Miniaturising

In recent years, I’ve taken to creating tables in an effort to summarise the key points of some posts. But BLOGSPOT, the server I use, is no longer able to cope with these tables which, I realise, might be expressed as poems. My model is not one of the guys I’ve so far owned up to – Brecht, Bukowski, Eliot, Graham, McCaig. Mitchell or Sorescu – it’s rather an unknown 90 year old Barry Oshry who has a blog; and several poems such as Encounters with the other

In view of the suffering in Gaza and Ukraine, I’ve chosen some excerpts 

from his The Terrible Dance of power 

Enter the Radicals

A new force develops among the Low-Power people—

a radical force.

The Radicals call for more drastic action—

not accommodation,

but fundamental change;

overthrow the power structure

or separate from the nation.

The Radicals become a "We,"

and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The High-Power people are "Them,"

but so are the Moderates.

And you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Radicals can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the High-Power people as "Them,"

and they see the Moderates as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Enter the Accommodators and the Extremists

In the High-Power group,

there are the Liberals

who want to accommodate the Low-Power people—

redress their grievances,

right their wrongs.

But, in response to the Radicals' actions,

a new force emerges among the High-Power people—

an Extremist force.

Angered by the Radicals,

threatened by "Them,"

the Extremists stand against any accommodation.

The Extremists become a "We,"

and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The Radicals are "Them";

the supporters of Radicals are "Them";

the Accommodators are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Extremists can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the Radicals

and the moderates

as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Enter the Privileged Radicals

Among the High-Power people,

there emerges a Privileged Radical group—

the privileged sons and daughters of the High-Power people,

who align themselves with the Low-Power Radical group.

The Privileged Radical people

also stand for radical change—

fundamental change in the power structure,

redistribution of wealth, power, and privilege,

or separate homelands

or nations

for the Low-Power people.

The Privileged Radicals see themselves

and the Low-Power Radicals as a "We,"

and all who are not part of the "We"

are "Them."

The High-Power Accommodators are "Them";

the Low-Power Moderates are "Them";

the High-Power Extremists are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can humiliate "Them,"

hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Privileged Radicals can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the others as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Change Partners

Sometimes the Low-Power people win;

they overthrow the High-Power people

and they become the new High-Power people,

seeing themselves as the bearers of a new vision—

a higher vision,

The New Society,

Manifest Destiny,

The New Man,

The Master Race,

The One True Religion,

The Way.

And standing in the way of this vision

are the new Low-Power people—

"Them."

And the terrible dance goes on:

"We" humiliate,

"We" hurt,

"We" kill,

"We" maim,

"We" bomb,

"We" hack,

"We" hang,

"We" mine,

"We" strangle,

"We" starve

"Them."

Always justified in what "We" do,

"We" are the right and the righteous.

Who wouldn't do such things to "Them"?

Poetry? Maybe

Most people ignore most poetry

Because

Most poetry ignores most people

Adrian Mitchell was the author of the poem whose title I borrowed for the collection of this past year’s blogposts – and this is the inscription at the beginning of the book of his collected poetry…..

My posts may tend to be on the long side - but this is not for want of trying to cut to the chase. Oscar Wilde’s retort that “the best way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it” is a lovely example of the focused epigrammatic approach which was such a feature of Clive James’ writing.

I have decided views about writing genres – with a rather strong preference for essays (and short stories). I sometimes wonder whether my lack of interest in fiction betrays an element of autism – although in 2010 I did an interesting list of the novels which had appealed to me in the previous decade.   

But a couple of years ago I went so far as to suggest that the flood of books had reached such a point that we needed to consider rationing at least non-fiction books

Given the popularity of Twitter and the fear that our attention span is declining, one might have imagined that poetry might appeal to the younger generation. But I don’t sense any sign of this…

When then is it that so few poets appeal to us? I have a few favourites - Bertolt Brecht, Norman MacCaig, TS Eliot, WS Graham, Charles Bukowski, Marin Sorescu and Adrian Mitchell. What is it about such poets which allows them to “reach parts other cannot reach”?

In Bukowski’s case the answer is obvious – he wrote about low-class life in a bawdy way and made not the slightest concession to the poetic structure. It seemed like a flow of semi-consciousness….

Norman MacCaig and Marin Sorescu – from opposite ends of Europe – shared a wry, humanist approach to nature and events. See MacCaig’s “Smuggler” and Sorescu’s “Asking too Much?” - the latter about a man commuting between Heaven and Hell and unable to choose between a book, a bottle of wine and a woman

Bert Brecht and Adrian Mitchell – on the other hand - were both highly political

My favourite poem is probably Brecht’s “In Praise of Doubt” which you can find in this collected edition of Brecht’s poetry.

WS Graham and TS Eliot were pretty apolitical but I have always been fond of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets not only for its Zen like sense of time and the puniness of our efforts but for its references to the fragile nature of words – thus, in “Burnt Norton”

Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

decay with imprecision, will not stay in place

You can read the entire poem here

and later (in East Coker) a section I use a lot –

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years

Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

Little wonder, therefore, that Eliot was a great admirer of a little-known poet from my home town (Greenock) in the 1940s, WS Graham who also wrote a lot about words eg

Speaking is difficult and one tries

To be exact, and yet not to

Exact the prime intention to death.

On the other hand, the appearance of things

Must not be made to mean another

thing. It is a kind of triumph

To see them and to put them down

As what they are. The inadequacy

Of the living, animal language drives

Us all to metaphor and an attempt

To organise the spaces we think

We have made occur between the words.

Update; when the post first appeared, I quite unforgivably omitted Tom Leonard from the list. He died, sadly, in February 2019, but his website richness is still available and the letters in particular give a true sense of Glaswegian literary life. His most famous poems were in contemporary street Scots – my favourite being “The Six o’clock News” which you will find my scrolling down this excellent extended tribute