[New-Poetry] What I witnessed

[browning]

Folks,

 

As the poet E. Ethelbert Miller likes to point out, James Baldwin spoke of
the witness as being altogether different from the observer, as the witness
is called upon to testify. We are all witnesses to our country's outrageous
prison-industrial complex, which has the highest incarceration rate of any
country in the world. Let me say that again: The US has the highest
incarceration rate of any country in the world. The people we lock up -
mostly poor men of color - are voiceless and considered altogether
expendable. 

 

I have also not yet read CD Wright's book, and I'm with those who have not
been moved by previous work I've read. But I am in favor of any poet or
artist, indeed any citizen, drawing attention to the human impact of our
policy decision to lock up so many of our brothers and sisters. The stronger
the poems as art, of course, the more effective they will be. But how can we
question a poet's right to write about our inhumanity as a society? Isn't
this, in fact, our responsibility?

 

 

 

**

Sarah Browning

Co-Director

Split This Rock Poetry Festival

c/o Institute for Policy Studies

1112 16th Street, NW, Suite 600

Washington, DC 20036

 <mailto:browning at splitthisrock.org> browning at splitthisrock.org

 <http://www.splitthisrock.org/> www.splitthisrock.org

202-787-5210

 

  _____  

From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
[mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of David Graham
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 9:01 AM
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu &amp; Views
Subject: [New-Poetry] What I witnessed

 

I haven't read CD Wright's book & have no opinion on it as poetry,
journalism, or anything else. I confess her work has left me cold for some
time, but I also haven't kept up with it. 

 

The Poetry Of Witness, though, is a phrase that I find interesting, in part
because of its basic ambiguity, coupled with the fervor with which it often
is deployed, both by fans and by skeptics. 

 

Back in the late 1970s I witnessed a wonderful moment at a reading given by
Robert Francis. This would have been in Amherst, Massachusetts, at the Jones
Library. After reading a number of his charming, simple-seeming lyrics to
the polite murmurs of the audience, Francis then recited a fairly strident
anti-war poem--to enthusiastic applause. 

 

The poet stood there, looking quizzical for a long moment (I am aware how
studied his performance may have been), waiting for the applause to subside
into smug silence. Then he very delicately inquired, "Now, was that applause
for me, for the poem, or for the sentiments in the poem? You know, applause
can be so ambiguous."

 

 

 





 

========================================

David Graham

grahamd at ripon.edu

 

Home Page:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz

 

Poetry Library:

http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html

==========================================

 





 

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