The state[s] of the world
What a poem can and cannot do
Dear friends,
The news the news the news.
I read a few different newspaper sites every day, looking for what I can find. The last few weeks, I combined my horror of what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank with news of strikes, pre-emptive strikes, display strikes, aggressive strikes, ceasefires, broken ceasefires, political analyses of noble cultures and their realpolitik.
Poetry is not news. It is not a comment upon it. Art does what art does, which is often a tricksy thing. However, I have been thinking about this gorgeous poem by Dunya Mikhail all week. We shared a different poem of hers before on Poetry Unbound, but her poem below feels especially wise to reflect on these days.
Dunya is from Baghdad, Iraq. She worked as a translator and journalist there before being placed on Saddam Hussein’s list of enemies. After that, in the mid-1990s, she moved to the United States. She won the UN Human Rights award for Freedom of Writing.
My Poem Will Not Save You
Remember the toddler lying face down
on the sand, and the waves gently receding
from his body as if a forgotten dream?
My poem will not turn him onto his back
and lift him up
to his feet
so he can run
into a familiar lap
like before.
I am sorry
my poem will not
block the shells
when they fall
onto a sleeping town,
will not stop the buildings
from collapsing
around their residents,
will not pick up the broken-leg flower
from under the shrapnel,
will not raise the dead.
My poem will not defuse
the bomb
in the public square.
It will soon explode
where the girl insists
that her father buy her gum.
My poem will not rush them
to leave the place
and ride the car
that will just miss the explosion.
Many mistakes in life
will not be corrected by my poem.
Questions will not be answered.
I am sorry
my poem will not save you.
My poem cannot return
all of your losses,
not even some of them,
and those who went far away
my poem won’t know how to bring them back
to their lovers.
I am sorry.
I don’t know why the birds
sing
during their crossings
over our ruins.
Their songs will not save us,
although, in the chilliest times,
they keep us warm,
and when we need to touch the soul
to know it’s not dead,
their songs
give us that touch.From In Her Feminine Sign (New Directions Press, 2019) by Dunya Mikhail
Among the many things I admire about this poem is its clear-eyed capacity to name what a poem will not do. It is not romantic, nor is it ideological. The repeated “I am sorry” echoes across many meanings: sorrow for the state of the world, for the individuals whose lives have been eviscerated, for the plain truth that even beautiful language will not address what refuses to budge.
And then, building upon the strength and clarity of the recognition of the limitation of aesthetics, Dunya Mikhail brings us to birds: Why do they sing as they fly over ruins? There is no misty-eyed sentimentalism in her depiction of these singing creatures, but there’s a recognition that something natural that causes us to look up — at birds rather than at planes with their bombs — may be a reminder of something older in us. I feel a quiet plea in this poem: that those who can make decisions about horror could, too, look at anything that would change their actions.
I am interested to know: What of the many messages in Dunya Mikail’s poem speaks to you today? Is it the contents of the text? The work of art created between the poem and you? Something else?
PS1: For those interested in learning more about Dunya and reading other poems by her, watch this brief video from her on The Markaz Review site.
PS2: I’ll be taking a break later this summer, so there won’t be a newsletter from me on July 27, August 3, and August 10. However, I will pre-schedule a poem for each of those Sundays for your morning reading.
Poetry in the World
A list of events: Online and in the US (Honolulu; Rhinebeck, NY; North Kingstown, RI; Stockbridge, MA)
July 31, Honolulu, Hawaii
I’ll be giving a talk at the Honolulu Museum of Art as part of a residency with the Merwin Conservancy. Details here.
September 26–28, Rhinebeck, New York, and Online
I am leading a weekend retreat exploring “Strange Stories of the Bible” at Omega Institute. Expect strangeness, swearing, f**ked up stories of families, and literary brilliance. You can join in person or online.
November 14, North Kingstown, Rhode Island
Together with Sophie Cabot Black, I’ll be reading as part of Spencer Reece’s “14 Gold Street Series” Turn up — it’s free, it’s at 5:30 P.M. ET, and the location is here.
December 19–21, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
I’m leading a retreat called “Poetry of Peace” at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. More details and registration here.
Dunya Mikail’s poem today seems to echo the words of Etty Hillesum which I read this morning in Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox.
It reads as follows … With so much horror in the world, it is easy to sink into despair. But then we find inspiration in the form of Etty Hillesum, the Dutch Jewish author killed in Auschwitz in 1943. What is amazing about her is that she was able to “stay human” in the midst of the most unspeakable suffering. She was already interned at a transit camp when she wrote the following: The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down for a chat, the sun is shining on my face – and right before our eyes, mass murder… The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension.And: Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors: it is all as one in me. Etty was somehow able to hold both extremes in her awareness.
I wonder if this is our invitation in this world we find ourselves in today? Can we “stay human” by caring and listening, crying and laughing, comforting and suffering, seeing the beauty and the pain? How do we live with our heart and soul portals open to it all?
I do not believe her when she says, “I am sorry
my poem will not save you.” It seems to me that she knows that the poem indeed has the power to save us from indifference, inertia, and the paralysis of analysis.
I reread the poem and changed the line to “I am sorry my poem WILL save you” and it became a clarion call to action.