Myth of Arrival

We must tell the truth about evil conditions to those for whom the conditions are worst, and we must also learn the truth from them. We must address not only people who hold certain views, but people who, because of their situation, should hold these views. — Bertolt Brecht.

I do not think it was a coincidence, misadventure, accident (what have you) that with the rise of poetry that sought to deconstruct they very language we used to warn each other of impending dangers in the 1990s¹ we witnessed the rise of a very powerful evangelical government here in the United States and that we now find ourselves with an active military in the far corners of the world, in effect, our powers are being used for ill and not good.

Of course modern American poetry did not play a hand in that; that is the whole point. We are nation of writers who no longer answer to anything (if you dismantle your own language how will you be heard?) and thus do not affect a single thing. 9/11 proved that. Sure, my friends and colleagues who belong to Poets Against War and other similar organizations might have boycotted a reading or so at the White House but it didn't stop the tanks from rolling out, the bombs from falling. I say this because I am a member of that organization and I too recognize the limitations of my own art.

But last week I came upon this article in the New York Times (Saturday, December 17) and least we forget that language is important and that people are still being executed over words, that not everyone in this grand global village of artists, writers and poets are free to say anything they want, least we forget that when you dismantle your own language you will not be heard, I ask you reflect on this. Our poetry might be good at witnessing other people's dire lives, but how good are we at addressing who Brecht calls: " [the] people who, because of their situation, should hold these views" — I mean by that, our own collective of modern American poets.

Turks Defer Trial of Novelist Who Cited Armenian Deaths

ISTANBUL, Dec. 16 - A Turkish court put off the trial of a prominent novelist on Friday after a brief hearing, giving the government until Feb. 7 to decide whether to go ahead with criminal proceedings against him. The charge involves his mentioning the killing of a million Armenians by the Turks in 1915 when he gave a magazine interview, in which he also said 30,000 Kurds had been killed since the late 1980's.

Angry nationalists booed the bestselling writer, Orhan Pamuk, and jostled the police as they escorted him into the packed courthouse, where the proceedings were monitored by observers from the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join in coming years …

"Dragging out cases of thought crimes which shouldn't be begun in the first place and starting new ones are not good for Turkey, for our democracy," [Pamuk] said. He remains free but could face a jail term of six months to three years if convicted.

Mr. Pamuk is accused of "insulting Turkish identity" in the interview last February in Das Magazin, a Swiss publication. He was quoted as saying the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and the deaths of the Kurds in Turkish operations against the separatist group P.K.K. in the 1980's were still forbidden subjects in Turkey …

Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, revised last summer as part of Turkey's efforts to meet the legal and economic standards required to join the European Union, still criminalizes public comments that "denigrate Turkishness" or criticize the state, the army or the founder of the republic, Ataturk. Nearly 60 intellectuals have been charged under it …

[An] European Parliament member at the trial, Camiel Eurlings of the Netherlands, said, "If Turkey wants to continue toward the E.U., and I hope it will, then really freedom of expression is a fundamental necessity."

1. "We want the Bourgeoisie to be Uncomfortable with this Lack of Narrative, this Fragmentation of Verse, this Deconstruction of the Sanctioned Configuration of Language," one Language Manifesto I found on-line read. It is true, we are uncomfortable but I see it as a lack of comfort akin to finding the cook has dismantled the ship and the flood waters are rising. That too, is problematic. [back]

There are dispossessed but they do not fit
in here, no boys without documents, no
untouchable girls. No, friend, my grand wit
condemns the "Reader;" my Manifesto
denounces the "Privileged Structures" of words.
I know there are death squads, regimes, juntas,
famine, but not here. I know of bastards
who use their words as witness, count corpses,
sing of "los desaparecidos." But not
here. No. Friend, these words enslave us. Even
if my gringo's lingo was still "language,"
my outcast patois would not tell you what
befell your Displaced; we have no common
tongue to connect us, no common knowledge.

I am not sure who Lawrence Cosentino, of City Pulse fame, was in the audience last Wednesday night at our reading, but I am glad he liked the show. I rarely read reviews of poetry readings in mainstream press, let alone a review that takes you from A to Z through the thesaurus with such flamboyant prose, and written by a total stranger (at least to me). He loved Ruelaine's and Bob's performances and, of course, the narcissist in me was curious what he said about me. It goes a little like this:

Chartkoff, by contrast, came on like an overcompensating veteran of terminal shyness, making self-deprecating asides before leaning forward to make ripe comparisons between poetry reading and sex. He read in a high, fizzy lisp, hitting the same notes over and over. His gawky determination had the effect of humanizing his intelligent poetry and making it seem much less mannered than it does on the printed page.

A high, fizzy lisp? Hitting the same notes over and over? Gawky determination? Okay … I guess people call them like they see them or is this just a case of damning with faint praise? Hmmm …

Shelby (who seems to have much more poetry information at her fingertips than I do, odd) just sent me this NPR link, concerning a story, in short, about The Poetry Archive, a hothouse for poetry recordings. Lynn Neary's article looks a little like this:

The newest addition to poetry sites on the Web has the lofty goal of becoming the first port of call for poetry lovers around the world. Launched by British poet laureate Andrew Motion, The Poetry Archive boasts an extensive collection of poets reading their own work.

Motion says the idea for the archive came about one day when he was recording some of his own poetry and struck up a conversation with audio engineer Richard Carrington in the process.

Their idea is to include both existing readings by poets as well as new recordings. Motion envisions a site that will be constantly updated and eventually will be the premier site for hearing poets in their own voices.

On a curious side note, there are several links of other poetry matters on this website, including one reviewing the new poetry collection of deposed Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic, indicted for his role in a 1995 massacre in Srebrenica and the 1992 siege of Sarajevo. The article states: "He remains in hiding" … but still he gets his poetry out into the blogworld. Interesting.