poetry for times like these...

[what is the role of the poet in a modern world, one in which you can't ignore what happens in its farthest reaches because it appears in your morning mailbox and steals so many special someones from "safety"-- which itself turns into an illusion...?


ferlinghetti seems to think the role is a major one, and calls to the poets here...]



Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames]
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am signaling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.

If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.

You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words....


[is this possible? i would like to hope so...but perhaps it's at least a means of processing, of taking action and ownership, of feeling less like this is all something that is happening TO you...there IS power in speaking, and in writing, back to that which screams at us, violates us, seeks to destroy us...

because WORDS are our uniquely human gift.]