If the title and the content of the poem "The Remedy, or, Nigger's a Book", which is a piece of art, offends you....that's good.
Let's have a conversation.
Poetry. Community. Lack of community. So-called, but not-to-clearly defined "political poetry." Whether poets are "allowed" to write about issues of slavery, eugenics, abortion, Hitler, sterilization, stigmatization, and stereotypes, and, use the word or references to the word "Nigger."
If the work offends you it may be a sign that you are awake: awake to hatred, racism, free speech, responsible speech, or a myriad of subjects and issues that this poem raises for you.
If you are my age, or read the classic book in middle school in recent years, as my children did, you may also know that Nigger, is actually a famous autobiography by the great American, Dick Gregory.
It is also the title of a 2002 book written by Harvard Law School Professor, Randall Kennedy.
This blog is a public forum for two specific things:
1. A place where the author of the poem at hand presents the text for scrutiny, enjoyment, derision, response, or suggestions.
2. A place where the specific historical issues, books, documents, thoughts, poems, people and experiences the poem at hand was "based" on can be examine.
Background:
The background for the blog was a very charged, tense and uncomfortable situation that resulted when the author of the poem read it on an historic platform, before his peers, all of whom had spent an exhilarating week talking about what we all loved: Poetry, poems, the craft of poetry, poets, and, well, life. Each others lives, poet's lives, the life disciplines of an artist, the life and health of a poem, when perhaps it should die, and the marvelous opportunities for expression, enlightenment, anger, discomfort, but most of all, pleasure, that arises from the soil, land, air, and sea of Poetry that we move and live and have our being in.
What ensued during and after the community reading was, to my mind, authentic, necessary, troubling, uncomfortable, and appreciated.
Because the "incident" caused a "bomb" as one person described it, and because the poet (that's me) was criticized for presenting such an obviously "unfinished" poem, and because a beautiful man we had all come to appreciate that week had the balls to stand up in the middle of the reading and object to the poem, and because the leaders of the workshop handled the potentially explosive situation in probably the best way they could ("Ok, 5-minutes smoke break!", followed with a request, that at the end of the reading we all sit in a circle and use the experience as a teaching and reflective moment, because I my poem did greatly offend some of the people in the community, because art and life and beauty and community are so vital to the health of ourselves and our common world, I have begun this blog to provide a place for those present that evening (and any others who wish to address the issues) to learn more about the historical precedents this poem was based on, as well as express themselves.
Because I also have an ego and don't agree with those who found fault with this poem, as a poem, after hearing it only once, without having had the opportunity to read it, here it is. If you hate it or think it doesn't work, based on the poetics, and after understanding the specific literary allusions and historical incidents, then tell me why and feel free to make suggestions. Feel free to tell my why this particular poem, that deals with eugenics, abortion, Nazi and Darwinian philosophy, and issues of meaning doesn't work. Then feel free to point out examples of poems that have addressed those important topics that DO work, or, better yet, write one yourself.
Let's have a conversation.
Poetry. Community. Lack of community. So-called, but not-to-clearly defined "political poetry." Whether poets are "allowed" to write about issues of slavery, eugenics, abortion, Hitler, sterilization, stigmatization, and stereotypes, and, use the word or references to the word "Nigger."
If the work offends you it may be a sign that you are awake: awake to hatred, racism, free speech, responsible speech, or a myriad of subjects and issues that this poem raises for you.
If you are my age, or read the classic book in middle school in recent years, as my children did, you may also know that Nigger, is actually a famous autobiography by the great American, Dick Gregory.
It is also the title of a 2002 book written by Harvard Law School Professor, Randall Kennedy.
This blog is a public forum for two specific things:
1. A place where the author of the poem at hand presents the text for scrutiny, enjoyment, derision, response, or suggestions.
2. A place where the specific historical issues, books, documents, thoughts, poems, people and experiences the poem at hand was "based" on can be examine.
Background:
The background for the blog was a very charged, tense and uncomfortable situation that resulted when the author of the poem read it on an historic platform, before his peers, all of whom had spent an exhilarating week talking about what we all loved: Poetry, poems, the craft of poetry, poets, and, well, life. Each others lives, poet's lives, the life disciplines of an artist, the life and health of a poem, when perhaps it should die, and the marvelous opportunities for expression, enlightenment, anger, discomfort, but most of all, pleasure, that arises from the soil, land, air, and sea of Poetry that we move and live and have our being in.
What ensued during and after the community reading was, to my mind, authentic, necessary, troubling, uncomfortable, and appreciated.
Because the "incident" caused a "bomb" as one person described it, and because the poet (that's me) was criticized for presenting such an obviously "unfinished" poem, and because a beautiful man we had all come to appreciate that week had the balls to stand up in the middle of the reading and object to the poem, and because the leaders of the workshop handled the potentially explosive situation in probably the best way they could ("Ok, 5-minutes smoke break!", followed with a request, that at the end of the reading we all sit in a circle and use the experience as a teaching and reflective moment, because I my poem did greatly offend some of the people in the community, because art and life and beauty and community are so vital to the health of ourselves and our common world, I have begun this blog to provide a place for those present that evening (and any others who wish to address the issues) to learn more about the historical precedents this poem was based on, as well as express themselves.
Because I also have an ego and don't agree with those who found fault with this poem, as a poem, after hearing it only once, without having had the opportunity to read it, here it is. If you hate it or think it doesn't work, based on the poetics, and after understanding the specific literary allusions and historical incidents, then tell me why and feel free to make suggestions. Feel free to tell my why this particular poem, that deals with eugenics, abortion, Nazi and Darwinian philosophy, and issues of meaning doesn't work. Then feel free to point out examples of poems that have addressed those important topics that DO work, or, better yet, write one yourself.
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