Poetry in Action

Javier Sicilia, Mexican poet, stopped writing after his son and six of his friends were tortured and assassinated by a drug cartel.  In May, he made a public declaration, "Estamos Hasta la Madre!" asking for people to resist so that the violence could be stopped.



In June, he organized a tour for peace (June 4-11), ranging from Cuernavaca to Ciudad Juarez.  This resulted in a national dialogue for peace (June 23, 2011).




Links

Frédéric Saliba, "Les Indignés du Mexique," Le Monde Magazine (June 25, 2011), pp.26-31.
Jo Tuckman, "Mexican peace caravan led by poet Javier Sicilia nears its final stop," Guardian (June 9, 2011).
Olivia Stransky, "Letter from Poet Javier Sicilia to Mexican Government and Cartels," Sampsonain Way (May 17, 2011).
Randal C. Archibold, "Violence Suffocated a Father's Poetry, but Not His Voice," New York Times (May 13, 2011).
Harriet Staff, "Poet Javier Sicilia leads 150,000 in march against Mexican drug violence," Poetry Foundation/Harriet Blog (May 9, 2011).
Jason Beaubien, "After Son's Death, Poet Fights Mexican Drug Violence," NPR (May 6, 2011).
Gilles Biassette, "Marche contre la violence au Mexique," La Croix (May 5, 2011).
Julian Miglierini, "Mexico poet Javier Scilia leads anger at drug violence," BBC Mobile (April 22, 2011).
Ioan Grillo, "Should Mexico Call for A Cease-Fire with Drug Cartels," Time (April 7, 2011).
"Javier Sicilia's Open Letter to Mexico's Politicians and Criminals," Narco News Bulletin (April 4, 2011).


Interview with Javier Sicilia, by Ricardo Venegas, in Agulha, Revista de Cultura (October 2003).

To follow these actions via Twitter:  @mxhastalamadre  and on Facebook:  Todos somas Juan Francisco Sicilia.

Heroic couplets of Nixon and Mao at the Met in February

The opera Nixon in China (1987, music by John Adams, libretto by Alice Goodman) will be performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, February 1 to 19, 2011. This will be concurrent to performances at the Canadian Opera Company, February 5 to 26.

The opera covers Nixon's visit of five days (February 21-25, 1972) in three acts, with the key players: Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, Pat Nixon, Mao Tse-Tung and his wife Chian Ch'ing, and Premier Chou En-Lai. The opening scene features the landing of the "Spirit of '76" jet, and the arrival of the Nixons. Before the plane lands, the chorus sings the opening couplets:

Soldiers of heaven hold the sky

The morning breaks and shadow fly

Follow the orders of the poor

Your master is the laborer

Who rules the world with truth and grace

Deal with him justly, face to face

Pay a fair price for all you buy

Pay to replace what you destroy

Divide the landlord's property

Take nothing from the tenantry

Do not mistreat the captive foe

Respect women, it is their due

Replace doors when you leave a house

Roll up straw matting after use...

Writing about her Libretto for the opera in 1987, Alice Goodman explained: "It would be an heroic opera—that would be the character of the work—and an opera of character—that had become inevitable—and the heroic quality of the work as a whole would be determined by the eloquence of each character in his or her own argument" (Goodman, "Towards Nixon in China").

According to Peter Sellars, "What opera can do to history is deepen it and move into its more subtle, nuanced, and mysterious corners" (see Met website). The following two videos are from the original 1987 performance in Houston, Texas.

Nixon in China was performed at the Chicago Opera Theatre in 2006:

Links & additional information:

Anthony Tommasini, "President and Opera, on Unexpected Stages," review of Nixon in China at the MET, New York Times (February 3, 2011).

"Reading Nixon in China," Nixon in China blog, with links to musical samples on Blip.fm (Vancouver Opera, 2010).

Matthew Gurewitsch, "Still Resonating from the Great Wall," New York Times (January 30, 2011).

"History in the Making" Metropolitan Opera website (2011).

Florence Fabricant, "Nixon in China, the Dinner, Is Recreated," New York Times (January 25, 2011).

Jason Farago, "Nixon in China in New York," n+1 (February 17, 2011).

Alex Ross, "Reverberations: A Month of Music and Politics," New Yorker (March 14, 2011).

May 20, 2011, Mathieu Duplay will speak about "L'imperceptible dans Nixon in China de John Adams et Alice Goodman," (Seminaire "Littérature et Métaphysique," ENS, Paris, 18h30).

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Unbeaten

Clint Eastwood's film Invictus(2009) honors a poem by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) that was controversial when first published in 1875, due to its closing affirmation "I am the mater of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul." Apparently the poem helped Nelson Mandela to keep his head up through the long prison years. This must be Eastwood's response to the question, "Can Poetry Make Anything Happen?"



Links

Anne Billson, "Invictus aside, poetry in cinema is embarrassing," Guardian (January 28, 2010).
"Invictus: When Mandela — and sport — united a nation," Guardian (January 2010).
Trailer for Invictus from the Guardian (January 1, 2010).
Official Website for Invictus (wwws.warnerbros.co.uk/invictus).
Translation of "Invictus" into French by Yves Lanthier on Termexplore (December 2009).

Of Poetry and Presidents

"LORDS DON'T LEAP. / They Sleep." That is the extent of Day 10 in Carol Ann Duffy's "The Twelve Days of Christmas 2009." But Barack Obama is also named in the poem, and presumably it's not exactly a negative reference.... Should comparisons be made to Whitman and Lincoln? Well, probably not just yet.

Links

Carol Ann Duffy, "The Twelve Days of Christmas 2009," Radio Times (December 2009).

Lyndsay Moss, "Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy slams bankers with new take on the Twelve Days of Christmas," The Scotsman (December 7, 2009).

Jennifer Schuessler, "A History of Odes to the Chief," New York Times (December 12, 2009).

David Reynolds, "Lincoln and Whitman," History Now (December 2005).

Teaching plans, "Whitman and Lincoln" by National Portrait Gallery and the Choral Arts Society of Washington (2008).

"POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS."

"Politics" is Carol Ann Duffy's first official poem as laureate, published in the Guardian (June 13, 2009).

See also:

Mark Brown, "Carol Ann Duffy leaps into expenses row with first official poem as laureate," Guardian (June 13, 2009).

"Praise Song for the Day" at Barack Obama's Inauguration, January 20, 2009

Elizabeth Alexander, "Praise Song for the Day":

Transcription of the Inaugural Poem from the New York Times (January 20, 2009) and a translation of the poem into French from Le Nouvel Observateur (January 21, 2009).

Publication of the poem by the Academy of American Poets (www.poets.org).

Other highlights from the Inauguration (January 22, 2009).

Poetry, Politics, and Performance

Poetry, Politics, Inaugurations

Elizabeth Alexander has been chosen to recite a poem at Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20, 2009.  She follows in the footsteps of Robert Frost (John F. Kennedy inauguration in 1961), James Dickey (Jimmy Carter inaugural gala in 1977), Maya Angelou (Bill Clinton inauguration in 1993), and Miller Williams (Bill Clinton inauguration in 1997).

Listen to Elizabeth Alexander speak about who she would have chosen to read at the Inauguration from "Inaugural Poetics" a broadcast from "Poetry Off the Shelf" with the Poetry Foundation (December 19, 2008).

Other Links:

Elizabeth Alexander's page from the Academy of American Poets (Poets.org).

Katharine Q. Seelye, "Poet Chosen for Inauguration Is Aiming for a Work That Transcends the Moment," New York Times (December 20, 2008).

Dwight Garner, "The Intersection of Poetry and Politics," New York Times (December 24, 2008).

Letters "Poets, Presidents and Inaugurations" New York Times (December 27, 2008).

Katharine Q. Seelye, "Inaugural Poet, Adorned," The Caucus, New York Times Politics Blog (January 1, 2009).

"Poetry and Power: Robert Frost's Inaugural Reading" (poets.org)

U.S. Poets offer advice

A 13 minute broadcast from Chicago's own Poetry Foundation considers how poetry and poets can provide advice to President-Elect Obama (November 6, 2008).  Charles Bernstein, Patricia Smith and Forrest Gander were asked what poems Obama should read during this transition period.

Walcott's poem for Obama

"Forty Acres" was written by Derek Walcott to honor President-Elect Barack Obama, and was printed in the Times (November 5, 2008).  

Links:

Edward Byrne, "Barack Obama and Derek Walcott," One Poet's Notes Blog (November 9, 2008).

Catherine Elsworth, "Barack Obama still has time for a little poetry," Telegraph (November 7, 2008) where we learn that Obama may currently be reading Derek Walcott.

The next US President may also be a closet poet

Closet poet or not, my guess is that Barack Obama will do more to promote poetry than has been seen during the past eight years.  As we have already noted during the campaign, his command of rhetoric is impressive.  Steven Barrie Anthony at the Huffington Post reported on Obama's youthful  poetry (March 2007), reproducing copies of the poems.   In Rebecca Mead's "Obama, Poet" in The New Yorker (July 2, 2007), Harold Bloom was asked for an opinion of Obama's early efforts.  He compared "Pop" to Langston Hughes "who tended to imitate Carl Sandburg."  Bloom did not take the word "shink" in the body of the poem to be a typo, but rather a verb expressing very strong emotion.  Regarding "Underground," Bloom compared it to D.H. Lawrence's "Snake."

Other links

Ian McMillan, "The Lyrical Democrat," The Guardian (March 29, 2007).

Turning to Poetry in the Turmoil

The Academy of American Poets has collected some poetry to carry us through "the serious financial havoc the world has been enduring."  This page was released today (October 14, 2008).

Robert von Hallberg on poetry during wartime

Worth a read:  Robert von Hallberg, "Poets and the People: Reflections on solidarity during wartime," Boston Review (September/October 2008).  

In the essay, von Hallberg notes that Jorie Graham's Overlord suggests that soldiers in Normandy died, not for the Nation or the just cause, but simply for each other.  Soldiers die "...for no government, no ideology, only for paratroopers.  They die willingly because of the immediate conditions of military engagement.  Theirs is a morbid fraternity."

Poetry in Detroit & Poetry/Politics

Two rather interesting links, found on Silliman's blog these past days.  The first is the 50 day blog leading up to the American elections: Poetry Politic: A Blog in 50 Days. The first post on this blog gave a direct link to the FBI file of Muriel Rukeyser.  Second, the Grand Piano event, a reading October 4, 2008 in Detroit, at the Wendell W. Anderson, Jr. Auditorium, Walter B. Ford II Building, College for Creative Studies, John R & Frederick Douglass Streets.  This event features at least seven poets reading their works, including Carla Harryman and Barrett Watten, both from Detroit.

Adrienne Rich at Chile Poesia in 2001

This video of Adrienne Rich is relaxed and informal, as she speaks over a cup of coffee about writing poetry.  In a second part, she reads "Planitarium."

my personal is political

Poets who fit this bill include: Douglas Dunn, as demonstrated in a review published in the Guardian (January 11, 2003), Tony Harrison, Philip Levine, Robert Lowell, Louise Simpson, Jeffrey Wainwright, James Wright . . .

James Scully on poetry & politics

"...much of what is called political poetry, or poetry that deals with politics, is hackwork. From this comes the generalization that politics destroys poetry. Yet . . . most of any kind of poetry is hackwork, is slipshod, undemanding of itself. . . . When you come upon an inept love poem you aren't likely to conclude that love and poetry don't mix."