One of Everybody

What is it about those we sometimes deem the “lesser” individuals of society that usually makes them the most indiscriminate? I’ve had this installment from the American Life in Poetry project sitting in my mailbox for a while. It is one of my favorites of Mr. Kooser’s selections.

The homeless, the “crazy,” the children… they so often tend to see past the outward appearances or trapping s of status and find a commonality in being a person. I see it in my own children. We went to the local McDonald’s playland yesterday for lunch, and I noticed how easily the children play together even though they don’t know one another. They never notice the color of the other’s skin or the type of clothes they are wearing. They wave at strangers. They always watch out for Baby Girl, even though (at 19 months) she slows down the climbing and sliding process. They always ask “are you ok,” when someone falls down.

I’ve noticed that when we suddenly “arrive” at the station in life we feel we deserve with the requisite education, religion, possessions, network or reputation in tow, sometimes we forget those simple commonalities, the simple discipline of indiscrimination. It’s easy to see how the equal opportunity gathering of signatures was so memorable to the poet. She immortalized the open-hearted decision that all signatures were welcome and valued the same. She took pride in including hers among the thousands. It’s a much-needed reminder that “I am one of everybody.”

American Life in Poetry: Column 243
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Lots of contemporary poems are anecdotal, a brief narration of some event, and what can make them rise above anecdote is when they manage to convey significance, often as the poem closes. Here is an example of one like that, by Marie Sheppard Williams, who lives in Minneapolis.

Everybody

I stood at a bus corner
one afternoon, waiting
for the #2. An old
guy stood waiting too.
I stared at him. He
caught my stare, grinned,
gap-toothed. Will you
sign my coat? he said.
Held out a pen. He wore
a dirty canvas coat that
had signatures all over
it, hundreds, maybe
thousands.
I’m trying
to get everybody, he
said.
I signed. On a
little space on a pocket.
Sometimes I remember:
I am one of everybody.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by David Lee Garrison, whose most recent book of poems is Sweeping the Cemetery: New and Selected Poems, Browser Books Publishing, 2007. Poem reprinted from Rattle, Vol. 14, No. 2, Winter 2008, by permission of David Lee Garrison and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

We interrupt this…

regularly scheduled MeMyBook&Eye post to bring you Banned Books Week sponsored by the American Library Association and supporting the “freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment.”

“Appropriate” material is deemed in the eye of the beholder. Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible and hymnbooks containing worship songs like “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” were banned and burned by the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century. What was reformative to some was a threat to others.

There are many types of communications such as child pornography, hate-inciting “speech” and false accusations that are rightfully outlawed by governments because they exploit innocent lives and rob others of basic human rights. However, lifestyles, religious beliefs, and moral decisions are choices I reserve the right to make for myself.  If you have questions about the ability of society to formulate a consensus list of what is appropriate, I direct you to #s 4, 13, 22, 26, and 40 on this list of books targeted for banning during the 20th century. Who knew “some pig” could be so offensive?

As a parent and a human being, I respectfully demand the opportunity to choose what is appropriate, wholesome or valuable for myself and my children–my only governing factor, an audience between myself and my God. When the squelching of ideas is permitted, tyranny takes root–for the next “beholder” may deem MY thoughts to be inappropriate. Knowledge is power, and the stories of our time are often told by the powerful. Everyone deserves the freedom to read and write their story.

Tues Ten 061609: Iran

Sorry folks, the Ten Tuesday Tickles in the way of GREAT design and style blogs I’ve been obsessed with this month will have to wait.  Holy Revolutionbrew, Twatman! I’m just too astounded by the situation in Iran and the amazing power of Twitter. My social media guru followees have been trying to get us to buy in, and until now I’ve just seen Twitter as a gigantic cocktail party in which I’m an eavesdropping wallflower. But, the events of the last two days have convinced me that this formidable outlet for citizen media has real power beyond “I just downed another cup of coffee” and “Here, read my latest blog post”.

10 amazing things/events/whatever about revolutions/free speech/life learned from Iran and Twitter:

1. Twitter postponed a scheduled maintenance shutdown because of the vital role the service was playing in accessing information in and out of Iran. They embrace their own potential. (Can’t see FB doing that, honestly)

2. The Iranian government disallowed any foreign journalists from reporting events outside their offices and from providing video footage. Censorship is alive and well, and used as a real weapon for oppression.

3. People on the ground in Tehran were actually working to confirm or deny reports that were coming out. I saw multiple tweets from freedom supporters disavowing incorrect reports of army activities, etc.

4. There are actually some hard-to-believe realities and guidelines about using something like Twitter to support global activities. See this link.

5. Get to know the cyber ins and outs because oppressors and dictators do. I “reTweeted” (twat?) the above link from it’s original site and 10 minutes later the web page had been pulled and an “account suspended” notice posted. Later it was posted again on the site listed. Can’t promise it will remain there.

6. Unlike the comfort of my upstairs office, some of the people tweeting from Iran are in REAL, not imagined danger. They might not be here tomorrow. Yes, we still live in that world.

7. ABC’s morph into Presidential TV on July 24 for a sell-job on healthcare reform is looking a little Ahmadinejad-ish.

8. Are there actual people out there who really don’t understand that David Letterman was talking about Bristol Palin and not her 14-year-old sister? Inappropriate bad joke in poor taste aside, do we really need to manufacture an “outrage” when there’s one staring us right in the face?

9. People everywhere just wanna be free. (Thank you, Rascals) You can’t get a good freedom movement down. It’s why totalitarian regimes don’t work in the end.

10. Words have power, and it’s my right and privilege to use them. Own it. Take responsibility for it. Make it count.

Tardy Flag Day

Yesterday I intended to celebrate Flag Day by sharing some great old poster images I found at the virtual Library of Congress, each bearing images of the stars and stripes. But, I was behind, as is so often the case, and I wanted to get another post off my chest. In light of that MIPOTW post, however, I thought these images were still appropo. Most are from war eras back when patriotism was cool, and you know how I love the old illustration styles. (Details are at the end.)

I’m reminded of a quote from the fictional president, Andrew Shepherd in Aaron Sorkin’s 1995 movie, The American President:

“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the ‘land of the free’.”

Yep, America isn’t easy. That’s for sure. Our ten core enumerated rights mean that dissenting speech, even hate speech often has a place on the podium alongside everyone else. This whole shebang was founded on the principle that everyone doesn’t have to believe the same thing. In fact, long before 1776 the continent was invaded by Europeans willing to stake their life on that principle–at least the principle that MY way of thinking has the right to exist. It’s always easy to demand the right to my own way of life.  The inevitable fruit of that freedom, however, is differing opinions, each vehemently promoting action.

It was interesting to me to note that last Friday was the anniversary of the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the right to interracial marriage–6 years AFTER our President was born into one such marriage. It’s an issue the vast majority of Americans now see as obsolete, even ridiculous. Sadly, Wednesday’s Holocaust Memorial shooter probably didn’t agree. America isn’t easy. For those coming late to the party, speech has power. It inspires laws and defiance of laws. It motivates action (at times horrifying) and thus bears a responsibility, making it all the more important for me to step to the mic. If I’m to wave the flag, I want to take full advantage of it–not while away the voice I have the privilege of raising.

The images:
1. “Our Flags Beat Germany” showing U.S. and Allied flags, 1918
Adolf Treidler, artist

2. “Teamwork Wins”, 1917
Hibberd V. B. Kline, artist

3. “Elmhurst Flag Day,” 1939
WPA Federal Art Project
Library of Congress Works Progress Administration Poster Collection

4. “140th Flag Day”, 1917

5. WAC poster, 1943
Bradshaw Crandall, artist

6. “Forward America!”, 1917
Carroll Kelly, artist

7. “The Spirit of America” Red Cross poster, 1919
Howard Chandler Christy, artist

8. “Fight or Buy Bonds”, 1917
Howard Chandler Christy, artist

MIPOTW: Hate

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity”

It’s a phrase from a poem called “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats, and it could easily be my Most Interesting Phrase of the Week. Except, it’s a mere fragment eclipsed by my more aptly acronymed Most Inspiring Post of the Week–MIPOTW nonetheless. It wasn’t inspiring in the warm, fuzzy, chocolate-covered, rainbow sort of way (although, yeah, rainbow is somewhat applicable). It was inspiring in the “please don’t let me be lumped in with the best who lack all conviction” kind of way. Let me join the extraordinary in matching word for word, passion for passion the intensity of the worst.

The post was written by my friend, Polly, author of Lesbian Dad. (Although we probably don’t actually know one another well enough to be more than acquaintances, I’m hedging my bet on friends.) Prompted by the hate-fueled shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum this week, the piece chronicles some of the recent hate crimes and acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by the “extreme right wing” that may or may not have graced the 6 o’clock news. It offered, in particular, a very moving story and comments about the nature of hate — a story ironically set in my own home state where those supposedly of my own faith played an infamous role.

Polly wrote of a visit she and her wife made to Mississippi in 1995 to visit and interview two women (lesbians) who founded a “folk school and retreat center” in the southern part of the state. The story of Wanda and Brenda Hensen and the sheer harassment they endured stopped me in my tracks. Stopped me because I was not reading a history or social studies textbook about the 1950s and 60s. I was reading a testimony not even 15 years old. Sadly, I can read (as Polly did) the same testimonies, the same stories on every news website I encounter. The names are different, some of the issues are different, but the hate is the same.

Polly rendered this account of her visit to Mississippi:

Of that afternoon, two things stay with me most. First: these women were the embodiment of lives lived in absolute, direct contact with everything they believed in, and it was inspirational. Second: Wanda told of an incident in nearby Hattiesburg. They were well-known in the area, and when one particularly vitriolic man recognized her on the sidewalk, he wanted to spew an epithet at her, but was at a loss as to what to call a white lesbian.  ”You– you– you damned faggot!” he told her. “You damned n****r!”  Tough as nails, she wasn’t fazed. But she was bemused by what happened in his mind. And careful to point out that he went to the place where all his hate resided.  It mattered not that she wasn’t a gay man, or that she was white.  His hate, in that moment, felt all the same to him.

I was struck by the profound, but simple notion that hate is all about the hater. The object really doesn’t matter–doesn’t matter in the sense that it’s interchangeable. John Bradford’s phrase, “there but for the grace of God” go I, comes to mind. As LD so movingly reminded me, none of us are immune to the hater’s short view:

Our multiplicity, the utterly inextricable, tight weave of the various parts of our selves ramifies in every direction. We are able-bodied until we are disabled; we are young until we are old; we are free of tragedy and hardship until we are struck with them.

A shift in economic position, a religious conviction, a post written, a person befriended, a left turn into a different state, a marriage or divorce, the simple act of existence–any of these or countless other facts may now or might one day draw the ire of the hater. For surely, a hater seeking something to hate will always find it.

Describing the end of her visit, Polly wrote:

The beloved and I stayed hours later than we planned, talking to the Hensens past sundown.  And as we drove back to our friends in New Orleans that night, in our city-slicker Honda with the out-of-state license plates and the rainbow sticker, we looked at each pair of headlights in the rear view mirror with a keen attentiveness.  Scared, because of stories we’d just heard (particularly of rage at the “element” from outside the area that Camp Sister Spirit had drawn).  But also grateful, frankly, for the lives of ease we were driving back to.

Yes, all lives of ease are easy right up until they come into the headlights of hate. As I wrote to Polly, reading this post partly made me want to phone up and personally apologize to countless folks who’ve been the recipients of fellow “believers” and countrymen gone awry. No, gone awry doesn’t really cover it. I suppose I truly mean those who’ve made me cringe, who I think have misrepresented the Jesus I follow, those who have done wrong in the name of right. But, I must admit that desire at it’s core is self-centered. It seeks to distance myself for the sake of myself, which is probably ok on some level, but, frankly is too small a viewpoint. It’s a viewpoint I’m not sure we can afford in this world of passionate intensity. While it may surpass the lack of conviction of the “best”, it doesn’t reach the extraordinary requirements of matching hate with equal love and a little more love to tip the balance. I’m working on that.

Please read the post in its entirety: “The worst are full of passionate intensity” I’m not doing it justice.