What the F__k Are We Going To Do?
Yeah, I know the title is out of character. Those who know me recognize that I do not routinely use such language. I would bet you a large sum of money that the family members of the 17 murdered at Florida’s Douglas High School are thinking and speaking in these terms. Their grief is inconsolable, and will be life-long. Scapegoating the FBI, to demoralize and turn the organization into a “palace guard” just adds insult to injury. What are WE going to do?
I offer a few quotes from Standing by Words by Wendell Berry. Berry is an essayist, novelist, and a poet.
The weakening of narrative in poetry–may be one of the keys to what is wrong with us, both as poets and as people. It is indicative of a serous lack of interest, first, in action, and second, in responsible action. Muir said that the story, although it is our story, is disappearing from poetry. The old story..followed some figure–Odysseus, or Ruth, or King David–through time; and it remains the most pure image that we have of temporal life, tracing the journey that we shall take.
Our malaise, both in our art and in our lives, is that we have lost sight of the possibility of right or responsible action. Publicly, we have delegated our capacity to act to men who are capable of action only because they cannot think.
The shallowness of protest is in its negativity; it is also in the short-winded righteousness by which it condemns evils for which it accepts no responsibility.
In his protest, the contemporary poet is speaking publicly, but not as a spokesman; he is only an outraged citizen speaking at other citizens who do not know him, whom he does not know, and with whom he does not sympathize.
It may be that poets…can regain the great themes only by taking up again their old interest in action–by renewing the knowledge and meaning of actions known from the past and by considering the possibility of action now and in the future. Perhaps they will have to repudiate those purely negative actions by which we dissociate ourselves from other people. It is certain that there are better actions. There are actions worthy of the patience and work of whole lives–actions even, that no whole life can complete–that involve the lives of people in the lives of places and communities.
Want to express appreciation to my wife for the Standing By Words book. Where would I be without family and good friends to share resources with me?
