactive before this person devastates me and not let them get too close)?
What is my history?
What do I truly believe and value?
Will doing what I can to bring peace conflict with any of my foundational beliefs?
If yes, are those really beliefs I ought to hold?
If no, then why am I not doing what I can to bring peace here?
What kind of world do we want live in?

And there are so many more questions to ask.

By the way, I like to read poems by Naomi Shihab Nye and Eavan Boland. What about you?

Why Poetry

After a somewhat mundane day (funny how days that involve packing are often also somewhat depressing), I come to learn my blog has been blessed with a poem (Thanks, Peter!), and this got me to thinking. . .

Somehow poetry has acquired an image of snobbery, of unattainability, of. . . intellectualism in a negative sense. So, what do we do? Well, I don't know about you, but I grew up a little bit afraid of poetry, because it was a distant, unreal thing by mythical creatures we call poets.

Well, that's simply not true, unless I have been fooled all along and the world's poets are secretly faeries (I wish!). By reading each other's poetry, we enter into reality--of the specific, the concrete, the personal, the nitty gritty, the language, the politics, the passion and compassion of another human being. I'm still afraid of poetry, but because I'm afraid of who I will meet and no longer be able to think of as merely an idea, what images I will face, and what questions I may have to consider.

Now I'm getting preachy, and that has to stop. And I have to finish packing.

Poems by Children

As my exploration of poetry as peacemaking continues, I find that not only do different poets have their own specific focuses stemming from cultural experience--Naomi Shihab Nye and her Palestinian-American heritage, William Stafford and WWI, Christian Peacemaking Team members in Columbia-- but age itself also makes its mark on poetry. Sure, sure, you may be thinking, "Well, of course. Children are not self-aware, or culturally aware, or linguistically aware enough to write poems like adults do, just quality-wise." To think that, my friends, could be one of the biggest mistakes in human history. Not joking.

Granted, children may not have many years under their metaphorical belts (although they may be able to come up with a less over-used idiom than I just used), but what they lack in quantity they often make up for in clarity. I will not go off on theory or mechanics; my young poet friends do not. Please, read this poem found in A Chance To Live: Children's Poems for Peace in a Nuclear Age, edited by Gayle Peterson and Ying Kelley. And listen to children.

Please Don't Kill

Please don't kill
Other people
In a war
'Cause God made people
to live.


~Daryl Williams
2nd Grade

Reading Irish Poetry

For the past two weeks I had left a stack of books in the Religious Studies office on a shelf. With so many books to read, I let a few wait for me there. Today I retrieved them, and as if it were Christmas, was surprised by all the lovely titles I rediscovered. No wonder I requested them from other libraries!

One of the books is a very large, green volume with a golden emblem pressed into the front cover. It's titled Ireland in Poetry. Page after page has old and new poems and color photographs or images of paintings. And I don't know what it is about Irish poetry, but it makes me feel a deep sense of mourning, fear, and inspiration, almost anticipation (of what? I do not know). I don't even know that much about Ireland's history or conflicts, it's people or places. The most intimate look at Ireland I have (besides my Lit. professor Kathy) comes from Eavan Boland's Memoir-ish Object Lessons.

What is it about Irish poetry?

Remembering the Gardens

This morning I am working on a few things: my reflection paper on poetry and peacemaking, packing and sorting for MN and the U.K., random life happenings, and a poem about the gardens in the Bethlehem refugee camp we visited in June. Only a month ago. All the images came flooding back of the home we visited with the garden planted into the ground, and the metal arch for vines. And I saw in my imagination the gardens comprised of sawed off plastic jugs and handleless buckets. Anything that would hold dirt was used to incubate life. Someday I want a garden like that. A garden that doesn't really care where it is or what could become of it; it climbs or spreads, or stands tall without fear or second thoughts.

Confessions of a Frequent Flyer

I know what it feels like to be completely lost in that limbotic land between terminals. Bags in hand in a country where I don’t speak the language, no less. I know what it feels like to only understand the hand motions of an airport security worker, and to look like a fool when I go through the line that she specifically motioned me to bypass.

I know what it feels like to wander around Frankfurt for three hours with no place to sit, the sound of a gate alarm screeching when I choose to buck the system. I know what it feels like to be caught in a cattle call boarding session.
I know what it feels like to be culturally ignorant, to have no idea what is socially acceptable. I know what it’s like to be at the mercy of another person’s pursuit of a language not their own to help me in mine. I know what it feels like to not know who I can ask, who will understand my question, who will treat me with kindness.

And I know what it feels like to experience grace, to be the recipient of hospitality. I know what it feels like to receive sympathy from those who cannot help me. I know what it feels like, also, to be turned away, to be dealt with harshly, to not be trusted by people of my home country. To be perceived as a foreigner because of the shape of my facial features and my quiet mannerisms.

I also know what shame feels like—to stand again in the country of my childhood and to witness inhospitality. To hear guards question why international visitors continue to go to the incorrect passport check line when they have been speaking exclusively in English and signs are posted in English and Chinese. And we expect incoming French passengers to understand? I know what it feels like to want to yell at a security guard for snapping at a woman rudely. Then to realize that would not solve any of our problems.

And this knowledge makes me want to throw my arms around the world and shout out in every language known to humanity, “Bienvenidas, bienvenue, ah’len wa sah’len, welcome!” You are welcome in my life.