These are no times to be an artist. As a poet, I exercised free speech throughout my adult life. Old habits die hard, so I may do yet. But those to come after will lack that same opportunity. Their art may or may not suffer, but surely their lives will be poorer for it.
I. Notes Toward an Inaugural PoemAt this critical juncture in American, and human, transition, I tried to envision what words might be said to mark the 2016 American presidential election. The words were formulated before the votes had been tallied, but inherent in their formulation—purely a theoretical exercise—lay a tacit presumption of a Democratic victory. Not that I was confident Hillary Clinton would triumph over her Republican opponent (indeed I was not; though she prevailed in the popular vote count while failing in the Electoral College). Rather, in my lifetime, only Democratic inaugurees have requisitioned a ceremonial poem: Republicans have run on explicitly anti-literary platforms, and when elected, sought to weaken if not destroy the humanities in every way possible. My exercise, posed as a self-challenge, was hypothetical: I knew I would never submit it to the Democratic party organization for consideration, not believing the words themselves acceptable or satisfactory to the mysterious power brokers that organize such events. Often the poems selected seem abstruse and barely connected to the national scene—the best, in my estimation, having been that presented by Maya Angelou after the 1992 election of William Jefferson Clinton. Today, I harbor few hopes, either for human culture or the human species; yet, even in the face of impossible odds, it is the poet’s job to come up with words appropriate to the situation. These inadequate words hardly fill the bill, and, attempting to be moderately pragmatic, fail to be sufficiently radical. Yet they needed to be said, or I would have dishonored my Muse—something no dedicated poet could permit. Heavenly Lord, in these chaotic times, These times in which the center does not hold, Let us invent for peace new paradigms, In amity to build new pathways bold. The voices of division long have had Ascendency, borne by subversive means, But conscience knows to tell the good from bad, And right from wrong, in various sundry scenes. Long has man’s dominance of nature’s world Sacked, sacrificed, enslaved, pillaged and looted, And all of life into a future hurled Uncertain and precarious, no man rooted. Nature’s abundance merits more than plunder, Diversities of life not to be pruned, Vistas of beauty nevermore to sunder, As landscapes, air and water, all get ruined. No, let us work together, men and women, To build society that’s true and just, Respectful of this world we hold in common, Because it is our birthright, and we must. Too long have men of ignorance cleared away What blocked their path, albeit habitat Or native norms and people—to betray The heart’s highest ideals, and love thereat. Too often, hierarchies have been built In segregating some to be outcaste, Putting aside the reckoning of guilt, Imputing to some other shame misplaced. The wealth of races, and the sexual map Are bounties to be celebrated, cherished, Diversity a treasure, not a trap, To be enjoyed till prejudice has perished. We must, however, be of one accord, United in this purpose: each to each We are each other’s bulwark, each man’s word Sacred, none to besmirch, all hearts to reach. Today let us be dedicated to The proposition, all created equal, As men and women, we must build and do A world of justice, now and without sequel, For if, this world upon a tipping point, We cannot rein in excess, rein in greed, Calamity that gallops out of joint Will sunder life’s joys that from life proceed. Upon the tipping point, upon the brink, Let us have faith, and cultivate the goodness, In one another, in ourselves, to think A way from madness, curbing lust and rudeness. Let us renew the kindness and restraint Propounded by our forebears, men and women Who taught the ways of virtue free from taint, For love of good or fear of evil omen. Let science be our guide, not superstition, And if we must err, let our erring be Upon the side of tolerance, not proscription, Toward gentleness, and not mobocracy, And, insofar that we may do so, let Us show the breadth and depth of human mercy Toward all nature’s inhabitants, and set Our appetites toward vegan ways diversely. For us, we mark a change as monumental, Yet continuity persists, in love, And evolution may be accidental But love endures, and should be good enough. II. Toward “Inner Emigration”With Republican ascendency, “humane” values become especially imperiled. For the poet, it calls for a “recusal”—much as I foretold in my 2011 book of that name—or withdrawal from the heightened political scene. Freedom of expression becomes moot in the autocratic state, and with the back of the American system largely broken, a new route must be charted—a task to be left to men (and women) of action. Heavenly Father, I have harbored no
Illusions on the character of man, Especially of my countrymen, and so Although I weep, and weep the while I can, I know that my ability to act And even to preserve, is circumscribed And limited: a mordant wall of fact Prevents, to be neither cajoled nor bribed. This is an age when men take ready cash, Enslaving of their brothers if they might, Willing to transgress all taboos—no lash Hampering lust’s inexorable appetite. So let it be: let me retrench, regroup. I harbored little hope, and even winning I knew a further distance man must stoop, So thus a loss and end is a beginning. Let me eke on as I have done. Let thou Preserve my spirit, if to do is game, Or let me perish, as thy will allow— In either case the end remains the same. Let me believe in honor, love, and justice, Though men dispute this claim before my eyes, And even in defeat consoled to trust this: That such a triad in mine own heart lies. The politics of men who struggle for Supremacy, in serving war’s false idols, But lead to an immersion in more war, And into each one’s heart corruption sidles. Lord, mankind’s fallen state is an old story— If it must reach conclusion, let it come; For thine remains the power and the glory, Men know not what they do, and we are dumb. As for love songs, tender and sentimental or mournful tunes expressing final and fateful decisions, they overflowed with sensuous language. How, then, was it possible for proper music to emerge? However, the popular taste reveled in the new and strange. In the presence of classical music, which is mellow and full of dignity, people would stretch and yawn; but when they listened to the eccentric language [of the Liu Sung love-songs], they would slap the thigh and begin to hop up and down like sparrows. This marked the first step toward a state of affairs in which both poetry and music were tinged by the influence of Cheng.
—Liu Hsieh, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Chapter 7 (translated by Vincent Yu-chung Shih) Although the form of poetry has a universal norm, the workings of poets' minds are never stereotyped. Each writes according to his own nature and gifts, and few are able to encompass all the good qualities. If a poet has a shrewd understanding of the difficult, he will find his course easy; but if he carelessly attempts to treat everything as easy, the difficult will certainly remain there in store for him.
—Liu Hsieh, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Chapter 6 (translated by Vincent Yu-chung Shih) Great Shun said: "Poetry is the expression of sentiments, and songs are these expressions set to music." Of this explanation, given by the sage, the meaning is clear. That which is the sentiment within the mind becomes poetry when expressed in words. It is here indeed that literary form unfurls itself to communicate reality. Poetry means discipline, disciplined human emotion. The single idea that runs through the three hundred poems in the Book of Poetry is freedom from undisciplined thought. The interpretation of poetry as disciplined human emotions is in thorough agreement with this observation.
—Liu Hsieh, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Chapter 6 (translated by Vincent Yu-chung Shih) The Book of Changes says, "When things have been correctly distinguished and the language expressing them has been made accurate, then decisive judgments are complete." And the Book of History says, "In the choice of language one should emphasize the essential and should not indulge in the extraordinary." So we know that the way to establish significant distinctions is by using language accurately; and the way to perfect writing is to emphasize the essential. If the writing is thus perfect, there will be no danger of succumbing to the love of the extraordinary; and if significant distinctions are thus established, the beauty of decisive judgments will emerge. Profound ideas may be obscure, but they will not harm linguistic accuracy; and the subtle language may be only suggestive, but this does not do injustice to the essential: the essential substance and the subtle expression will be achieved together; and accurate language and profound ideas will coexist. We may observe these literary accomplishments in the works of the sages.
—Liu Hsieh, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Chapter 2 (translated by Vincent Yu-chung Shih) |
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