Split This Rock

I've recently become very interested in the interaction of poetry and film. This grew from a translation project of a long, semi-narrative prose-poem which turned out to be using a lot of cinematic language and techniques. As I dug deeper and deeper into the poem, and fell more and more in love with the work, I began to wonder what the fruitful relationship between film and poetry could be. What was the author's inspiration, in 1981 when he was writing this, to turn the language of the poem toward a kind of experimental screenplay.

There's a clear relationship in the primacy of the image. The poem, as Williams and his cohorts would tell you, is all about the image. Film, too, relies on visual perception - a visual literacy if you will that cues us without statement. Sound, also. Someone told me, and I don't have a citation, that the majority of what viewers of media respond to is the sound, not the picture. Likewise, poetry even sitting silent on the page consists of music - the internal music of the word, and of the line, and the fuller music of the poem.

I also want to find a relationship in the non-narrative ability of poetry and film. While they both can, and often quite successfully are, narrative projects, poetry by virtue of its concentration of language and form on the page (not just verse, but short blocks of prose because of the plunge into whiteness that follows each one, use the void, the break of the line to create this possibility) can exist in a momentary eternity. That is, one moment that is comprehensibly infinite and universal. Of course, there is a temporality locked into the reading of the poem - you must read one word, one line at a time, there is no way to instantaneously take in the entirety of the poem in an atemporal experience. Rather its the subject matter that, by breaking the bonds of the temporality of the medium, the printed page, can free itself to express something beyond history, beyond time. In the same way, film, while constrained by the linear succession of images on a screen, can yet break these narrative bonds and express something beyond.

All this to say that today I received a call for submissions for Split This Rock poetry festival, for film and video submissions. They are "looking for artistic, experimental, and challenging film/video interpretations of poetry that explore critical social issues." Which brings me directly to my other serious poetic interest: poetry as an agent of social change and conscience. On their mission statement page they write:

Poets have long played a central role in movements for social change. Today, at a critical juncture in our country’s history, poetry that gives voice to the voiceless, names the unnamable, and speaks directly from the individual and collective conscience is more important than ever. The festival will explore and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change: reaching across differences, considering personal and social responsibility, asserting the centrality of the right to free speech, bearing witness to the diversity and complexity of human experience through language, imagining a better world.

It is a reality, and not necessarily to be lamented, that many more people are responsive to visual media than written. Poetry is excellent at appropriating, so why not explore fully the relationship between the two and perhaps infuse again the ability for poetry to be active in the social conscience of the world.

Poetry as a Political Indicator

There are times when, in the often overwhelming inundation of information that I chose to subject myself to daily, threads almost miraculously make themselves clear to me. (I won't contemplate the wealth of connections that I'm sure slide by in the deluge). Last week I discovered the Poetry Foundation's wonderful podcasts, and have been listening in chronological order to the Poetry Magazine podcast. When I finally reached the discussion from October 2008 on the November 2008 issue I was not only interested in the conversation about Bolaño's poetry, but about Robert Archambeau's discussion on poetry and politics. Actually, it seemed as though he had a book forthcoming on the subject, though I haven't been able to find out anything about it.

Archambeau talks about something that most U.S. writers will smile knowingly about: poets who claim to speak truth to power, when power isn't listening. I think, though, the problem isn't really that the power isn't listing, it's that people aren't listing. In many wealthy industrialized nations, people are more or less capable of speaking for themselves, and so don't turn to literature to represent communities. The exception to this, of course, are subaltern communities (for example racial and religious minorities, gay and lesbian communities, and until very recently, women). But for the most part in wealthy industrialized nations the common recourse for writers who want to 'speak truth to power' is relying on language that can't be exploited, that stands outside of the logic of the marketplace as resistance to capital. This, of course, doesn't usually create direct connections or solutions to real problems, but offers instead an alternative sense of valuation - that there is more to life than subsistence. The problem is that when poetry offers abstractions in the face of real problems, it removes itself from directly addressing these problems. The more esoteric and apart from worldly issues it becomes, the fewer people rely on it to speak for their concerns, and the more removed it has to become in order to fulfill its sense of purpose. (These are my thoughts, though drawn from Archambeau's discussion).

So, does poetry accomplish anything? Archambeau says that in some circumstances, it does - especially in subjugated cultures and societies. Literature thrives, he says, in situations where vast percentages of populations are disenfranchised, because it offers an alternative means of expressing something that isn't being represented. In this way (and I hear a note of Neruda here) poetry speaks for an otherwise unrepresented community, it is a "voice for the voiceless." Not a community of poetry readers, but an identity group. They read poetry not for it's pure aesthetic enrichment of their lives, or for a search for morality, truth, beauty and the sublime, but because it is perhaps the only place in which their voices are heard, and in which their values are expressed. Archambeau even quotes a colleague as saying that "When you look at a country in which poetry is highly valued outside of a literary community, it's generally a sign of underdevelopment."

With these thoughts about poetry as a means of identity politics for disenfranchised communities whirling in my mind, I came across today an article in the online magazine Guernica in which Joel Peckham writes:

A nation does need its poets and poetry. However much people claim to dislike it, poetry—those articulated symbols and metaphors, those stories that resonate with a community and are therefore essential to human aspiration—responds to the basic need of individuals to reach beyond their small existence and connect with something meaningful. At its worst, poetry simply records the longings of an isolated individual but, at its best, when one poem or poet tunes into the longings of a people, poetry provides us with an articulated affirmation of our purpose as a culture—and indeed, culture cannot exist without it. This relates to why rhetoric is such an important part of the political sphere. A political speech attempts to give a vision in keeping with a nation’s core values while also trying to expand, adapt, and reaffirm those values for successive generations.
(Emphasis mine).
Guernica, April 2009

There is something here that strikes exactly at the heart of it: great, powerful and political poetry is for communities. And not communities of poetry readers and writers, but a larger sense of community, one not restricted by geography or language. Poetry can't convert (usually), but it can speak, it can galvanize and it can be the spark of ignition for communities to take shape and become heard around.

Poetry has power only when looking outside the individual, or the specialized literary community, to address and take part in the world around it. And it is not only powerful, but necessary.

Common Words for Common People - Repackaging the Liberals

Reading this New York Times article on a psychologist who is helping liberals re-brand their message I had a two-fold response: it's about time, and now we're no different than the conservatives. Because those of us with critical thinking abilities have seen for a long time that the conservative message is just neatly packaged and sold, and ultimately gets people to vote against their political, social and economic interests by playing on fear and emotion. And I for one have been proud that the liberals aren't stooping to those tactics.

On the other side, a friend and I were lamenting a few years ago that 'liberal' has become a dirty word. That tolerant and progressive are negative qualities, at least according to the conservatives and their populist rhetoric. It's not that the voting masses were actually against tolerance or progress, just that these things had been metaphorically tarred and feathered. And it seemed like the liberals, who for all intents and purposes should be master word-smiths, or at least be able to draw upon some, were just spinning in circles, unable to reclaim or re-imagine the context of the debate.

But should we really use the dirty and deceitful rhetorical stylings of the right? The article reads:

The handbook does not offer a script so much as a menu of options, each of which was poll-tested against
conservative arguments. On economics, for example, one message begins with “I want to see the words ‘Made in
America’ again.” Another reads, “We need leaders who don’t just talk about family values but actually value families.”

These insubstantial phrases are all bells and whistle, sound and fury, with no purpose. These, frankly, are something I can hear Sarah Palin or George W. Bush saying to a crowd of cheering people who don't want anyone smarter than them to be in charge. That's the whole problem with this "common words for common people" take, as far as I'm concerned.

I am not the smartest person in the country. I don't think that people who are smarter or better educated than me are inherently elitests or privledged. Many incredibly smart people come from working class backgrounds, and make their opportunities with the help of a system that is designed to reward merit (at least as well as wealth and class). This is a uniquely American construction, and something I'm proud of. And when it comes down to it, I want the person in charge to be smarter than me, by a lot. I don't understand the complexities of government, economy or foreign policy. So this reliance on 'straight talk,' which is just a euphamism for dumb talk, is part condescention taken to it's worst and part shame of being intelligent. Neither of these is a good thing.

However, it is past time that the liberals get energized, come up with some new messages or new ways of conveying the same messages, and stop rolling over for conservative dirty tricks. I just don't know if the lowest-common-denominator rhetoric is the best way to do that. Because then, how are we any different?