The Casual Blog

Category: poetry

June 19, 2010

Liberation — death, sorrow, life

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been a big news story these last few weeks, but the news reports have given little coverage to the fact that millions of sea creatures that will die.  Our scuba experiences in the last couple of years have made us more conscious of the teeming life in the oceans, the unbelievable profusion, a cornucopia of bizarre, beautiful life.  The loss of life now taking place is impossible to fully grasp, and painful to consider.  I think it’s good, though, to try grasping it, and accept the pain of it.

We humans are generally deathophobes.  At the same time, it’s obvious that death is a fundamental part of life.  It’s in front, behind, and all around us, and avoiding it is really not possible.  We may as well have a little courage and honesty and figure out how to think about it.

I keep coming back to the line by Wallace Stevens in his poem Sunday Morning:  “Death is the mother of beauty.”  When I first read it, I thought he was just being provocative, but I now see he was struggling with something profound.  It isn’t that death itself is beautiful.  But it is an integral part of the natural cycle of change, which is a defining characteristic of life.  In Sunday Morning, Stevens asks, “Is there no change of death in paradise?  Does ripe fruit never fall?”  The Talking Heads got at the same idea with the funny line, “Heaven/ is a place/ where nothing/ ever happens.”  Such a paradise would be inhuman.  And very boring.

But coming to terms with this part of reality is not just a matter of working through the ideas.  It’s also accepting some unpleasant feelings, like grief and sorrow.  It seems natural to avoid such things, but it won’t work.  Those feelings are integral to the human experience; they’ll always be there.  We may as well face them with honesty and courage.  Opening ourselves to those feelings makes us more human.  It’s liberating.

Sally had a harsh and sad confrontation with one animal’s death this week.  She was monitoring her blue bird boxes at the Lochmere golf course for new for baby blue birds, which is usually a cheering thing.  She came upon  a young Canada goose that had had a horrible accident that destroyed its beak and left it bloody and mutilated.   It could still move, but was plainly suffering and unable to survive long.  The poor thing needed to be euthanized, but there was no practical way to capture it without making matters worse.  She had no confidence that the animal control service would be able to assist without increasing the animal’s fear and pain.  There was no solution, other than nature itself.

Sally began to cry as she told the story, and continued to wonder whether there was something else she could have done.  She is a tender-hearted soul, and I love her for it.  I was reminded of the time years ago when she arrived home in tears at having run over a little frog as she was parking her car.  I knew then, once again, that she was the girl for me.

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February 27, 2010

War and the unfortunate killers (our children)

We should recognize that the young people we send to foreign lands to kill others on our behalf pay a terrible price.  Killing, even when sanctioned by governments and rules of war, typically leaves soldiers with chronic problems of depression, anxiety, and self-loathing.  They are prone to substance abuse and suicide.  The individuals soldiers themselves often assume these problems are due to their own weakness of character.  At any rate, they seldom care to discuss this issue, and their psychological injuries from their wartime actions is not a popular media subject.

It isn’t surprising that this subject doesn’t get much airplay.  In military recruiting commercials, soldiering is shown as a chance to prove oneself, gain respect, and serve one’s country for the greater good.  Battle is depicted as an adventure, with incredibly powerful weapons.   The meta message is that battle is ennobling, socially beneficial, and also a lot of fun.  Hollywood and major media are complicit in amplifying this message.  Exploding the myths and making clear that killing in battle leaves soldiers permanently scarred would be highly detrimental to recruiting.

Every now and again, the NY Time has  piece about the trauma suffered by veterans who’ve done what they were trained to do.  Last week, it ran an op ed piece titled Distant Wars, Constant Ghosts by Shannon P. Meehan, an Army lieutenant who served in Iraq.  http://tiny.cc/zc2AP Meehan described her rage and self-loathing after calling in an air strike that resulted in several civilian deaths.  She explained that the killing caused soldiers to lose regard for human life, including their own lives.

The NY Times also had a story this month on increasing recognition that veterans who killed in battle suffer post traumatic stress and a variety of psychological problems. _ http://tiny.cc/7Mchz The piece focussed on the difficulty of getting therapy for these soldiers, who are often unwilling to discuss their problems or seek help.  We do need to work hard to help these veterans, who are themselves victims of war.

But we also need to address the larger problem of reducing the incidence of war and politically motivated killing.   I realize that sounds sort of obvious, and at time a bit utopian.  To be sure, universal peace is probably an unrealistic goal.  But what if we tried to have just a little less killing?  Wouldn’t most agree that that would be good?

Here’s a thought experiment:  for every death we administer or suffer, what if we asked, is this act achieving a clear objective worth the terrible cost to all the victims?   We need to devote scholarly effort to study of  the best alternatives to violent conflict.  We need to have some difficult conversations on this subject.  And to sustain us in this effort, we need to learn at an emotional level what war really means.  I highly recommend as one source  the sublime poetry of Wilfred Owen, who wrote about the battlefield experience in WWI.  http://tiny.cc/xypcN Owen died at age 25 one week before the end of the war.

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September 26, 2009

Death is the mother of beauty

Wallace Stevens writes, “Death is the mother of beauty.”  The line, read in context in the great poem Sunday Morning, is dense with meaning.  I’ve pulled it from its context (sorry, Wallace)  to illustrate the difficulty of thinking and talking about death.  Doesn’t just saying the line make you feel strange?   Think of saying it to a group of friends.  A conversation killer, for sure.  The point is, it’s hard to talk seriously about death.  Bringing up the subject in polite conversation is generally taboo.  If you insist, you may be viewed as lacking in good taste, morbid, or depressed.

Artists are given special license to deal with death.  Where would art be without it?   Count the crucifixions in the Metropolitan Museum.  Or the great books, plays, and operas in which death is the central event.  And death is very common.   As Lenny Bruce famously said, we’re all gonna die!

It is kind of funny that death is so ordinary and so frightening at the same time, but not laugh out loud funny.  For most of us, death is scary.  In fact, terrifying.  It serves to define the ultimate in fear:  to be frightened to death.  It’s emotional in other ways, too.  To think of the death of someone else causes feelings to sadness or despair.  Death is not to be trifled with.

Even so, avoidance is not the best strategy.   Not thinking about it will not make the problem go away.   Not talking about it will not help anything.  We need to deal with death like grown ups.

The current health care debate provides a case in point.  Right wing opponents of reform cleverly started a false rumor that reform would make euthanasia official policy.  This outrageous and on its face absurd, lie set off a huge panic reaction.  The reaction suggests how hard it will be to address the real problem of our spending enormous sums to put off death when it is inevitable and the amounts spent yield nothing in terms of quality of life.

I was happy to see that last week Newsweek had a cover story entitled “The Case for Killing Granny:  Curbing Excessive End-of-Life Care is Good for America.”  It is possible to discuss this issue and to make good choices.  It is possible to be sensible and courageous.  Both my parents, when confronting terminal illnesses, thoughtfully and courageously refused low-probability-of-success treatments.   Others have done likewise.  Maybe good sense and strength will increase and spread.  One can always hope.

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August 23, 2009

Slow language, and poetry

The slow language movement noted in my recent post is surely an old idea — even in living memory, people have read slowly — but the idea threatens to be submerged beneath the tide of texts that inundates us.  For me, and for many, the flood of words that may be significant, that need to be taken account of, is overwhelming.  I deal with hundreds of emails a day, and that’s a minor part of my personal deluge.

To survive, effective skimming is a must.  But becoming a good skimmer means putting at risk skills in close, attentive reading.  This is not a minor matter.  Those skills are a potential source of enormous joy.  The survival of great literature depends on the survival of thoughtful reading.

Today’s NY Times has an appreciation of Richard Poirier, the scholar and literary critic who died last week at age 83.  Poirier taught that for the best writers, meaning cannot be pinned down, and that they use the resources of language to defeat straightforward interpretation.  He was a proponent of close, hard reading, that explored the author’s struggle for self-definition and meaning.

My current personal program to avoid completely losing the capacity for thoughtful reading is to carve out a little time each day with great poetry.  Lately I’ve been focusing primarily on Wallace Stevens, but I keep close at hand collections of Yeats, Frost, Tennyson, and the anthology by Harold Bloom.

This work is in many instances wonderfully compact.  A lot of potential meaning and feeling is embodied in a small amount of text, so it is manageable even for a busy person.  The poems demand repeated readings, but the readings can be spread out in time.  This little oasis in a busy day often rewards me with a deep aesthetic shiver.  I’m hoping over the longer term it will prevent halt further deterioration of the capacity for literary joy.

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August 22, 2009

Free at last of college tuition, and now for some poetry

Last week we passed a sweet milestone:  writing the last college tuition check for the last child.  For more than two decades, the formidable challenge of paying for college has loomed ahead, always a vague worry and gradually a bigger and bigger worry.  As college costs steadily increased, it looked like a potential financial nightmare. Education of the young is a basic parental duty, and in bourgeois America it is — expensive.  How sweet it is to put down that burden.

I woke up around 1:00 a.m. on Thursday and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up to do some reading.  Not long after, I heard someone at the door, and then heard the door open.  I was glad it was Jocelyn, and not an unknown intruder, who caused a a serious burst of adrenalin.  She’d been out with friends at a downtown bar, and decided to spend the night with us.

Joc was in a jolly mood, and we had a great talk.  I was so happy to hear that she’d fallen in love with English poetry and gotten surprisingly knowledgeable about some of my own favorites, including Wordsworth and Keats.  We went over La Belle Dame Sans Merci to try, yet again, to understand what it means.  I recommended some Tennyson, and she promoted some Coleridge.  We shook our heads over the tragic early death of Keats, and I told her about Wilred Owen’s tragic early death in World War I.  We discussed Yeats as well, and especially Adam’s Curse.

We marveled that there is such beauty and sadness in the world.   I was delighted at her knowledge, sense of  humor, and sophistication.  She’s ready to launch.  The tuition was well spent.

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