{"id":64598,"date":"2015-10-05T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=64598"},"modified":"2015-10-03T18:34:30","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T17:34:30","slug":"poets-talk-pope-francis-masilo-marc-beaudin-et-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/10\/poets-talk-pope-francis-masilo-marc-beaudin-et-al\/","title":{"rendered":"Poets\u2019 Talk: Pope Francis, Masilo, Marc Beaudin, et. al."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is difficult
\nto get the news from poems
\nyet men die miserably every day
\nfor lack
\nof what is found there.\u201d<\/em>
\n–William Carlos Williams<\/p>\n

Intro: \u201cThings fall apart; the center cannot hold,\u201d Yeats wrote. People and events fly by us like shadows on a drunken night\u2014the Pope\u2019s \u201chistoric\u201d visit; followed by the UN\u2019s 70th<\/sup> anniversary collocation\u2014with all the bigwigs running, and pretending to run, the world\u2014making speeches, making excuses, threatening oblivion. Migrant-refugees overrunning Europe, escaping America\u2019s wars, and Russia bombs in Syria while \u201cbomb-bomb-Iran\u201d McCain demonizes Putin! The MSM is intent on bringing me the latest news about an election some 14 months away\u2014who\u2019s up, who\u2019s down, who\u2019s spinning around. Volkswagen fibs about emission standards and even the Pope says: Can we please get serious about air pollution? 50 Americans are shot in Chicago over the weekend\u2026and we wonder: Why do they hate us? The stock market implodes, US poverty explodes\u2026and nobody can contextualize\u2014put it all together, find patterns. Artists used to know, intuitively, that they were pattern-makers and code-decoders. What\u2019s the place, the function, of the artist in this frenetic world? Is there a place for what Wordsworth called \u201cthe philosophic mind\u201d\u2014the one who reflects, inquires, challenges, contemplates? \u201cByzantine Catholic\u201d poet-friend, Chuck Orloski, and I–one crying in the wilderness of doubts and shouts–do our best in an exchange of emails to stay the whirling Zeitgeist.–Gary Corseri<\/em><\/p>\n

PART ONE<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>How\u2019s it going? It has been a while!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Doing okay, managed to purchase a\u00a02006 Dodge Stratus which will help out very much.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>I’ll probably be looking for another vehicle next spring\u00a0(to replace my beloved 1995 Plymouth Voyager minivan–which I bought in 1998 (for about $7K), with about 67,000 miles on it and to which I’ve added about 80,000 miles in 17 years! (Frugality is my middle name!) How is your family?\u00a0[Here we exchange some personal info; then–] I was wondering if we could tete-a-tete<\/em> about the Pope\u2019s visit? I\u2019ve been inspired by his energy!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>He did, indeed, inspire! You know, a month after 9\/11, I read Reinhold Niebuhr’s complex and powerful book, Moral Man and Immoral Society\u2026.<\/em> A\u00a0<\/em>religious leader can certainly inspire people to live according to their world views, and I liked when Pope Francis referenced the American lives and works of\u00a0Catholics–Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. \u00a0Popes can encourage people to work for the social good, and if such is turned into mass action, positive political change can happen.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>I was also most impressed by his tributes to Day and Merton! \u00a0(Tribute to MLK was well-deserved and expected.) This Pope sets a very high example. \u00a0I hope he inspires many to reach higher in thoughts and deeds. \u00a0Alas, like St. Francis himself, he’s bound to have very few who can actually emulate him.<\/p>\n

CO<\/strong>: I don\u2019t expect to see many Western diplomats engage in the act of washing the feet of Moslem women\u2014unless, of course, they support the war on terror! A rabid idealist at heart, I wished Pope Francis would have mentioned the great contemporary work of Kathy Kelly.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>I did think about our good, open letter about his visiting with peace-activist (and \u201cjailbird\u201d) Kathy Kelly! \u00a0That would have been a much better visit than the one he granted to that Kentucky official who refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>I agree\u2026. He said and did some fine things, but there were contradictions, too.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>When I was a child, I was impressed with Pope John XXIII. I remember some wag writing then that that Pope had managed to move the Church out of the 13th<\/sup> Century and into the 15th<\/sup>!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>While we\u2019re dealing with omissions and contradictions\u2026 Can you tell me how John Boehner managed to wildly applaud during the insane Netanyahu address to Congress\u2026 and weep during Pope Francis’s?\u00a0\u00a0 Simple answer\u2026 hypocrisy?\u00a0\u00a0 I suppose it’s the old tried & true “cry with one eye” syndrome, and although I momentarily fell for Boehner’s tears and office resignation\u2026 well–forgive my deep cynicism–but,\u00a0I suppose he will not be staffing the food line in Dorothy Day’s “House of Hospitality.”<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>I’m sure he’s got a nice, fat Lobbyist position lined up for him!<\/p>\n

Hypocrisy has always been predominant in the US… and in the Western world! \u201cHypocrites\u201d seems to be one of Christ\u2019s favorite words; he rails against them often, throws the money-changers out of the Temple, etc. Frankly, I\u2019ve always thought he was killed because he was too troublesome to the \u201chypocrites\u201d!<\/p>\n

I did think the Pope hit a false note when he spoke about the \u201cAmericas\u201d as “a continent” of immigrants, but failed to mention the crimes against the indigenous people here while those “immigrants” (or invaders) were conquering this land!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Unfortunately,\u00a0most Roman Catholic thought, of which I’m aware, extols Columbus’s discoveries and conquests which led to the mass extermination of the American Indian.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>Definitely a fault against “Roman Catholic thought”!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Ten lashes upon me for using the term \u201cAmerican Indian\u201d?<\/p>\n

GC<\/strong>: Not from me! \u00a0A hundred from the PC-crowd!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Popes seem to look upon the South and North American ethnic cleansing undertaken by European Christians as something ordained by God!\u00a0\u00a0As an uneasy member of\u00a0Knights of Columbus,\u00a0<\/em>I am hoping there’s more to the heralded Roman Catholic “Discovery” legacy than simply kicking native butt and “moving on in” like the Jews did to Philistines in the O.T. and today what’s done in Palestine.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>Much more discussion needed on that! \u00a0Frankly, I always felt the Canaanites got a raw deal!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Returning to Reinhold\u00a0Niebuhr– he made an unforgettable case for individual moral acts of human beings. \u00a0While reading his\u00a0Moral Man, Immoral Society,\u00a0<\/em>I sensed that it’s actually quite immature to believe a government can herald a fair and just society. \u00a0Niebuhr\u00a0made a strong case for the inevitable corruption of all institutions,\u00a0<\/em>and, as a Byzantine Catholic, I find that the Vatican is not exempt from this calculus.<\/p>\n

Am I immature for expecting fairness, justice and peace in our world?\u00a0\u00a0 Were the departed like Teresa of Calcutta and Mahatma Gandhi foolish to live their lives distinguishably selfless and for others? \u00a0\u00a0 No! They are better than I!<\/p>\n

GC<\/strong>: I don’t think you’re immature for “expecting fairness, justice and peace in our world.” \u00a0Our world today is mostly led by immature morons, egoists, violent maniacs. They play on half-truths\u2026 and half-truths are the most difficult concepts to fight because they are malleable\u2026 and contain some truth! (Bald-faced lies are much easier to deal with!) So, surely, we should grieve for the situation of the millions of migrant-refugees from Syria or Mexico, but let us also recognize the plight of citizens of this country and others who fear loss of jobs, etc. If the \u201cMajor Powers\u201d are screwing up the lives of people in dependent countries like Syria and Mexico\u2026and those people hightail out\u2026 who is ultimately to blame?<\/p>\n

We need not compare ourselves to Teresa or Gandhi, btw. \u00a0Their circumstances were very different from ours. \u00a0Each of us can only do his\/her best within the niche we find ourselves. \u00a0We can only judge ourselves against our higher selves–the “better angels of our nature.”<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Decadent, propagandized, and “dumbed-down” America desperately needed Pope Francis’s presence and holy words. \u00a0Unfortunately this morning’s extremely popular New York\u00a0Daily News\u00a0<\/em>headline foolishly proclaimed, “Pope Shames Perv Priests!” \u00a0No doubt, and as you and I have often discussed, the American “free press” has become a colossal obstruction to promoting fairness, justice, and peace.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>I was not aware of that headline. \u00a0THE DAILY NEWS has long been best used for wrapping up dead, smelly fish and discarding! <\/strong>I often think about what William Carlos Williams wrote: \u201cIt is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.\u201d When you and I were college-age or grad students, the general public respected the Humanities– Literature, History, the Arts. In the land-grant institution I first attended, we\u2019d actually have \u201cbull sessions\u201d about Sartre\u2019s \u201cExistentialism\u201d\u2014man defines himself\u2026and all that! But now, the Mainstream Media defines us and confines us. Most people are Twittering their lives away\u2026and wondering where it\u2019s going\u2026.<\/p>\n

*************************<\/strong><\/p>\n

PART TWO<\/strong><\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Continuing then: You\u2019ve written before that you thought Pope Francis was in \u201cthe best of the Jesuit tradition.\u201d I agree that he\u2019s in that more reform-minded, challenging tradition. But, as always,\u00a0the hard work of putting faith into practice will be left to individuals like Kathy Kelly\u2014in our nation and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>Amen, bro!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Also, I should be clear: I do not compare either self or others to Gandhi and Teresa of Calcutta. \u00a0 Knowing their interior and “circumstances” were different, I simply make a point that\u00a0such people (as individuals) can give more to the lost cause of human justice.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>No doubt!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>A year ago, I read Mother Teresa’s 2009 book, “Come Be My Light: Private Reflections.” \u00a0 Teresa expressed serious problems and frustrations with the Church hierarchy in charge of her assignments\u2026. I found that even her expressed doubt(s) seemed superior to much of my (proud) beliefs! \u00a0 She acted singularly to bring love and practical care to the poorest of the poor. \u00a0 Judging on a scale made of flesh & bone–Tessie is definitely better than me!<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>I have often thought that Kathy Kelly is a better person than I am! \u00a0John Keats was a better poet by the time he died at 25 than I will probably ever be if I die at 98! \u00a0I still don’t think there’s much value in such comparisons\u2026.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>What’s more, after reading her testimony, it seems that Mother Teresa would have agreed with Niebuhr on the awesome power of individual morality as compared to that of often compromised institutions. \u00a0I do not know the quotation’s author, but one of my all-time favorite sayings is, “The only battle worth fighting is the one you know that you cannot win.\u201d<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>I don’t think I’ve heard that before\u2026. \u00a0But, I’ve often thought that real courage is about persisting knowledgeably<\/em> in a good cause even when the outcome of one’s efforts seems very uncertain. \u00a0(I think it’s important to stress the word “knowledgeably.” \u00a0Most “patriotism” stresses persistence or courage for the sake of one’s country or for a good cause because “that’s the mark of a man” or a valiant woman! \u00a0We honor “heroes” who are just “doing their job.” \u00a0The more unthinking, the better! \u00a0Lack of thought, lack of perspective and reflection has never seemed courageous to me!<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>Out of gas, maybe full of gas (?), I will stop on the topic of a 1977 war film, directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn–“The Iron Cross.”\u00a0 It involves brutal WW II action on the Eastern Front, and James Coburn plays a battle-hardened Soviet sergeant.\u00a0 As I recall, in the film, a soldier asked the sergeant if he believed in God.\u00a0 He contemplated and replied, “Yes, but God is a sadist… and he doesn’t know it.”\u00a0\u00a0 (Sigh)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It took a very long time for the Vatican to come to terms with “unbridled capitalism,” and perhaps a Pope will one day ask for forgiveness and admit a role in sadistic crimes against American “indigenous people.”
\nBTW, you wrote before that you had come across an African political poet whose work you wanted to share\u2026.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong><\/em>What I\u2019ve always liked about the Arts\u2014they give me pause, they put things into perspective. We get caught up in the moment and tend to think our crisis is the worst ever, but Homer, Tolstoy, Remarque and others remind us that the terrors of war have plagued the human soul for millennia. All of us can become migrant-refugees in a moment because of some weather-event, or a war, a plague, loss of livelihood, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n

The family of Rethabile Masilo were in danger in their native land in Africa. They emigrated when Rethabile was a teen. His younger brother didn\u2019t make it, though. <\/em><\/p>\n

The Boy Who Would Die<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Rethabile Masilo
\n~<\/em>for Motlatsi Masilo<\/p>\n

The bedroom was a shallow<\/em>
\n grave\u2014<\/em>
\n perhaps the opinion of the men<\/em>
\n who came,<\/em>
\n or of the wardrobe in that<\/em>
\n room in which a woman hid.<\/em><\/p>\n

In any case, there was a<\/em>
\n burial in that room;<\/em>
\n decked in bright pyjamas he<\/em>
\n slept<\/em>
\n as bullets hankered for the<\/em>
\n softness of his body<\/em>
\n and found the linoleum under<\/em>
\n the bed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Men he did not know<\/em>
\n in a house on a hill like a<\/em>
\n staircase\u2014<\/em>
\n from the grave you climbed to<\/em>
\n the sitting room<\/em>
\n whose Cyclops window looked at<\/em>
\n the world,<\/em>
\n the reason perhaps for such an<\/em>
\n act for which there was no wake,<\/em>
\n then further up to the<\/em>
\n tin-stove kitchen<\/em>
\n that stood above the rest, in<\/em>
\n which in winter<\/em>
\n we sang around a pot on the<\/em>
\n stove\u2014<\/em>
\n if not for the outhouse some<\/em>
\n metres into the hill<\/em>
\n the kitchen was the highest<\/em>
\n place of the house,<\/em>
\n the closest thing to heaven we<\/em>
\n had.<\/em>
\n No dog dared bark that night.<\/em>
\n We lived on that hill and it<\/em>
\n lived in us, in rocks<\/em>
\n carved out of boulders and<\/em>
\n chiselled<\/em>
\n into bricks by able hands of<\/em>
\n noble men.<\/em>
\n He died at the edge of his<\/em>
\n dream, a potted plant<\/em>
\n on a winter sill, aged three,<\/em>
\n died for us;<\/em>
\n and from then on all poems<\/em>
\n would end thus.<\/em><\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>I must admit to neither knowing the poem’s place nor epoch, and Masilo’s gift made such\u00a0knowledge unnecessary. \u00a0\u00a0 Nevertheless, the winter song and mourning around “a pot on the stove” (resulting in epiphany) is universal LANGUAGE!\u00a0 I’d surely like getting to know him!<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>The language is soft and hard\u2014as befits a child\u2019s world, but one disrupted by chaos and violence. I note, especially, \u201cbullets hankered\/ for the softness of his body\u201d\u2014the plosive \u201ck\u201d of \u201chankered\u201d mingling with the sibilance and liquids of \u201cbullets,\u201d \u201csoftness,\u201d \u201chis.\u201d<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>The poem’s beginning of a vulnerable boy (age 3) in a bedroom hit me rather hard. \u00a0 As an only child, mid-1950s, my Center Street home bedroom was paradise, certainly not the scene of a “shallow grave.” \u00a0 I have a Brownie Automatic picture which depicts the tousle of my brown hair & eyes peeping into a wall-based\u00a0Anderson\u00a0<\/em>window. \u00a0 In such place, and in contrast to Masilo’s bedroom (shallow grave) and murdered boy, no intruders could get to me; only bad dreams were perceived and perhaps discussed after my having survived imaginary terror.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>The poem has a soft luminosity about it\u2014an interior quality that invites us into that innocent, but dangerous, world. That\u2019s where we all live now! And \u201call poems\u2026 end thus.\u201d<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>In bright pajamas,\u00a0“He died at the edge of his dream.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Except for American children who do NOT live in project housing, perhaps city crack house, no one gets to hear an alarmed dog bark at night. \u00a0 Yes — too often children “die for us” and graceful warning poems must end this way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m impressed by the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s emphasis upon “family.”\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps a clean-living & self-centered family could spiritually gain from encounters (clashes) with others less fortunate? \u00a0 Maybe I’ve lived too long in a small & worried town, but whoever gathered around the stove pot in Masilo’s strong poem would get what I mean.<\/p>\n

GC: <\/strong>Blake said something about having to create his own myth, or being slave to another man\u2019s! I think Artists\u2014the best Artists (capital \u201cA\u201d Artists!) are always trying to do that! Too many people think of that as escapism. I think of it more as engagement with what is, what has been, and what may be.<\/p>\n

CO: <\/strong>I think, in a way, we\u2019ve been writing about that these past few days and nights\u2014the myths people live and die for, the worlds we create\u2026 and lose! In that regard, I send you this untitled poem by Marc Beaudin from his new book, Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals:<\/em><\/p>\n

The bus descends through the night
\ninto the bloodstained antiquity of the Southwest
\nI sleep fitfully, waking in the predawn glow
\nover red stone & cactus mesas<\/em><\/p>\n

America is only skin deep —<\/em>
\n the flesh of New Mexico is red<\/em>
\n One road ends & another begins<\/em>
\n as we roll into another myth<\/em>
\n that waits for a voice to speak it<\/em><\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Gary Corseri<\/strong> has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library, and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. He has published novels and collections of poetry, has taught in US public schools and prisons and in US and Japanese universities. His work has appeared at <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a> and hundreds of publications and websites worldwide. Contact: gary_corseri@comcast.net<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

For many years, Charles Orloski<\/strong> was a field-worker in environmental protection services. Currently, he drives a city school bus, good-shepherding children and others to their destinations. His articles and poems have appeared at <\/em>CounterPunch, LA Progressive, Countercurrents, Hollywood Progressive, Dissident Voice and elsewhere\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Born in Lesotho in 1961, Rethabile Masilo<\/strong> left his country with his parents and siblings to go into exile in 1980. He has lived in Kenya and the US, and has resided in France since 1987. He edits anthologies of poetry. <\/em>Things That Are Silent is the well-received book of his poems.<\/em><\/p>\n

Marc Beaudin<\/strong> is the Poetry Editor of <\/em>CounterPunch and the founding Artistic Director of Caldera Theater Company. His new book is <\/em>Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals. He believes the \u201cBrahms\u2019 Violin Concerto in D\u201d is more powerful than all the guns, smokestacks and coal trains in the world. More on his writing and theatre work can be found at CrowVoice.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artists used to know, intuitively, that they were pattern-makers and code-decoders. What\u2019s the place, the function, of the artist in this frenetic world? Is there a place for what Wordsworth called \u201cthe philosophic mind\u201d\u2014the one who reflects, inquires, challenges, contemplates?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}