World Class Poetry Blog

(Source) “Split this Rock calls poets to a greater role in public life and fosters a national community of activist poets. The festival will feature readings, workshops, panel discussions on poetry and social change, youth programming, films, parties, walking tours, and activism, while we debate and assess the public role of the poet and the poem in this time of crisis.”

I have mixed feelings about these kinds of mixture of poetry and politics. I’m not sure what the debate is about. My role as a poet is to write poetry. If I address a public issue or take a political stand then it’s no different than if I write about loving my wife or eating a bowl of chili. The impact my be stronger or weaker depending on how I express myself, but a poem is a poem.

The Split This Rock Poetry Festival does look like a grand event, though. What I can’t figure out is why it costs $75, $85 after March 10. What is the money going toward? Judging by the list of featured poets, it looks like the event will draw a crowd. I mean, there are some big names in there: Jimmy Santiago Baca, Robert Bly, Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Carolyn Forche, Sam Hamill, Galway Kinnell, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, and Sonia Sanchez. And those are just names that I recognize.

It’s not that I don’t think peace and justice are worthy causes, but whose definition of justice is being promoted here? Looking at the names again, I’d say it isn’t President Bush’s. And that’s the problem. I see this event as being a propaganda movement against the neo-conservative dominance of the past eight years. That puts poets like me in a rather precarious position.

On the one hand, I’m supportive of any movement that is against the Iraq War. Unfortunately, too many poets who involve themselves in these types of “witness and resistance” movements are anti-war in all its nuances. Extreme liberals, of which there are many in poetry circles, like extreme conservatives, only see one view: Theirs. One can hardly reason with minds that see the world through a single lens. That’s what makes cavorting with them a difficult decision.

I’d like to be able to attend a political rally that stands against unjust war yet affirms the necessity of just war. Unfortunately, if such a rally existed, it likely would not be hosted by poets. Is there a way to make sense of this?

I joined the National Guard in 1997 after a 10 year hiatus from the military. I had joined the active duty Army right out of high school, mainly to get away from my parents. That’s what poor kids do to rid themselves of an unhappy past.

I could probably have gone to college on scholarship, but I likely would not have been chosen for the college of choice and would likely have not received a full scholarship, which would have made it difficult to complete any degree. At 18, I didn’t have sufficient direction and drive anyway.

I was a writer then, but not of poetry. The Army helped me to gain 20 pounds and the discipline necessary to succeed in other things. For the most part, it was a positive experience. I got to let loose on some hormones I had kept in bottles, satisfied my thirst for adventure by attending airborne school, and developed enough confidence to know that I could achieve things that other men my age had achieved. I was a man and the Army taught me that it was OK. I needed no one’s permission for that.

How I Fell In Love With Poetry
The Army’s college education fund at the time was called VEAP (Veteran’s Education Assistance Program). To qualify for benefits, I was required to put away $100 per month toward college and the Army would match it 2 to 1. I maxed out my benefits and when I mustered out in April 1987, two months ahead of the end of my enlistment contract due to Ronald Reagan’s “early out” policy, I went to college.

My major initially was Interdisciplinary Studies, otherwise known as Liberal Arts. I signed up for as many creative writing workshops as the rules for my declared major would allow. That meant a fiction writing workshop and a couple of poetry workshops. I excelled at both, but I fell in love with poetry right from the start. I blame it on Sharon Olds, whose book Satan Says made a profound impact upon me, and Sheryl St. Germain, my workshop instructor, who was very encouraging. I knew I had the gift by certain reactions of my fellow workshop attendees, other students at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Why Being Wrong Makes Good Poetry
I joined the National Guard because I had remembered the positive experience I had being in the Army as a young man. I left with dignity, confidence, and a set of sergeant stripes, which meant that I could maneuver within the bureaucratic system without tipping the boat.

After having spent some time living and working as a civilian, I felt the need to commit myself to a worthy cause. The study of political philosophy was leading me in the direction of conservative libertarianism and I did not want to go active duty again. I had other plans with my life and the military was not my full-time goal. I did want to serve my local community because that is where I thought a man of action should put his strongest efforts. I still believe that.

I was dating a National Guard member at the time and inquired about it from her commander, who made it seem like a decent part-time profession. I considered the cost and realized that I did not want to be sent on certain types of missions that were becoming more and more prevalent - Bosnia, Kosovo, and the like. I felt like the National Guard would be less likely to be called to those types of missions and considered that I might be able to put some of my skills to use serving my local community while accepting the challenge of acquiring new skills for the future. It seemed like a good idea.

I could not have been more wrong. When President Bush announced in March 2003 that the U.S. was waging a “pre-emptive” strike against Iraq, I was overcome immediately with grief and nervousness. Nervous that I would somehow be used for such a crime and grieved that such a move meant the death of the type of conservatism that I had come to respect. Bush’s preventive war philosophy, which he misnamed “pre-emptive” was wrong. I knew it. My studies of just war philosophy told me that it was not right. The conservative philosophy that had dominated the president’s own party for much of its history said that it was wrong. I could not understand why a “strict constructionist” was running down that path. It still befuddles me.

Sure enough, in June 2004, more than a year after my commander in chief had declared victory, my unit was activated for service. It was just as I had feared. That was the year the insurgency picked up speed and that year would be the year that would determine the nation’s length of stay in the war-torn nation where civilization began. We trained for six months for a mission that had not yet been defined. It was lunacy and I knew it. Like a lunatic, I served with two heads - one in the Kevlar and the other embedded in the spirit of St. Augustine.

After Christmas, the 2/112 AR, 56 BCT, Texas Army National Guard, took flight to Kuwait. By February we were in Al Taqaddum, Iraq, close to where some of the heaviest action was taking place at the time. I spent the entire year (2005) there, the bloodiest year (at that time) of the war yet. In almost every way, that year was a big step up from the previous six months of insanity. Nothing we had done during training at Fort Hood, Texas became important to us. We were in a different world and everyone knew it. Nevertheless, the most grueling parts of it all became an art to me. I turned it into poetry and wrote a good collection of poems that year. I’ve spent the last two years revising and reworking what I put into words then. One such poem, “Cigar,” is a reflection of that experience.

Some Notes On “Cigar”
During our year in Iraq, two other officers and myself - Captains Robert Briscoe and Scott Simms - would step outside late at night while one of us worked a shift as Battle Captain in the battalion TOC and enjoy a cigar together. We would spend that time talking about politics, our lives, beer, women, or any number of other things that would take our minds off of the events of the day. It was a time for us to leave the enlisted men without a set of eyes looking over their shoulders and as much a time for us to unwind and just be ourselves. Sometimes we’d be accompanied by other officers and sometimes it would just be us. Those were some of my favorite moments and I looked forward to them. “Cigar” came out of those moments with my fellow slaves and is now a matter of public record. You can read “Cigar” at The New Verse News. I hope you like it.

• Love and War
• Battlefield Confession
• Life

Today is the anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision that declared George W. Bush president of the U.S., causing a sitting vice president to a very popular chief executive to lose an election. Do you know where you were when that decision came down?

There are events that happen that will always cause you to remember where you were when you heard about them:

• Kennedy’s assassination: I wasn’t born yet.
• Nixon’s resignation: I was six years old so I was in front of the tube watching it unfold live.
• 911: In the car on my way to work as a journalist at Today Newspapers.
• Bush’s victory over Gore by Supreme Court decision: At Fort Knox, training to be a tank platoon leader.

I remember so vividly that I could not focus on my studies at Fort Knox because I’d rather have been reporting and writing about the historic incident. Though it was not within the realm of my duties as a small town reporter, the event had a lot more relevance to my life as a citizen of my country than anything that was going on at Fort Knox. I remember questioning why I had joined the National Guard when every minute of my service was going to render the Constitution I swore an oath to defend and protect a worthless piece of hemp that others in higher positions of trust were not even defending. I still feel that way.

In 2004, my Guard was activated and I spent all of 2005 playing in Rumsfeld’s Sandbox. It was the last straw. I could no longer justify spending my time defending the Constitution when the highest officers of the nation’s defense were not themselves defending. Not only were they not defending the Constitution, but they were doing all they could to dismantle it. And there I was, in my desert camos, remembering the day I joined the National Guard because I wanted to do my part to defend the nation. My service was all in vain.

If there is anything good that came from my experience in the National Guard, and Iraq in particular, it’s that I managed to write enough poems that year to put into a book. I am currently revising and compiling these poems and preparing them for publication. I would like to receive feedback from a handful, select few poets of some stature willing to critique before I submit them to publishers. If you think you might be interested in reading my pre-publication manuscript and give me the harshest critique that you can muster then contact me through the form on this web page. Be sure to include your qualifications. I am only selecting a handful of people to assist me and each person who does so will receive a free copy of the book upon publication and a mention in the acknowledgments.

My step-daughter called me today to wish me a Happy Veterans Day. Unfortunately, I was asleep when she called so I didn’t get the chance to give her the proper honor. I didn’t even know it was Veterans Day. You see, I don’t keep track of such things.

Birthdays, my wife tells me. Anniversaries? Other than my own, not much of an interest. Holidays … if not for my wife’s insistence, I wouldn’t even notice. I am not a man of much pomp. Never have been.

But the rest of the world around me is all into this stuff, Veterans Day included. For that reason, it’s fitting to mention it. Here’s what Andrew Sullivan did for the veterans.

I like Andrew Sullivan. I also like Wilfred Owen. It was a fitting choice for a tribute.

In Great Britain they’re celebrating Veterans Day in another way. This makes me wonder what the official response would be if one of our poets wrote a poem about how to kill terrorists. Would we receive the poem in the same spirit or hail the poet as a great versifier for a good cause?

I read the terror poem. As far as poetry goes, it sucks. But I guess the enemy deserves to have their own literary heroes. Nevertheless, why would they position them within reach of the enemy’s warring grasp? She deserves prison. It is, after all, a war. And as long as there is war then the war poets are fair targets.

(Source) When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a writer who is completely non-speaking and non-moving (except for the eyes), and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit–and the importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person’s unique story and song.

I love the sentiment that is expressed here by Sharon Olds, one of my favorite poets. I first read Satan Says in college in 1989 and was shocked into awe. It was my first contact with contemporary poetry and I fell in love. Olds became my inspiration. Half of my poetry workshop returned my first poem, “Threesome,” without comment - undoubtedly due to its fair representation of evil.

The image of Olds experiencing this moment of epiphany with a fellow writer is itself poetry. Her description of the “human drive” is apt. But isn’t there as much a human drive for war as for poetry? It seems that both have held human hearts in their hands since the inception of time.

Is Poetry A Statement Of Peace?

Former poet laureate Robert Pinsky declined First Lady Laura Bush’s offer to participate in an event in 2003. Like Olds, he made a similar statement against the meeting and declined to attend. I respected his decision then and I respect Olds’ decision now to decline an invitation to attend the upcoming National Book Festival on September 24. I can’t help but wonder, though, if Olds would attend the event were it to be held on the eve of Clinton’s tail-wagging-the-dog attack upon Yugoslavia.

The National Book Festival is an event that has preceded the Iraq War and is sponsored by the Library of Congress. The event Pinsky declined to attend was titled “Poetry And The American Voice,” an event that was put together by First Lady Laura Bush to discuss the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes. It had nothing to do with the Iraq War. Not until Sam Hamill, a pacifist, decided to make it about the Iraq War.

Hamill was the first poet to decline the first lady’s invitation. He sent out letters to a gaggle of his poet friends to do the same. Pinsky responded in kind. So did many others. Mrs. Bush canceled her event. So much for making poetry relevant. Gee, these poets can really put up a fight when it matters, can’t they?

Why I’m Against The Iraq War

I was against the Iraq War from the beginning. I was also an officer in the National Guard when Bush decided to invade the country. In July 2004, my unit was activated and I spent all of 2005 playing around in Rumsfeld’s Sandbox. I hated it. I found myself in the midst of a moral dilemma - on the one hand, I was against the war; on the other hand, I wanted to do the right thing. The dilemma part was, there was no right thing. If I went, I was betraying my conscience; if I didn’t go, I was betraying my honor. Either way, I lost.

I decided to go. Mostly, my decision was due to my wife, who had been the wearer of my ring for nine months. I didn’t want to let her down, go to prison for refusing to subject myself to the Empire’s demands. That would not have been fair to her. Nevertheless, that was my impulse. Then, there was my ego. I knew that if I resigned my commission and refused to serve that men I respected would call me a wuss and accuse me of betraying my country. Never mind that it was my commander in chief who was involved in the betrayal. Ego can damn the soul.

To me, it is not about peace. It never was. It is about justice. I’m a believer in Just War Tradition. Sometimes, it is necessary to fight. That’s the beef that I have with the Poets Against War flock. They are not so much about justice as they are about peace at any cost. The part about that which I find objectionable is the idea that a man must become a slave in order to have peace. But then, I don’t believe that he should become a slave for war, either. Isn’t there a middle ground?

The Sadness Of Poetry And War

Poets like Hamill and Olds feel significant because they believe poetry is superior to war. But is it? I’d say it is only when it remains true to itself and to humanity, when it aspires to that level of purity described by Olds above. Unfortunately, many of the poets in the I Hate War movement are not that sincere. There is a pretentiousness in their absurdities.

I admire Olds. I love her poetry. She was one of my first influences, way back in college in the 1980s. I’d never heard of Hamill before 2003. I like Pinsky. I admired him as poet laureate. Still, their ideas on war do not match the respect they have earned as poets. While they can think deeply on the subject of literature, it seems they have rather shallow sympathies with regard to the subject of war. They are informed, it seems, by some petty childishness that fails to understand the human condition, especially its destructive side. Our president and some of his friends, on the other hand, have the opposite problem. They can intellectualize war, but when it comes to diving into the human spirit of poetry they are lost. This then is the sadness of poetry and war - if you are in deep with one you may not be so deep into the other. That is tragedy.

It is also what puts poets like me at odds with both sides of the debate that never was. I have an affinity for both humanities - the humanity of poetry and the humanity of war. I do not like war. I respect it. It sometimes is necessary. The problem with the war in Iraq is that it was not necessary, nor was it just. Unfortunately, those of us who know better were never given a choice. And if Hamill, Olds, and Pinsky had their way, poets who believe in the justness of war wouldn’t have a choice there either.