A Poem To Chew On

On Having Read Ishion Hutchinson’s “The Old Professor’s Book”

                 [The New Yorker, September 17, 2018, p. 37]

I suppose I come to this as

Another winnowed out professor, well aware

Of his abuses but never quite ready to

Accept those aspired truths, which remain stilled

In those scarred minds incised by his espousals.

For no matter how we strugglers at

The wheel of the art may boast of “how

To align poetry with truth” we know, from

The certainty of our travail, the inevitable

Chagrin awaiting our efforts, the reader’s frown.

The struggle, honestly, is whether to be, rather

Than only to know—the dynamo creating “the

Voltage of self-alienating poetry,” in fact, the discovery

Behind the voice of the self-alienating mea culpa in Browning’s

Narrator’s tale of the grammarian, the funeral, not the burial.

And so, this challenging poem, worthy as well, brings

Us back to that grammarian’s funeral—that is ours,

Imminent and effectual—for our death matters only

So far as we are certain that our life had significance, had

The truth of living, not only knowing, but also weeping, perhaps, for all.

What have we become?

...from a letter to the editor at The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2018

"To the Editor:

Roger Cohen asks, Who are we? What have we become? Look at the corruption on Wall Street. Look at the weaponizing of the Supreme Court. Look at supposed Christian leaders falling into lock step with this sociopathic president. Look at the lies behind our endless wars. Look at the Kardashians. Look at a century of American interference in other nations’ elections.

That’s who we’ve become, and it did not all start with Donald Trump. We are merely entering harvest time for all those evil seeds planted decades ago. And the fruit is exceedingly bitter.

Daniel Lake, Mirror Lake, N.H."

"Self Comes to Mind"

(after Antonio Damasio's marvelous book)

I, finally,
am I, alone,
not other, not it,
not they or them.

To be, actually, as 
author, builder,
telling and trying
all and none, but
now, finally, knowing,
the difference and the
indifference, but still
knowing and feeling as I.

And, actually, all now
being, so, as I, then, all
forgettable change, I,
now, glittering nova.

A Life in Wars

I have suddenly realized (at age 80) that my life encompasses multiple wars.


• ages 0-7: World War II.

• ages 12 to 13: Korean War

• ages 28-37 : Vietnam War

• ages 65-80: Iraq/Afghanistan Wars


What effect has this had on me?  I hate war.  I have personally known people who have been forever negatively affected by their experience in wars.  I have not personally been involved in fighting wars.  I know that to secure U.S. hegemony these wars have been conducted.  I also know that for as long as the U.S. empire survives, wars (physical and/or cyber) will be executed in the name of this empire, and that fact will condition how the people of the U.S. perceive their country.

If this were an absurdist play, we could all leave the theatre assured of the rightness of our lives.  But this is not an absurdist play.  This is our lives and the lives of our progeny.  What effects will we and  they endure?

A Mending Poem for Our Angst

MAYFLOWER CISTERN I FEEL MY PILGRIM WORRY

All day long I feel my pilgrim

worry.  Crude and unforgiving

as the buckle on my boots.  I mark

the boundaries of the town

and then I build a fence.  I build

a pillory and scaffold.  I bring

my gun into the forests.

And my axe.  Inside me.  I hurl

my brittle body at the pines.

I have a plan for them.  A way

to make them useful, which

is God’s compact with the world.

Whatever does not welcome

me I tear asunder.  Whatever

welcomes me was mine to

sack and bring to my knees.

I give the gift of my hunger

to everyone.  And then

I build a fence.  The does

Is certainly a sorceress.

The sparrow was the woman

smiling into the mirror

of the well.  What will I make

of this country?  Inside me,

My pilgrim huddles in the corner

of my heart.  Which I hate

for its hopeful sounding.

Its unwillingness to know

the truth of how broken

and beyond salvation is.

                        Gabrielle Calvocoressi

(published in The New Yorker, July 23, 2018, p.41)

A Modest Proposal: Take Away Trump's Adolescent Bullhorn

I know a little about how information media works.  I used to teach it at the college level..which doesn't make me an expert, but I know enough to understand how the schoolyard leader of the free world is playing the media decision makers as well as their on-screen performers, aka, reporters and pundits.

This is about how Trump thrashes and trashes with his Twitter account.  Can we agree that nothing he tweets is substantive?  That is, his Twitter utterances amount to cotton candy for his fans, not at all nourishing but full of empty energy to boost the endorphins.  The three major player cable teams—MSNBC, CNN and FOX—facilitate these blaring nothings as faux substance for their deliberations.  Trump and his minions (especially Lewandowski) wallow in these on air discussions of these screeds; they know that it's all free commercial communication to keep the hoi poloi engaged and to attract the ire of the opposition.  Trump thrives on the opposition—without them you have no reality show. 

And like reality shows, these tweeted "confrontations" become tedious pretty quickly.  Keeping ire at a high pitch is exhausting at best.  

So here's my proposal.  All press or information outlets agree to ignore whatever tweets Trump posts, starting immediately.  This would include all nightly and morning news shows.  I'm fairly certain Fox would demur, because Twitter pretty much provides their musings.  

The obvious problem with the proposal is its effect on the bottom line.  This, of course, would pose a tough decision for the 24-hour news cyclists.  They would need to pursue more substantive stories, and they would need to present them in deeper and broader perspective.  In other words, the experience of the Trump administration stories would become less infotainments and more effectual information.

Yes, this sounds like the ramblings of a retired academic.  And I'm what most people would label a "liberal," which seems to have become an impotent designation.  But none of that matters here.  What ought to matter to the 24-hour cyclists is that this retired academic is following less and less of their programming.  

In any case, it's something to consider.  And who knows?  It just might stir up some enthusiasm among the viewers.

Achievement

According to Richard Friedman, MD, our economic crisis [2008] spawned a crisis in the human psyche.  Dr. Friedman’s insight is the result of some anecdotal conversations he has had with his patients.  These patients, especially the males who depend in one way or another on the business of Wall Street, come to his psychiatric practice with disturbing anxieties about when the maelstrom (The Great Recession) would end and how they would recover their masters-of-the-universe (MOTU) status.  The most disturbing anxiety among them was feeling like a loser.  That’s the men.  The women, who also have achieved MOTU status, however, have apparently experienced none of the same deleterious psychological reactions.

Setting aside, for the moment, any gender issues that arise from Dr. Friedman’s discourse, let’s consider this as a general cultural issue.  A fundamental question in any culture (although often overlooked in America) asks: What is the ultimate measure of a person’s value or personal worth?  For Americans, the answer is success.  And the ultimate American metric of success is money.  This monetary success is open-ended, having no final stopping point and requiring never-ending achievement.  The failure to achieve equates with a failure to make any meaningful contribution to society at all.  The individual thus becomes literally worth-less.*   As the aphorism has it, those with the most toys at the end win, and those without the most are less than winners and are probably losers.

But then you ask, what about all the “dedicated” teachers, nurses and clergy?  “Dedicated” is the word our culture reserves for those who toil in noneconomic social institutions, locked out of the 4 foundations of American culture (achievement, individualism, universalism, and money fetishism) beyond America’s cultural ethos.  They are the dross, the necessary foils to the achievers.  They are good people all, especially because they provide moral comfort to the MOTUs.   These underlings’ roles are devalued in our culture relative to the ends and means of economic activity.  Their positions are ascribed as dedicated, because they have no otherwise logical, operative role in the success-as-money-as-achievement culture.  The word also keeps them in their places.

Speaking as one who has done his time in education, I have difficulty sympathizing with the anxiety-ridden MOTUs.  Dr. Friedman suggests that these MOTUs set themselves up for this misery by being lured by the casino-like atmosphere of Wall Street.  “For many the lure of investing is the thrill of uncertain reward.  Now that thrill is gone, replaced by anxiety and fear.”

Yep. Exactly.  I have the same feeling toward them as I do toward the suckers who walk into the Bellagio being thrilled by the possible uncertain reward, knowing absolutely that the house always wins in the long run.  And we don’t even own the house anymore.

*Notes on the 4 foundations of American culture taken from Messner and Rosenfeld.  Crime and the American Dream.