Dear friends,
I had different ideas about what to write this week, and then everything happened in Southern Israel, and we’ve watched the news since. I’ve got some thoughts here on words during a time of horror. But you may be in grief, in anxiety, in shock, and reading something like this might be the last thing you need; in which case it’s a wise thing to turn toward what you need and close this email.
Thinking of what to write, I recalled the Hayden Carruth poem “On Being Asked to Write A Poem Against the War in Vietnam”; a poem that begins with a tone that is both self-critical and also defensive:
Well I have and in fact
more than one and I'll
tell you this tooI wrote one against
Algeria that nightmare
and another againstKorea and another
against the one
I was in…
The poem goes on — listing other atrocities in Spain and Harlan County — before noting that his previous poems about those terrors have not achieved anything: “not one / breath was restored / to one // shattered throat … .” The character of Death appears toward the end of the poem, with a “furtive half-smile” looking at him, to make sure that it was firmly holding the poet’s attention on itself.
Hayden Carruth asks serious questions about what art and war have to say to each other. And it’s not hard to hear the bitterness of his tone. He does not believe that poems against war will stop wars.
My colleague Lucas Johnson has just returned from a trip to Jerusalem with an interfaith group. In a USA Today opinion-piece this week, his colleagues and co-pilgrims on the trip Rabbi Andrea C. London and Rami Nashashibi begin by describing the horror of the indiscriminate and war-making rockets being fired into Israel. You can find the article here (remembering that newspaper headlines are written by someone other than the writers). They name the terrors of rising anti-semitism, and the terrors of anticipating more terror. Fear and trauma are described. And they make an attempt — I’m sure it’ll work for some and fail for others — at expressing concern about the consequences for Gaza. They write their article as a Jew and Muslim who are committed to a life of trying, trying together, trying, and trying again. Today’s opinions are just today’s opinions; theirs are lives of commitment to action.
“Fail, fail better” is an approximation of Samuel Beckett’s words. Even if their article doesn’t work for you, it’s certainly an attempt to point language in the direction of language’s best capacities: to make something possible, or at least to try. Toward the end, Rami and Rabbi Andrea make an appeal for better speech: “We call upon our religious leaders, politicians and communities to stand together for justice and peace and not resort to sloganeering or jingoism at this time.”
I’m still thinking of Hayden Carruth’s poem, where — at the core — he is wondering about the purpose of language. In a recently released book, Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, a Marjana Savka poem (translated from Ukrainian by Sibelan Forrester, Mary Kalyna, and Bohdan Pechenyak) begins with:
“Forgive me, darling, I’m not a fighter.”
The poet Marjana Savka doesn’t try to use words as weapons; instead, she looks at what she’d use a knife for (“to cut willow twigs” or “weave you a basket” or “to prune branches / On the young trees.”). It’s a dream, of course, this idea in the poem; but if nightmares can become realities, why would it be a waste of time to think dreams can, or could, or might? Poets aren’t positioning themselves as generals or politicians; they are positioning themselves as poets, which is always to pay attention to the made-ness of art, or the possibility that art can make something out of nothing, the strange beginning that might be worthwhile trying.
All of these words here, too. My own I mean. I’ve written this week’s Substack 10 times. I know I’ve failed to reflect the shock and grief that those of you who are affected are feeling. I’ve tried. I’ll keep trying, failing, trying, failing, trying better, failing better. There is no balance sheet in terror; just grief and funerals and the fear that the worst of the past will repeat itself into the future. “Forgive me, darling…”
Poets aren’t positioning themselves as generals or politicians; they are positioning themselves as poets, which is always to pay attention to the made-ness of art, or the possibility that art can make something out of nothing, the strange beginning that might be worthwhile trying.
I hope — and I am happy if this is deemed naïve — for the amplification of voices of proportionality, defense, and discernment that will have an eye both to the now and to the after-now. For voices who resist the polarising effect of war and instead use it for the unbearable work of bearing together. I wish their work did not need to continue. So do they.
There’s an Irish phrase, “Is olc liom do bhris,” which we say during a time of grief. A literal translation is “your brokenness brings me horror.” No words, no phrases are sufficient for people who are carrying the weight of grief, shock, terror, disbelief, the torture of anticipation, and the awfulness of it all. I think of horror — olc in Irish, rhyming with hulk — and hope that our public words can be weighed with the awful respect for what people need to do to get through a time of terror.
No questions from me this week. It’s a time of mourning, shock, funerals, and protection. Opinions will come in their own time. For now, my hope is that our shared language on this Substack can — at the very least — not cause more harm.
PS: Krista’s TED Talk that was released this week calls for generative narratives in the divisiveness of our times. A dream, yes; a necessary dream, also yes.
Poetry in the World
U.S.A.
Lexington Community Education | Lexington, MA
This Thursday, October 19th, I’m giving a talk about the “You” of poetry at Lexington Community Education Project. 7pm. Details and registration here.
Boston College | Chestnut Hill, MA
This Friday and Saturday, I’ll be giving a reading and a poetry workshop at the conference “The Art of Encounter: Catholic Writers on the Imagination” at Boston College on the 20th and 21st of October. Full details (and timetable) here.
Oklahoma City University | Oklahoma City, OK
I’ll be giving a poetry reading and lecture at Oklahoma City University on the 26th of October. Details and registration (the event is free) are here.
Book Are Magic | Brooklyn, NY
On the 20th of November, I’ll be in conversation with Nick Flynn on his new collection of poems, Low. Tickets are $10, and will include either a book copy or gift card to the bookshop. We start at 7pm ET, and will also be live streamed on YouTube for those who are unable to join in person. Details and registration here.
Thank-you for the words & reachings, Pádraig. I have never written anything in an online forum. But I must today. May we hear Naomi Shihab Nye's deeply important poem, "Cross that Line." And hear the courageous voice of the grieving brother of Hayim Katzman, a young man killed in a kibbutz on Saturday, as he spoke in all clarity that there should be no killing in his brother's name. (Interview with Rabbi Basior on Democracy Now!)
I too wish to share something from afar, across borders.
I am in Berlin, Germany. The censorship has become unspeakable. Those who are branded criminal in their very being and/or those who speak across borders of violences are per se criminalized. (You are stopped by police if you look a certain way and wear a T-shirt with Arabic writing on it, to give just one example.) I am a Jew who has lived and worked her whole life facing injustices commited in her Jewish name. And I continue to do so today. In a voice of clarity and prayer. Because any and all expression which also speaks to the pain of those who are not Jewish has been made illegal in Berlin public spaces, some Jewish voices have been doing individual 'flash' presences in the city. I pass on to you this simple poem of' 'being prayer' I voiced on the streets of Berlin these last days, playing my clarinet, 'a jewish prayer' ( i hope the layout stays, as it is part of the piece) :
and the child asked,
where do the sounds go,
when we no longer hear them?
and the child asked,
what does this service mean to you?
a jewish prayer
how many years
how many children
pall bearers
how many homes
how many trees
how many generations
of life
generations
yizkor, yesterday cries
tzedek, in the injustices of today
teshuvah, we turn, we turn
to face woundings in our name
marbeh, speak freedom is plural
always
may we be the prayer
now
j.k.
Thank you Padraig for every single insufficient word. I am a Jew and I show up here most weeks because I am in love with the space you hold for emboldening uncertainty, the essential need to risk new language in probing and wonder. It allows space for encountering love and conflict with a kind of strength and tenderness not available most places.
I am a Jew and I am in terrible grief for my people and in gut wrenching agony at the grim propects for days and weeks ahead and what they could mean for the future. Many of us are writing poems. One of the first things I did was write a poem. What I share below is not that poem. This one is more prayer than poem. It is also insufficient language but it was what I could bring myself to express this past Sabbath.
May the mourning dove and muted fall colors
remind us suffering cannot be measured.
I stand with my people.
And I stand with all innocent Palestinians of which there are many.
I stand with Peacemakers always.
I shudder with the children, and all the vulnerable
who suffer the harms of war.
I stand with Praise and Joy in all that is Good,
and abhor rejoicing and celebration at any other's expense.
I stand against hate and political ambitions which trump humane considerations.
I stand against all enabling of and active terror which defames all that is holy.
I pray we can each increase
measures of light and lovingkindness
in this darkening world.
There are no justifiable or excusable wars.
Only inevitable wars that could have been avoided.
May this Sabbath and the days ahead
bring the hostages home,
an end to needless death
and a measure of Peace.