Not Watching

“It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.”
― William Carlos Williams, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower and Other Love Poems: That Greeny Flower


Like most people in America this past year, I became a news addict. The long lead-up to the election, the election itself, and the wild ride of the aftermath were watched with an eagerness I usually save for something more palatable. The anger and the disappointment, the revelry and the satisfaction. We had become a county divided, and the train wreck of bad behaviors was hard to turn away from.

This summer my salvation was frequently leaving home, being on the road and out of range of the media. Getting home and switching on the television was like having entered a time machine. Or a timeless machine. Nothing had changed; the information had not moved one iota on the Richter scale of scandal and fear mongering. 

I still attempt to understand, to dig into the reasons for what is happening worldwide; I haven't yet stuck my head fully under the sand. If an article appears unbiased, I rejoice until I discover which media mogul owns the magazine or paper. There are a few unsullied moments of hope that someone is telling the truth; but even then, whose truth?

Maybe it is time to get our news from poetry. It being difficult is not a good enough excuse to stop trying. 

The idea that poetry can teach us what the media cannot is not as ridiculous as we might think. Poetry cuts through convoluted rhetoric with its sharp edge of clarity. If we don't agree with a poet, at least we know his or her idea is probably based in heart-felt feelings.

I often find contemporary political poetry too didactic, too filled with opinions not allowed to sit and stew for days or preferably months. The best political poems are no different than the best love poems; they both need time to germinate.

My own poetry is often about current events, natural disasters, and the unfair treatment of disenfranchised people. I have had to be careful not to jump in with emotion only, to allow time to temper my feelings, as well as my pen. There is no substitute for temperance.

With quick and dirty communication, the immediate one-off of a clever tweet or comment, we risk becoming less humane. We are finally recognizing that from our president on down, that a few words can hold tremendous power. They can calm our fears or threaten war. Words have never been benign, and in our world of instant communication, we do well to believe in their innate power to comfort or destroy.

In honor of William Carlos Williams and his practical approach to truth telling with his poetry, here are a few of my personal favorites.

​
Complete Destruction
It was an icy day.
We buried the cat,
then took her box
and set fire to it

in the back yard.
Those fleas that escaped
earth and fire
died by the cold.


This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

​