Making a poem
Making a poem
During a week of awful anniversaries
Dear friends,
What poetry can we speak of today, friends? I do not know. I have been thinking all week about how we can have a conversation together. I have written before about how my first steps of empathy and concern begin with the plight and safety and freedom of Palestinians. For me, as an Irishman with my politics, it’s hard to begin anywhere else. But where I begin does not mean I ignore the accountabilities that come with such a beginning: for the safety Israel and all Israeli citizens too.
The other week, I heard Israelis and Palestinians speaking together. When one Israeli said that October 7th had a context in what came before, none of the other Israelis objected; they agreed. When a Palestinian was critical of their leadership, none of the Palestinians shut them down. These people were not both-siders — a term that’s used to categorise approaches that propose middle-of-the-road, don’t-upset-people points of view. They all had strong positions. They brought their protests and perspectives and demands into argument with people on the other side of a border, of power, of appeal, of tragedy. Traumatised people, all — living with the consequence of colonial arrogance that invented frontiers and moved people round like pawns. Carrying the horrors of Shoah, yes; carrying the horrors of Nakba, yes. In a room of argument, accusation, discussion, desperation, yes also.
How can we speak at a time like this? It’s probably the only hope we have, to speak like this at a time like this. To dare to exhibit the freedoms we know the future needs, to make speech acts that acknowledge disparities of power and rights, to make speech acts that call the self-reflection the future requires into the moment of today. Who goes first? I’d like to live in a world where it’s the most powerful. I do not yet live in that world. I want to be part of making that world.
Why am I not talking about a poem?
I am.
“Poem”: meaning “a made thing”. We are in need of new made things: safety for citizens, rights, negotiations, agreements, freedoms, releases, concessions, acknowledgements, futures. Peace treaties take an average of 39 iterations before a righteous-enough agreement is reached. In the ecosystem of a more just future, some will protest; some will negotiate; some will analyse; some will propose; some will strategise; some will fund; most will lament; most will support others; some will critique others. All necessary. What is also necessary — that we don’t destroy each other along the way.
Friends, if you are so moved, I would be glad to read any words of response in the comments. I speak for myself only, and I invite you to do the same. While I know I have a particular angle into these catastrophes, I also know that my fundamental commitment is for a just and lasting peace. That is what guides me, and what I want to guide my conversations with anyone. If you wish to respond, I’d be glad to read it. Difficult things are difficult to talk about, but I have grown to trust and value the conversation in the comments.
Poetry in the World
A list of events: Online; in the US (Norfolk, VA; Durham, NC ); in Canada (Hamilton, Ontario); and the Scottish island of Iona
PS: I’ve got two books coming out in early 2025 — Kitchen Hymns and 44 Poems on Being with Each Other. You can pre-order them wherever you buy books.
October 13, Online
I’ll be giving the 2024 Annual Roy Bradley Oration online — a lecture titled “Things Known and Strange” — with the Australia’s Centre for Spirituality of Care and Community. It’s free and will be at 7:30 pm Eastern Australia time, which, I think, is 4:30 am Eastern time US (where I’ll be) or 9:30 am in Ireland. If you want to go, just email secretary[@]cscc.org.au
October 26–27, Norfolk, Virginia, US
I’ll be giving some readings, a class, and a reflection, hosted by the good people of Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Details can be found here.
October 30, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
I’ll be giving a lecture on literature and health at the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University as part of the Hooker Lecture 2024 series. Details are coming soon.
November 3, 10, 17, 24, December 1, Online
Fill your Sunday evenings with peculiarity, poetry, and ancient literature: I’ll be giving new online lectures on “Strange Stories of the Bible”. You can register here.
November 18–19 Durham, North Carolina, US
I’m giving the William Preston Few lecture at Duke University. I’ll share details here as they emerge.
March 10–15 and March 18–23 2025, Isle of Iona, Scotland
I’m holding two Poetry Unbound retreats on the gorgeous Scottish island of Iona; each retreat is the same. Both retreats are booked up, but you can get on the waiting list by contacting the folks at the St. Columba here.
From time to time, it helps to ask whether I’ve got something backwards. Doesn’t always work, but it can be profound when it does.. October 7 is intolerable. What came before and to which October 7 is a response is intolerable, unsustainable. The only thing I can think of to ask is whether in these situations our grief can be so profoundly shared that it might transform us, might travel with us to a moment where imagination and action are again possible, where that ordinary, momentary, 180-degree rearrangement of expectations can accommodate us to each other in just some tiny or fragile way that we did not have before.
Hi, Padraig,
As always, thank you for your thoughts, concerns, and chosen words. In 2016 I sat on a park bench in the center of a small village in Palestine, drinking Arabic coffee and playing, of all things, a Native American style flute. A Palestinian family arrived and sat at a picnic table right before me. The parents had just bought their two young daughters small wooden flutes. One-by-one the children took turns sitting by me and we played flutes together. In that moment I felt adopted by this family. Music gave us a freedom that transcended words. Once tasted, this freedom released us from feeling separated from each other.
I offer a poem by Wang Wei(a very new visitor into my life):
A Red Peony
Among captivating greens idle and serene,
it’s red robes are shallow, and then so deep.
A blossom’s heart is grief-torn? In all this
spring color, who could fathom the heart?
Your words today, Padraig, deepen my appreciation of this poem. Best, David🏮