ancient chinese poetry and brecht’s 5 difficulties
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.
After I wrote about the Chinese poet Xue Tao my friend The Beach Poet wrote recently with this question: “I am curious as well, as to what motivates you to read Chinese women’s poetry?”
I have been thinking about this and how to answer it. Is it enough to say Chinese women poets write about important truths I cannot find in modern American poetry? Is it enough to say almost all marginalized poets I have stumbled upon have a better chance of speaking the truth than our mainstream, middle class contemporaries? That is part of the answer.
The other part is that almost all women’s poetry interests me; I studied international women poets for my English Literature degree as an undergraduate. I love the different worlds they show me, the necessity and urgency of so many women poets. These are people (for the most part) who do not have the leisure, wealth or freedom to indulge in poetry but do so anyway because they have to. Because they have to!
Even a poem two thousand years old can feel like it was written today if it has something important to say. To me that is the purpose of poetry, to speak in the clearest way possible about the mysteries of life. “Mystery” does mean just metaphysics like the Goddess or Buddha or Jesus; poverty is a mystery, war is a mystery, explain to me why we have this fever to kill others? In other words, the poetry I love speaks on what makes us human. It is the hardest challenge to an artist, I think.
This isn’t to say modern American poets are incapable of writing about our humanity. Everything Walt Whitman (who really isn't modern at all but that is not his fault) has written speaks to the urgency of being human. In fact this passage in his Introduction to Leaves of Grass speaks so much about what is important in being human I try to follow its advice everyday:
“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of the year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body….”
But mainstream modern poetry, the stuff that is being published today, does insult the soul in some very real ways … well, much of it, I suppose. Just ask yourself: what will mark our century? What will we be remembered for? What is going on in the world that is so vastly important we need to speak about? War! Endless genocide! The on-going destruction of our environment! But if you read the poetry that appears in our national poetry magazines, those sources that claim to speak for American poetry as a whole, you wouldn’t know this. Our nation is at war but who could guess by reading modern poetry?
When we need poets the most to speak the truth, to be brave and write beautifully about what we humans are doing our leaders in postmodern poetry embrace interruption, detachment, abstraction as somehow being essential. This isn’t just poets, all of the arts seem to be heading that way. The current cover of the ARTnews (April 2007) features the proclamation “The New Abstraction” and on page 110 ironically has this to say about past criticism of the type of Abstract art they are promoting: “Abstraction was attacked [in the past] for being old media, played out, new-idea stunted, and out of sync with contemporary life and thought – as well as for being decorative and solipsistic.”
I would argue that our current poetry being embraced by mainstream America is decorative and solipsistic, gaudy and self-important; I would go so far as to say on a bad day we are a nation of gaudy and self-important artists actively giving our voices away in a time and age when we need voice so badly. It is one reason I started the group Poetry Without Borders: poets of witness. I do not want to give away my voice; even erotica can speak truths when done with compassion and humanity.
The German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht wrote an essay entitled “The Courage to Write the Truth” where he named several difficulties most artists face when going after such goals. That is; “The Keenness to Recognize the Truth,” “The Skill to Manipulate the Truth as a Weapon,” “The Judgment to Select Those in Whose Hands the Truth Will Be Effective” and “The Cunning to Spread the Truth Among the Many.” He summarizes his arguments as follows:
… Of what use is it to write something courageous which shows that the condition into which we are falling is barbarous (which is true) if it is not clear why we are falling into this condition? … We must tell the truth about the barbarous conditions in our country in order that the thing should be done which will put an end to them …
Furthermore, we must tell this truth to those who suffer most from existing [conditions] and who have the greatest interest in their being changed—the workers and those whom we can induce to be their allies because they too have really no control of the means of production even if they do share in the profits.
And we must proceed cunningly … for we cannot discover the truth about barbarous conditions without thinking of those who suffer from them; cannot proceed unless we shake off every trace of cowardice; and when we seek to discern the true state of affairs in regard to those who are ready to use the knowledge we give them, we must also consider the necessity of offering them the truth in such a manner that it will be a weapon in their hands, and at the same time we must do it so cunningly that the enemy will not discover and hinder our offer of the truth.
That is what is required of a writer when he is asked to write the truth.
That is why it is important to find the voices that are essential to us in this day and age. Those voices might be anywhere; speaking today amongst us or reminding us of the importance of being human thousands of years ago.