Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

Poetry in the Global Age 2012

In a global world marked by uncertainties, belief in the human spirit is needed. This poetry can give.

However, it should not be merely a lyrical protest with the aim to cover up places of silence, but support a new kind of world governance fore mostly through culture. To this poetry can give practical wisdom and ethical vision, while inspiring people to seek the dialogue with the other. Poetry does this best when working through the complexities of life while heeding even small things, like the question of a child.

Even though Virgil made poetry into a myth he created under official contract to uphold the Roman state, Homer showed a real difference. Poetry is a real measure for man if expressed in all freedom from state and political structures, and gives to people the self confidence they need to cope with changes.

In that sense, poetry has become over time most subtle, sensitive to details and subjective in outlook even while wishing to claim the greatest possible objectivity. This every poem does when referring to man and the situation in the world.

When speaking about a world under pressure of globalization, then asked for is a special knowledge on how to escape all the contradictory forces which can converge at one and the same location to exploit it like sharks which attack a piece of meat thrown into the sea. If poetry is to show a way into the future, and this despite all uncertainties, then the logos of feelings and of honest thoughts must manifest themselves again. Some truth has to be found if humanity is to move ahead instead of bleeding to death. Indeed, every poem can become a small tribute feeding the stream of humanity. It makes a difference if people begin to address each other in a most poetic way, for that makes possible what Marx had called 'human self-consciousness'.

When 'Poets against war' together with Sam Hamill started to publish one poem a day, it inspired many to step out of silence and face ever more openly the situation they were living and experiencing at that time, namely that after 9/11, there came first the new war in Afghanistan, and then the invasion into Iraq in March 2003.

Conflict and war demands of poetry to create a new topos. As explained by Brendan Kennelly, poetry has to face both violence and the myths created around use of violence. For a long time, Ireland suffered civil strife since violence was viewed as a force of liberation. Oddly enough, this act of equating violence with liberation took place during First World War, that is when others like Paul Klee were horrified by war and all its destructive forces. The use of violence has continued in the Northern Ireland conflict. Brendan Kennelly in his ‘Cromwell poems’ shows what happens to children when bombs go off unexpectedly, as was so often the case in Northern Ireland. Violence reigned there until the Friday Agreement initiated a peace process, and still there is a lot of unease existing. For one, the work of redemption has to be based on truthful accounting, and, for another, remembering is not the same as the most difficult act of all: to forgive. This was attempted by the Polish bishop of Wroclaw when asking the Germans who had been ousted out of Breslau, now the city of Wroclaw, after 1945 ‘to forgive that one has to ask for forgiveness!’

Only by showing that innocence of life still exists not only in a child, but in all, poetry can then attempt to convince mankind to give up hate and violence. There has to be shown another way of dealing with conflicts. For instance, trust in the other can create new chances for dialogue, and thereby open up doors, as was the case in South Africa. After Nelson Mandela finally got out of jail, he freed in turn his former prison guards. He took even one of them to become a guard in the South African Parliament. Nelson believed always in the greatness in man.

For sure, trust is by no means self understood and very difficult to regain, once lost. One lesson learned in Belfast by photographer Kevin Cooper who worked in conflict zones, is that while it is easy to show conflicts and violent conflicts e.g. demonstrators battling the police, much more difficult is to show where human understanding begins to reveal itself in small details. This can be taking a photo from behind of two antagonistic persons who ended up standing side by side at a funeral, with the curious fact being that their hands nearly touch. These two men would six months later sign the Friday Peace Agreement. To see and to anticipate that certain prerequisites shall be fulfilled, so that the peace process can get going, is an art. This keen sense, more often observed in poems or photos taking on a poetic quality, seems to go before any human reason can prevail, in order to resolve conflicts under mutually agreed terms.

Pablo Neruda called his autobiography 'I confess to have lived'. Through his poetry he showed his meaning of love, and what contributes towards living consciously. Above all, it would entail not to grow afraid when confronting the forgetfulness in this world. News move fast on, and who shall remember the next day what the others have done. That applies for both positive and negative deeds, as if politics counts on a certain forgetfulness. Thus memory work matters, best practiced by staying in touch with the world and being oneself responsible as what happens in reality not merely around the corner, but in the entire world.

In that sense, poetry can give for the future the syntax needed for world governance. It shall be the one in which the human voice can be heard and in which the individual counts, and this despite all global pressures and forces ready to overrun any local space.

Poetry gives orientation, but it is a matter of knowing how to come to terms with human pain caused by the loss of love and human relationships. Pain exists because too often life is being 'dealt' with in the most arbitrary way. Such a loss reveals the frailty of human relationships. It brings people dangerously close to the cutting edge of success and failure. Insofar poetry is like a drama of shadow and light to show what does make a difference between life and death, it reflects as well a decision to be honest.

If drama and theatre reveal a world of rhetorical skills which underline critical stances despite censorship and suppression, then artists do live permanently in danger zones as Mike van Graan would say. Thus only the courageous ones express what is not allowed. Yet poetry has no other choice but to overcome this censorship. In so doing, poetry becomes a counter-force to globalization by articulating what can prevail in all corners of the world, namely love and humour. It frees the individual and lifts human conscience to a level of language others can understand, and therefore they can begin to share meanings more common than what often people feel or think. That is why poetry is also linked not only to the comm, but to a special sense. The sensitivity allows for another affinity to life. Once people feel themselves as being real and can begin to articulate clear thoughts, then by means of such poetic empowerment they can overcome the long shadows cast by power and fear, the two forces of imitation.

If anything, poetry is a kind of morality expressed in words and this free of any coercion. That makes the poem so powerful once free to seek lawfulness in life expressed best as being in tune with the world. Such a lyrical expression leaves no doubt about true thoughts and emotions reflecting honestly the state of affairs in this world. If Michael D. Higgins can say every poet knows when a poem is 'made', then this applies to the world as well. For everyone knows when peace prevails and practical reason forms the basis of collective decisions on how to distribute not only resources. For giving recognition is also setting free others to make use of their energies to create new possibilities to live and to work together.

Poetry shows that a syntax of freedom exists, but it has been experienced, and equally needs to be lived, before being really understood. Moreover it is well known that a prerequisite for finding the solution is to define clearly the problem. Given all the global pressures, a personal identity can be articulated, but this under great difficulties. There prevails a great deal of fear to have one's identity be annihilated by powerful forces. Some recommend to step completely outside the system, in order to make history at local level. Others contemplate if a place can give inspiration for a new visionary logic which entails all, and at the same time gurantees freedom of expression. Definitely if 'human dignity' is to prevail, human decency in politics is a critical prerequisite.

In short, globalization itself does not pose so much a threat to poetry, only fear.

Hatto Fischer

Athens 10.12.2012

 

^ Top

« Artists and self destruction - poetic portraits by Hatto Fischer | Women Scream »