Poems, poetics, rants and ramblings from places other than home. Conversations about travel and exile, about learning to live and love other cultures, about learning to love one’s own life estranged from the familiar.
I tremble when I hear on the news that many of our politicians want to radically reduce, even eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, essentially eliminating art from the public mall. I know America is facing fiscal crisis. I know that hard choices must be made. Yet I tremble at how easily some contemplate eliminating the miniscule funding ($167 million in total, which is negligible rounding error in the $3.83 trillion US national budget) that helps pay for museums and theaters, arts programs and community libraries, poetry and painting and art in schools. I recognize that the ‘far right’ (sometimes self referenced as the ‘real’ Americans) resents that a few dollars find their ways into the pockets of artists whose work they consider obscene, pornographic, or atheist. But actually most NEA and NEH dollars are for programs whose worth goes far beyond the act of creation (and we can argue the value of providing a few dollars to help talented artists pay rent) to fund programs that bring in audiences, tourists, rippling across a community and creating jobs, political leanings nonwithstanding.
Beyond this fiscal shortsightedness, I tremble because when we so marginalize and hold in disregard the artist and the act of creativity, we are allowing ourselves, all of America including the ‘real’ Americans, to fall farther into the pit of alienation and despair.
What makes a human, what separates the human from the animal, is imagination. The ability to imagine, to envision, what it is to be someone else is at the center of everything when we talk about being human.
Without imagination, there is no empathy. What is empathy anyway? It is the capability to share another’s emotions and feelings. In other words, it is the ability to form a mental image, sensation or concept without actually living that person’s life. In other words, empathy is imagination.
Which is why we need art. We need art because art is the human endeavor that most stretches and requires the development of imagination. We need to create art. We need to receive and respond to art. Without art, without paintings, sculpture, without books and poetry, we are less human. Without art, we have less empathy, less empathy for each other, and for the world in which we inhabit. Without art, we might as well get down on all fours with the sheep and the wolves hunting them.
When Jewish German poet Paul Celan visited Israel in 1969, Israeli audiences begged him to recite his poem “Death Fugue” (“Black milk of morning we drink you at dusktime / we drink you at noontime and dawntime we drink you at night / we drink and drink”). He refused. Celan’s host and the people arranging his readings and meetings demanded he read it. He refused. Not once did he read that poem to the Jews in Israel. After two weeks in the Holy Land, Celan abruptly returned to Paris. Ten months later, he jumped to his death in Paris’ SeineRiver (“we scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie”).
Israel was not the only audience Celan denied “Death Fugue.” During the last decade of his life, in fact Celan refused to allow the poem to be further anthologized or read. Why? Based on translator and biographer writings (e.g., Pierre Joris), Celan didn’t want to be associated with what was already being called Holocaust Poetry (as a Jewish survivor of that horror, no one can blame him). Moreover and perhaps more importantly, he felt, according to Joris, that the constant focus on that one poem stole attention from his other later work.
In a similar way, the classical Russian composer and musician Sergei Rachmaninoff came to loathe his famous Prelude in C-sharp minor as it, he said, “overshadowed” his other compositions. Every where he toured, audiences demanded it—“The Prelude,”they shouted—“The Prelude,” they screamed from their red velvet chairs. Of course, Rachmaninoff was one of the few pianists who could flawlessly play this work—Rachmaninoff’s hand spanned almost two octaves. In disgust, Rachmaninoff twice left the stage after angry listeners heckled him for not playing it. Check out this pretty funny video of Igudesman and Joo playing the Prelude, which underscores why the big hands are important!
More seriously, in thinking about these two artists, I wonder just how much our expectations of an artist figure in our assessment of the work, how much does what came before influence our reception of what comes after? It is impossible to read new work by contemporary poets as diverse as Sharon Olds, Li-Young Lee, Brigit Pegeen Kelly without referring to earlier books, the books that first garnered them attention. In all three cases, critics leveled the accusation that these poets are “writing the same poems over and over again.” We expect our artists to not only surpass earlier work but to grow, to change. But in my opinion it is almost impossible for readers familiar with their work to judge without the prejudice of what came first. My point is perhaps the later work IS better but we can’t judge it on its own merits.
One factor affecting our reception of an artist’s new work is the the widely propagated statement that artistic creativity tends to peak early. While we can always point to a Wallace Stevens, there are multiples more of cases like the ones noted above where a poet or writer or artist produces something extraordinary and then disappoints in some fashion over and over. But do poets really peter out after forty or fifty? Is creativity really the primary domain of the young? Sure, there are plenty of examples of young geniuses though when one cites Keats and Shelley, remember they died young. Perhaps Keats early work (completed before his death at age 25) was just a warm-up for what would have come later. I don’t think the situation is clear either way and there are enough examples to support both sides. We might complain that Galway Kinnell has not produced a second Book of Nightmares, but in my opinion, Anne Carson and CD Wright are only getting more courageous with age. I mean Philip Schultz, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Failure, would be well served to let his first book go quietly out of print. By the way, I consider that last statement a compliment. If, in twenty years, someone writes that same sentence about me and my work, I will have written a good life.
Here’s a crazy thought—perhaps the rumor of young genius, older has-beens was started by old poets and wizened painters so that they no longer have to measure up. One must think that once an artist has created a body of much-lauded work, it would be terribly tiring to try and surpass it. Moreover, it might be debilitating, psychologically impossible to even contemplate the task. How can I? What if I can’t? Will they still love me? What will they say? I know. I know. We like to think that true artists are beyond caring how their work is received. But most do, if they are human, especially if the audience includes those they love or admire, those whose opinions matter. How can an artist transcend what is already transcendent? Which brings me back to my crazy though, why not go ahead and eliminate expectation?
If it’s not actually true that genius is the domain of the young, at least the idea that an artist has already shot his or her load to euphemistically put it by the time he or she reaches late middle age, reduces the pressure to perform. So one can get back to writing.
If you live in a small intense country like Israel, over time you begin to recognize that there is a very big difference between what one might call ‘history’ and what one might call ‘the past.’ History is an official version of what happened, the one depicted in books and what is talked about on the news. The past is a place of shadows, whispers, failures, and defeats. The past is what you read in people’s faces after the bombings and what you hear underneath the mob’s cries. A mother hums it as she boils the pot of what she’ll serve for dinner, and the father reads it to his children at bedtime. The past exists in multiplicities as does each person’s idea of his or her future.
The past, like the idea of time, means something different every time it’s talked about and defies translation. History means one thing, or at least one thing at a time.
As I mentioned almost exactly a year ago in a similar post, 88% of New Year’s resolutions go unfulfilled. This means that almost all of us didn’t meet our goals for 2010, assuming we made any. We can all explain, justify, render irrelevant the gap, but the reality is that no matter how good our intentions, chances are this year’s resolutions will go similarly unresolved. One thing we can do to improve our chances, or at least according to Good Morning America, is to share our resolutions with the world. In fact, you are 10% more likely to follow through. Granted this stat comes from an unverified source and, if your goal is to slim down from a size 12 to a size 6, sharing that unrealistic target with the general public probably won’t increase the odds. But it does make sense to me. Other people’s opinions matter. Moreover, and perhaps as importantly, perhaps making one’s goals publicly traded forces one to set the bar at an achievable level.
So what about 2010? It was a really good year for me—I moved into a condo in New York, my book was published, I spent a month at the fabulous VermontStudioCenter, I am making good progress on a next manuscript. But none of these were explicit goals for the year. What DID I resolve last year? I vowed to read a couple of books I hated. First, at least one or two by German writers, a category of fiction that I tend to avoid (a long story but influenced by two years living in Munich). I also wanted to read Robert Fagles’ translation of The Aenied. So, I give myself a B. I read Herta Muller’s The Land of Green Plums and half of Gunter Grass’s Tin Drum. I skimmed The Aeneid, yes, searching for the juicy parts. It wasn’t lack of interest but I just had too many other books I really really wanted to read.
Yet, here’s something that surprised me—I wrote last year that I similarly disliked reading nonfiction memoir, historical accounts, biography, autobiography, the story of other people’s lives, true stories. I prefer fiction. Why? Generally I find that fictional stories tend to be better written and more engaging stories than their true to life counterparts. For some reason, when something extraordinary is recounted in a work of nonfiction (meaning it supposedly really happened), I find myself saying, “Really?” or “Well, that’s not so interesting.” What that says about my level of skepticism, I don’t know. Or perhaps what that says about my own perception of my level of skepticism, I don’t know.
Because…. in 2010, in addition to books of poetry, fiction, and nonfictional essays, I read at least 8 books of nonfictional history and biography. Included in the list: The Young Romantics, The Lemon Tree, American Priestess, The American Colony, OurJerusalem: An American Family in the Holy City, The Courtier and the Heretic, Crossing MandelbaumGate, My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness.
Surprising myself, I really enjoyed all of them. Granted, three of these were important to research I’m doing on Israel, but I enjoyed all of them, necessary or not. This is not to say that I’m going to start voraciously consuming the latest celebrity or political autobiography/biography on the Barnes and Noble shelves. But it won’t be because I might not find Sarah Palin’s ghost written narrative entertaining but that given the world of books to read, I’d prefer to spend my few dollars of consciousness reading something more edifying or at least books about better people. I suppose that admission marks me a bit of snob. Oh well.
So what about 2011? I am going to finish Fagles’ The Aeneid. Beyond that, I’m not going to commit. Not yet anyway.
This from The Daily Beast about Granta's newest literary magazine release which highlights Spanish-speaking authors from around the globe, though Argentina and Spain log in with 14 of 22 spots.
It sounds amazing:
The new volume of Granta highlights bright new literary stars from across the Spanish-speaking world, says critic Oscar Villalon—and they wrestle with dark themes in a way few American writers dare to.
...It would seem, according to a new generation of Spanish-language novelists, we are living in an age where Big Ideas are dead, and this is far from a good thing, considering the Big Empty that's filled the vacuum.
...In one way or the other, these authors seem to be wrestling with an understanding of the post-Big Idea world that is perhaps best distilled in Urguayan author Andres Ressia Colino's piece, "Scenes From a Comfortable Life." Jimmy Tanaka, a working-class young man who happens to be Japanese, gets an education from his girlfriend's rich, Germanic father, who supplies him with this piece of sour wisdom:
"This system is a fucking circle of doom. Produce more and more cheaply, and make the consumer swallow faster and faster. […] None of the food or the clothes or the music or the books or the drugs that you kids consume are real. It seems like food, like clothes, like music, but it's all just something like those things, made to be devoured immediately. It's a perfect system. A magnificent, gigantic, super-efficient piece of machinery that produces nothing, totally and absolutely nothing."
I have to read the issue if only to find out if there's any sign of redemption, somewhere, anywhere in these stories.
I returned to Israel two days ago to rain and 120 kph winds. It was the first real rain of what is supposed to be Israel’s rainy season. After the wildfires that consumed much of the country’s Carmel Mountains a week ago, the rain is welcome. As the power flickered on and off with the flares of lightning, I opened the November/December issue of American Poetry Review to find a series of poems by a poet and author I much admire, Nick Flynn. The series titled “seven testimonies (redacted)” is, to quote the footnote at the bottom of the page, composed of redacted versions of the testimonies of seven Abu Ghraib detainees as transcribed by the artist Danile Heyman, in Amman and in Istanbul, from 2006 to 2008. Nick Flynn was present for those testimonies gathered in 2007 in Istanbul.
Each of Flynn’s seven poetic testimonies is short ranging from eight to thirteen lines. Each line is also short, two to eight words. The poems are in first person, but a first person that feels drugged, drained, yes, tortured. Flynn creates a nightmarish quality with the use of fragmentation, repetition, illogical combinations. Erratic use of punctuation and capitalization between the individual poems suggests that the seven testimonies are one, that one runs into another, that each punishment was done to one, to all, without relation to the individual suspect, to what he or perhaps she did or might have done, or didn’t do at all. Here is the last of the seven poems of the series in its entirety:
My eyesight in years
I see up yes did this
Yes you this I saw
A sister you see
In the showers you this
In this with yes I
I was naked you this
Yes to me & wanted
Moreover, the “I” in these poems shifts so that at points the tortured and torturer become one and same. The series is the crime of Abu Ghraib rendered lyric.
The entire series fits on less than one APR page, page 8. The rest of page 8 and all of page 9 are taken up by the actual seven testimonies or at least significant samplings from them. The testimonies make for hard reading. But then so do the poems.
Which raises a question—why do we need the actual testimonies? In my mind, it as though Flynn feels his poems aren’t enough to convey the urgency, the terror, the pain of what these men underwent. As though his poems aren’t authentic enough without the backup of the prose.
Flynn goes far to convince the reader of authenticity. The title contains the word “testimony,” implying the source. If he had added “Abu Ghraib," there would have been no doubt. He also adds “redacted,” in parentheses to the title. Redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined. Often the author/editor may make minor alteration to the texts (i.e., transform them into a single poetic work) so that they cohere. With all of this, Flynn leaves the reader little doubt that his poems emanate from actual testimony of Abu Ghraib detainees. This is of course reiterated in the footnote I quoted earlier.
All of this to make the point that I don’t think Flynn’s poems require the support of the actual testimonies. In fact, I think the prose testimonies undercut the emotional impact of the poems by their wordiness, their specificity, their almost clinical description. I wish Flynn had left them out.
As an American living in Israel and writing about my experiences in Israel, authenticity is an idea I spend time thinking about. Moreover, as an American poet reading other the work of other American poets, who often, in my mind, have difficulty writing about conflict, about war, even about the state of the world, I find the issue of authenticity a part of the puzzle. I’m going to write more about this, but not today. Right now, there is an authentic storm raging outside my house, a river pours from every gutter drowning the grass, the twelve pine trees that line the perimeter bending back and forth forty five degrees. I’m curious what will be left standing.
Last night I went to a Manhattan screening of an Israeli/Palestinian film called Budrus. I dragged my husband along with me even though he usually finds such ‘smoleneem’ films one-sided. But he is open-minded and, in the interest of placating his more left-wing wife, came with me. Budrus, produced and released by JustVision in 2010, has been celebrated internationally (Panorama Audience Award, Second Prize, at the Berlin International Film Festival, 2010, Special Jury Mention, Tribeca Film Festival, 2010, and others), but is only now reaching a few US screens. Go see it.
The film itself was remarkable for reasons I’ll talk about below, but the screening itself was also well done. Before and after, there were small receptions of wine and cheese, and two of the three producers, Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha, discussed the making of the film and took questions from the 100 or so spectators. In between, a three-person ensemble including a vocalist (Palestinian), keyboard player (Israeli), and trumpet player (American) serenaded the audience.
Israel’s separation fence has long been a point of controversy. I’ll go on record as saying I find its existence largely positive. Since its erection, suicide bombs in Israel have largely stopped (though there are dozens of attempts caught at the border every year). As a stepmother of four with lots of friends and family in Israel, I relish the protection. With that said, Israel has no business putting the fence one millimeter beyond the 1967 green line. Unfortunately, the fence often veers into what is by all international and moral reckoning Palestinian territory.
In the case of Budrus, the planned separation fence was going to uproot acres of Palestinian olive groves, divide the village cemetery, and would have passed meters from their only school. You understand the villagers’ anger and anxiety.
To protest the fence, Budrus’ residents, led by Morrar, unite in nonviolent protest. Over months of protest, residents together with international witnesses and participants put themselves between bulldozers, Israeli border police, and what they consider their blood, their olive trees. While the two sides exchanged tear gas, rubber bullets, a rain of rocks, remarkably no one was killed though apparently tens were seriously injured. In the end, and I am skipping past all that is interesting about the film, Israel relocated the fence closer to the green line and away from Budrus.
What was significant was the Budrus protests marked an embrace of nonviolence as a means to change facts on the ground. Of course, Palesinians consider the First Intifada nonviolent (highlighting the difficulty defining nonviolence), but why digress? Since Budrus, similar strategies are being employed in other West Bank villages.
Also significant was the importance of women to the Budrus campaign. The film spends a lot of time with Morrar’s daughter, who is now studying medicine in Bosnia, and she talks of how village women forced the men to allow them at the front of the protest marches. Not only did this hinder Israel’s ability to respond, but also, I hope, underscored the importance of female voices in the Arab world (a world that largely oppresses women). In addition, the Budrus protests required cooperation between Fatah and Hamas, the two ideologically opposed factions of Palestinian Arabs. Morrar, who is a member of Fatah and who spent intermittent years in Israeli jails (though the reason for his incarceration is never explained), stated that he disagreed philosophically with Hamas but pragmatism required cooperation. For this, the two sides came together. Moreover, both camps welcomed and embraced the Israeli activists who also joined their fight.
Which brings me to a third remarkable aspect of the film--the importance of the Israeli activist movement. Tens of Israeli activists spent months supporting and protesting alongside the Budrus residents, even when arrested and in the face of real violence by the Israeli border police. Many of the Budrus residents went on record stating their surprise and gratification that there were Israelis who not only rhetorically opposed the occupation but who were wiling to demonstrate their commitment with their presence. I can’t imagine a better means of building trust and belief between the two sides.
While the film downplayed the injuries some of the residents received and didn’t explore the background and mindset of the Palestinian leaders, it was an evenhanded, even uplifting film. Budrus demonstrated that nonviolence as a consistent means of protest can have effect.
I applaud JustVision for producing the film.
But there is more work to be done and the film raises another question. My husband, who is a native Israeli and who found the film overall positive put it best. His question at the end, “Yes, it’s hopeful to demonstrate that cooperation is possible and that not all Israelis are bad. But for peace, we also need Arab Israelis and Palestinians protesting and standing alongside Jews when Hamas, Fatah, when people representing them shoot rockets, suicide bomb Israeli civilians. When that happens, there might be a chance for real peace.”
I'm author of Bathsheba Transatlantic which won the 2009 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. Overcoming an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and MBA from Berkeley, I completed a MFA from Bennington College in January 2009. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, my work appears in Rattle, Barrow Street, Valparaiso, and others. I spent a lot of time on planes between Tel Aviv and Manhattan.
