June 16, 2016

Poets’ Roundtable

When I began gathering notes for this meeting I intended to open with the poetry of Muhammad Ali. Then Orlando happened and so I turned my attention to how to write about tragedy and the attendant challenges therein. The discussion at the meeting was very good. I see that the assignment for the July 7 meeting is to write about the most recent tragedy on the national/world scene so let's keep it at that rather than look at personal tragedy unless something compels you to do that. I also include here a link to Auden's graphic sexual poem which I mentioned and which, while tangential, is part of the spectrum when we consider all that Orlando encompasses. Muhammad Ali's "I Am the Greatest" appears below.

1. Welcome
2. News and Jabber
1. How do we write about tragedy when it is so close?
2. I asked poet yusef komunyakaa about this. He was a journalist and  poet who covered and served in Viet Nam. His answer was to wait. What if you cannot wait? Bob’s poem about Verdun waited 60 years and is still difficult. Sometimes strict form is helpful but often not. I wrote a series about Sandy Hook. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackness,” that I cannot show to anybody because of the revulsion I felt when I shared one. So now the question becomes what to do with what you write and also why write it if you cannot share it? The writer’s job is a courageous one. We here have all progressed into areas of courage with our writings. There is more courage to be summoned.
3. I attended a  memorial service for the Orlando dead and, by default, the Sandy Hook victims. The priest suggested that no one considers the soul of the shooters. I disagree. I think we all eventually get around to either say he ought to stay alive to suffer what he deserves or that maybe there is forgiveness available somehow somewhere if not in my own heart. Here is a poem from my riff on Sandy Hook that I have never dared to show anyone.

On indifference: W.H. Auden, "Musée des Beaux Arts"

About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

Read Jameson Fitzpatrick’s poem in full below:

A Poem for Pulse

Last night, I went to a gay bar

with a man I love a little.

After dinner, we had a drink.

We sat in the far-back of the big backyard

and he asked, What will we do when this place closes?

I don’t think it’s going anywhere any time soon, I said,

though the crowd was slow for a Saturday,

and he said—Yes, but one day. Where will we go?

He walked me the half-block home

and kissed me goodnight on my stoop—

properly: not too quick, close enough

our stomachs pressed together

in a second sort of kiss.

I live next to a bar that’s not a gay bar

—we just call those bars, I guess—

and because it is popular

and because I live on a busy street,

there are always people who aren’t queer people

on the sidewalk on weekend nights.

We just call those people, I guess.

They were there last night.

As I kissed this man I was aware of them watching

and of myself wondering whether or not they were just

people. But I didn’t let myself feel scared, I kissed him

exactly as I wanted to, as I would have without an audience,

because I decided many years ago to refuse this fear—

an act of resistance. I left

the idea of hate out on the stoop and went inside,

to sleep, early and drunk and happy.

While I slept, a man went to a gay club

with two guns and killed fifty people. At least.

Today in an interview, his father said he had been disturbed

by the sight of two men kissing recently.

What a strange power to be cursed with,

for the proof of our desire to move men to violence.

What’s a single kiss? I’ve had kisses

no one has ever known about, so many

kisses without consequence—

but there is a place you can’t outrun,

whoever you are.

There will be a time when.

It might be a bullet, suddenly.

The sound of it. Many.

One man, two guns, fifty dead—

Two men kissing. Last night

is what I can’t get away from, imagining it, them,

the people there to dance and laugh and drink,

who didn’t believe they’d die, who couldn’t have.

How else can you have a good time?

How else can you live?

There must have been two men kissing

for the first time last night, and for the last,

and two women, too, and two people who were neither.

Brown people mostly, which cannot be a coincidence in this country

which is a racist country, which is gun country.

Today I’m thinking of the Bernie Boston photograph

Flower Power, of the Vietnam protestor placing carnations

in the rifles of the National Guard,

and wishing for a gesture as queer and simple.

The protester in the photo was gay, you know,

he went by Hibiscus and died of AIDS,

which I am also thinking about today because

(the government’s response to) AIDS was a hate crime.

Reagan was a terrorist.

Now we have a president who loves Us,

the big and imperfectly lettered Us, and here we are

getting kissed on stoops, getting married some of Us,

some of Us getting killed.

We must love one another whether or not we die.

Love can’t block a bullet

but it can’t be destroyed by one either,

and love is, for the most part, what makes Us Us—

in Orlando and in Brooklyn and in Kabul.

We will be everywhere, always;

there’s nowhere else for Us, or you, to go.

Anywhere you run in this world, love will be there to greet you.

Around any corner, there might be two men. Kissing.

Find more links here:

http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2016/06/13/24206458/poems-of-hope-and-grief-for-the-orlando-dead

Link to W.H. Auden's "The Platonic Blow"

3. The Current Assignment

To write a sonnet

How many did the assignment?

What are your poems about?

Why do you suppose they are about these topics?

4. The Next Assignment
1. Write about the most recent tragedy on the national/world scene
5. Next Meeting
1. July 7, 2016
6. Other Notes
1. This is where I was going to begin today's meeting until Orlando hit the scene
7. 
   

Muhammad Ali > Quotes > Quotable Quote

Muhammad Ali

“This is the legend of Cassius Clay,

The most beautiful fighter in the world today.

He talks a great deal, and brags indeed-y,

of a muscular punch that's incredibly speed-y.

The fistic world was dull and weary,

But with a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary.

Then someone with color and someone with dash,

Brought fight fans are runnin' with Cash.

This brash young boxer is something to see

And the heavyweight championship is his des-tin-y.

This kid fights great; he’s got speed and endurance,

But if you sign to fight him, increase your insurance.

This kid's got a left; this kid's got a right,

If he hit you once, you're asleep for the night.

And as you lie on the floor while the ref counts ten,

You’ll pray that you won’t have to fight me again.

For I am the man this poem’s about,

The next champ of the world, there isn’t a doubt.

This I predict and I know the score,

I’ll be champ of the world in ’64.

When I say three, they’ll go in the third,

So don’t bet against me, I’m a man of my word.

He is the greatest! Yes!

I am the man this poem’s about,

I’ll be champ of the world, there isn’t a doubt.

Here I predict Mr. Liston’s dismemberment,

I’ll hit him so hard; he’ll wonder where October and November went.

When I say two, there’s never a third,

Standin against me is completely absurd.

When Cassius says a mouse can outrun a horse,

Don’t ask how; put your money where your mouse is!

I AM THE GREATEST!”

― Muhammad Ali