Your writing is always thoughtful. Whether the march to green energy, dealing with despots, or something else, I fear we have joined a ride on a very swift escalator and not quite sure whether we are rising or falling. I think the world has made choices with incomplete information all along. Poetry may be useful to help us think differently.
I believe your powerful poetry line fully and emphatically, despite your "sometimes seems" -- and that you are loosely even related to Marina Tsvetaeva (!) is a wonder. I'm reading the Emily Watson translation of "The Odyssey" right now with a student, and I am struck again by its relevancy, by the relevancy and timelessness of all poetry. Kevin Young read Yeats' "Second Coming" at Joan Didion's memorial the other day -- that, too, rang loud and true and devastating and consoling.
"Part of poetry’s power, it sometimes seems, is that it’s asked to serve far more purposes than any other writing, articulating both the pains and joys of human existence, of possibility, with precision and depth that defy even the language it relies on."
That is possibly the finest sentence I have ever read about the role of poetry in our lives.
It made me think of this line from Patrick Kavanagh's poem In The Same Mood, "I want by Man, not God, to be inspired."
These thoughts of Putin, of despots like him, oof. Is it so different from what we are seeing on the American Right? Just think of January 6th, how we all saw with our own eyes what went on, and yet that entire movement is trying to gaslight us to believing it was something else. Not only that, but the people in power never pay the price, are never called out for their contribution to shittiness. It is a reality that echoes in every hall of power, doesn't it? What a mess.
Meanwhile, this sentence: "But it’s not the only perceived need in the world that requires the suffering and sacrifice of others who have no choice." This is some truth, Nia. This is a way we gaslight ourselves with hardly any help at all from the bastards who would do so happily.
Your writing is always thoughtful. Whether the march to green energy, dealing with despots, or something else, I fear we have joined a ride on a very swift escalator and not quite sure whether we are rising or falling. I think the world has made choices with incomplete information all along. Poetry may be useful to help us think differently.
Thank you, Nia.
"It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die every day for lack of what is found there." ~ William Carlos Williams
I believe your powerful poetry line fully and emphatically, despite your "sometimes seems" -- and that you are loosely even related to Marina Tsvetaeva (!) is a wonder. I'm reading the Emily Watson translation of "The Odyssey" right now with a student, and I am struck again by its relevancy, by the relevancy and timelessness of all poetry. Kevin Young read Yeats' "Second Coming" at Joan Didion's memorial the other day -- that, too, rang loud and true and devastating and consoling.
"Part of poetry’s power, it sometimes seems, is that it’s asked to serve far more purposes than any other writing, articulating both the pains and joys of human existence, of possibility, with precision and depth that defy even the language it relies on."
That is possibly the finest sentence I have ever read about the role of poetry in our lives.
It made me think of this line from Patrick Kavanagh's poem In The Same Mood, "I want by Man, not God, to be inspired."
These thoughts of Putin, of despots like him, oof. Is it so different from what we are seeing on the American Right? Just think of January 6th, how we all saw with our own eyes what went on, and yet that entire movement is trying to gaslight us to believing it was something else. Not only that, but the people in power never pay the price, are never called out for their contribution to shittiness. It is a reality that echoes in every hall of power, doesn't it? What a mess.
Meanwhile, this sentence: "But it’s not the only perceived need in the world that requires the suffering and sacrifice of others who have no choice." This is some truth, Nia. This is a way we gaslight ourselves with hardly any help at all from the bastards who would do so happily.