This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
Showing posts with label poetry in politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry in politics. Show all posts

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Fire dancing and the Names of Trees

For a Dia de los Muertos performance at Tlaquepaque in Sedona with the Sedona Sacred Circus fire troupe, of which Azami is a fire dancer. A trio began the poem acting like monkeys and wild animals until one discovered how to use fire, like the rest of the dancers and spun fire for the rest of the poem. Bradley Blalock, Vusi Shibambo and James Turner performed percussion with Jason Vargo on sound.

Kyle, Lynn and Azami of the Sedona Sacred Circus perform in Tlaquepaque for Dia de los Muertos.
The Names of Trees

before we named the trees
we feared the dark
ran from the shadows
monsters stalked us
in daytime’s tall grasses
and nighttime’s nightmares

we feared fire most of all
it ate the unnamed trees alive
its breath choked the beasts we hunted
we could not hold it
and could not fight it
just fear it

but one of us
The First of us
saw an infant spark
and treated it like a child
she learned to wield it
our first tool
brought it into the caves
and taught us not to fear
but use it
to chase away the monsters

fire is always the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment
by always changing
the flame never changes

with fire
we learned to control the shadows
we danced them onto cave walls
where we trapped the monsters in ocher and ash

we used the fire to keep the beasts away in the night
to cook the bounty gathered from the earth
and roast our meat from the day’s hunt

and with bellies full
in the glow of the fire
we learned language
around campfires
as our elders told stories
of their young days long passed
they told us the names of trees:
oak
ash
banyan
pine
bodhi
fir
palm
cedar
sugi
cypress
they spoke of the strong mothers who raised them
the great hunts of their brave fathers
how they leaned ways to teach us these things

they told us
of ancestors who had long since turned to bones
and were now dust
who had sprinkled themselves across the heavens
to watch over us
always
glowing in the dark
like flames in the night

when the fire in their own hearts
began to flicker
they asked us to built fires to mourn their death
help ascend their bodies
so they could watch over us from new stars
alongside their ancestors

around the fire
we learned to structure nouns and verbs
into rhythm and beat
rhyme and stanza
turning the articulation of breath
the staccato of consonants
the tone and pitch of air in living lungs
into the art of poetry
stories we could pass from generation to generation
long after the first lungs to hold them
were silent beneath the dirt
we still tell some of those stories
passing along the poetry
of heroes
who are no longer bones
no longer dust
but vapor in the wind

around the fire
we passed on what we had learned
to the children who would mourn us
consider these frail lifeless bones still sacred
because they once held them
in their infancy

long after our bones turned to dust
and the dust turned to vapor
and the vapor exhaled by something new
they would remember … us
in the stories around the fire

a ribbon of flesh and fire
tied us to the infant spark
that The First one of us
held without fear

fire is always the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment
by always changing
the flame never changes

it is consumption and combustion
a moment of reaction
between earth and air
the tangible and ethereal
in a spark of life
never the same from one second the next

nothing is eternal but change
so our civilizations learn to adapt
like tongues of flame
growing together or apart
rising and falling
expanding and shrinking
dancing in a campfire

we sometimes forget that lesson
so our empires defy it
our monuments stand against it
our great cities are abandoned
for new homes
Sumeria
is now just artifacts
Assyria
has become Scrabble word
31 dynasties ruled Egypt,
each falling to the next
the dream of Rome
became a dream again
the sun never set on the British Empire
until the day it did
and young America too
will grow old into history books
but the fire will still be the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment

even now
in the glow of digital screens
behind the wheel of combustion engines
or miles above the earth
in steel aircraft
or space stations
we are still mesmerized by the flame
we gather around fireplaces on holidays
remembering the ancient reasons for things
we light wax candles for dead loved ones
hoping whispered words
might rise to their ears in the heavens
where they watch us
alongside ancestors

we find ourselves
still captivated by campfires
staring into them
unable to look away sometimes
while we tell stories
just like we used to
when home
wasn’t made from stone and brick
or animal skins from last year’s hunt
but the warmest cave
on our nomadic trek
following the herds
teaching our children
the names of trees

some day
when we no longer fear the dark
a descendant of the flame that first warmed us
as we lay dreaming of stars
will help send a few of us
beyond the reach of Earth
never again to see this home
more will follow
using flickers of fire
to pass the boundaries
break the laws of gravity
that we will refuse to obey any longer
and sail across the night
unafraid of the monsters we left behind
trapped on cave walls beneath ocher and ash
they will make their homes
on marbles of every color
swirling in the dusty arms of space
and in the wildernesses of new worlds
they will name new trees
tell stories around campfires of ancestors
strong mothers
brave fathers

fire is always the same
because a flame is never the same
from moment to moment
by always changing
the flame never changes

some day
when “human”
means something else entirely
and whomever we become
sails on the winds of supernovas
finds no fear exploring black holes
the last place darkness can hide from us

they may communicate the poetry quasars and quarks
with the same beauty as verbs and nouns
but still stare at the surface of suns
and without explanation why
know the fire burning before them
is still wonderful to witness
because in the glimmer of a memory
dancing with the arithmetic of orbiting atoms
and the geometry of galaxies
they can feel something deep in their bones
tying them like a ribbon of flesh and flame across time
to a tiny world
whose name they have forgotten
or can no longer pronounce
and remember
somehow,
ancestors who wielded an infant spark
to no longer fear monsters or the dark
but listen around the first campfire
to poetry
and stories
and the names of trees

Saturday, August 18, 2012

"Oil Dealers & Deepwater Part II – Étouffée" redux


Part II – Étouffée


the last thing he remembered
was her étouffée
the way shrimp and chicken
could fall apart in his mouth
the texture of onion,
the soft burn of the bell pepper,
the crunch of celery
the way a drop of saffron
could flavor a whole meal
for a moment
after the alarm sounded
after the shock of fear subsided in his spine
he was there again
in her Baton Rouge kitchen
surrounded by the smell of her labors

he had seen a blowout on another rig
before BP
before Deepwater Horizon
everyone jumped to their posts
did their jobs
and when all was said and done
insurance wrote off the damage
and they thanked heaven no one got hurt

for a moment
he flashed back to that rig
hoped it would repeat

and as the rumble rose
his eyes dimmed
the world fell away from focus
and he could taste  her étouffée in his throat

the moment was too quick to prepare
he saw the faces of the men around him
he had seen them all today on the rig
they were 11 roughnecks who would go home
when the job was over
they were strangers before the rig
and they would be afterward
they always wanted to be forgettable
for a roughneck,
to have one’s name known
means you’ve fucked up
you screwed the boss’s daughter
you carelessly killed a man
or you died on a rig


they were 11 men
whose names would be remembered:
Jason Anderson
Aaron Dale Burkeen
Donald Clark
Stephen Curtis
Gordon Jones
Roy Wyatt Kemp
Karl Kleppinger
Blair Manuel
Dewey Revette
Shane Roshto
Adam Weise
no longer forgettable


when it came
the rip roar of steel and crude
swallowed in a sun
the last thing he remembered
was her étouffée
the last thought
was the smell of Cajun cooking
the feel of her arms around him
as the bowels of the earth
those billions of animals
compressed into oil
buried for millions of years
saw the sky again
released the rage of imprisonment
ignited into fire
rose into the sky
carried his disintegrated memories
with them
rising like steam
from a cooking pan
of her étouffée


the earth hemorrhaged billions of gallons
like a head wound
across the Gulf
to her, it was bloodstain


denied his body,
she collapsed
the first time she touched the oily surf
prayed that somewhere in the black crude
there was some drop of him
some molecule of her husband
the size of a saffron seed


after she walked home
barefoot from beach across the bayou
she refused to wash
the oil would fall away
but he would hold her
sink into her skin
flavor her like saffron
she has no gravesite to visit
but she can smell him in the kitchen
any time she cooks étouffée

Deepwater Horizona victims

Jason C. Anderson, 35, Midfield, Texas, father of two.
Aaron Dale Burkeen, 37, Philadelphia, Miss., married, father of two (14-year-old daughter Aryn and 6-year-old son Timothy), died four days before his 38th birthday.
Donald Clark, 49, Newellton, La., married to Sheila Clark.
Stephen Ray Curtis, 39, Georgetown, La., married and had two teenagers. Taught his son to hunt and play baseball and was active in his church.
Roy Wyatt Kemp, 27, Jonesville, La., married to Courtney Kemp.
Karl D. Kleppinger Jr., 38, Natchez, Miss., U.S. Army veteran of Operation Desert Storm, enjoyed NASCAR and cooking barbecue. Married with one son, Aaron.
Gordon L. Jones, 28, Baton Rouge. Wife Michelle Jones was nine months pregnant with their second son when he died.
Keith Blair Manuel, 56, Gonzales, La., father of three (Kelli Taquino, Jessica Manchester and Ashley Jo Manuel). Engaged to Melinda Becnel. Had season tickets to Louisiana State University baseball and football games.
Dewey A. Revette, 48, State Line, Miss., married with two daughters. Had been with Transocean for 29 years.
Shane M. Roshto, 22, Liberty, Miss., married to Natalie Roshto, father of 3-year-old Blain Michael.
Adam Weise, 24, Yorktown, Texas. During time off, the former high school football star spent time with his girlfriend, hunted deer and fished from his boat.

Oil Dealers & Deep Water Part I - redux

Part I – Oil Dealers*

drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



used to have our own,
but never enough
I found some pure stuff
bought it cheap
right next door
who knew the neighbor was a dealer?
had to go under the water
not so easy and finding it in the dirt
but don’t matter none
once it goes in
you don’t think about where it came from



got it pure and cheap
got it from B.P.
always trust a Limey, I say
they talk like us and don’t do no wrong



drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



we don’t trust the Saudi dealer anymore
he’s got too many issues
beats his wife for speaking out
little brothers always bitchin’
’bout how we smack ’em around
Saudi thinks we like him
but we won’t even know his name
if he didn’t have any



his crew don’t trust us none
last time we went there
one o’ them ragheads
left us with a bloody lip
knocked over a few towers in our neighborhood
but we done fucked him up good



we only go to the Saudi for this junk
when we’re desperate
— and when we’re armed, rollin’ with our boys
got to show ’em who’s boss
if you want a fair deal



had some homegrown
but it’s gone bunk
always need more
if we’re going to make it ride
and if it runs out
we still got the Saudi
he’s eager to deal
if he don’t sell to the Chinaman first
but if he do
we’ll just go back with bigger guns
bleed him dry till he’s done
maybe go visit the Chinaman
sure, he packs heat
and rides with his boys
but I think we can take him
We’re ’Mericans,
and we don’t take no shit
John Wayne wasn’t no pussy
we're bad motherfuck'rs



drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



spill a little, no big deal
always more where this came from
if you lose control
let it flow, let it burn
give Mother Nature a facial
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none

*All BP satire logos from www.logomyway.com

Saturday, November 19, 2011

America's First, and Best, Slam Poem: A Poetical Analysis of Abraham Lincoln’s "Gettysburg Address"

America's First, and Best, Slam Poem:
An Analysis of the Abraham Lincoln’s Poem "The Gettysburg Address"

Overview
President Abraham Lincoln wrote and delivered
the Gettysburg address on Nov. 19, 1863.
The Gettysburg Address was delivered by President Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Penn., on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 19, 1863, during the American Civil War, four and a half months after the Union armies defeated the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg.

What made the speech immediately notable was its brevity — 10 sentences and 271 words — Lincoln spoke for fewer than three minutes. Coincidentally, the Gettysburg Address could qualify as a slam poem.

The address is rich with allusions to the Bible and the Declaration of Independence and filled with poetic and rhetorical constructs so that it is more of a poem than a political speech. While the address contains a political aim, mainly that of preserving the Union, it served as a stirring and moving speech that could metaphorically speak for all the dead soldiers in the war.

The war served as a brutal purification, an inevitable struggle to rectify the major error made by the Founding Fathers: in a nation where all men are created equal, how can one man be another man’s slave?

For 87 years, slavery divided the nation politically until the civil war divided it militarily. The war purged the nation of this crime, allowing it to be reborn at Gettysburg.

Background
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee
The American Civil War began in 1861 with South Carolina rebellious forces firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. By 1863, the war was stumbling forward without many gains in the east, although Union forces in the west fared better. 

After the Union announced an official blockade of Southern ports, foreign powers began to recognize the Confederacy as a "belligerent" in the Civil War, the British Empire on May 13, 1861, the Spanish Empire on June 17 and the ethnically Portuguese Dom Pedro II of the Empire of Brazil on Aug. 1.

Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia invaded Pennsylvania in 1863 to seize a major city, Harrisburg, or even Philadelphia to bring Lincoln and the North to the negotiating table. Had the gambit succeeded, politicians in Great Britain and France may have recognized the South as a sovereign power in North America rather than as a belligerent power or an internal rebellion.

However, Union Gen. Gordon Meade and his Army of the Potomac defeated Lee at the Battle Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), which marked the turning point of the war and the beginning of the slow demise of Lee’s forces and the South with it.

Union Gen. George Gordon Meade
Although the war dragged on until 1865, the battle and Gen. George Pickett’s failed infantry charge on the third day of Gettysburg marked the psychological end of the Confederacy.

What made Lincoln’s speech culturally significant in terms of the war itself was that there were no specific mentions of the battle itself, nor its location, nor the commanders. The “generic” nature of the speech could honestly have been spoken over any battlefield at any time during the war without having to change a word.

The fact that the address was spoken after the most significant battle of the war — a fact no one at the time could have known until after the war’s conclusion — coincidentally adds to its political importance in American history.

The schedule of the day
The official schedule of events on that date included:
Music, by Birgfield’s Band
Prayer, by the Rev. T.H. Stockton
Music, by the United States Marine Corps Band
Oration, by Edward Everett (Former Massachusetts Whig party representative [1825-35] governor [1836-1840] secretary of state under president Millard Fillmore [1852-53], U.S. senator [1853-54], and educator). By many scholars at the time, Everett was considered the nation's greatest orator.
Music, Hymn composed by B.B. French
Dedicatory Remarks, by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
Dirge, sung by a choir selected for the occasion
Benediction, by Rev. H.L. Baugher, D.D

Edward Everett
In the 1850s and 1860s, American oratory was at its modern peak. Everett was invited to give the main speech at the dedication at the cemetery on Sept. 23, 1863. Everett reportedly told the organizing committee that he would be unable to prepare an appropriate speech in such a short period of time, and requested a postponement. The committee agreed and the dedication was postponed until Nov.19.

David Wills, the president of the committee, asked Lincoln to make a "few appropriate remarks," almost as an afterthought.

The 1860 presidential election was divisive. Everett ran as vice presidential candidate against Lincoln.

Republican Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois, ran with Hannibal Hamlin, taking 180 electoral votes, 18 states and 1,865,908 (39.8%) votes.

Lincoln defeated three other tickets: Northern Democratic candidate Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, running with Herschel Vespasian Johnson, with 12 electoral votes and 1,380,202 (29.5%) votes, the Southern Democratic candidate John C. Breckinridge, from Kentucky, running with Joseph Lane, who won 72 electoral votes, 11 states, and 848,019 (18.1%) voters; and the Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, of Tennessee, running with Edward Everett, who won 39 electoral votes, 12 states, 590,901 (12.6%) votes. 

Still a Northerner, Everett was a political contemporary who carried as much weight as a political figure on the national scene as Lincoln did. His Constitutional Union Party had a simple platform based on compromise over slavery or its expansion into the territories, valuing union over potential succession if an anti-slavery ticket was elected.

Everett spoke for two hours. Contemporary reports praised his oration, which was peppered with classical references and interrupted by applause.

Lincoln's two-minute follow-up speech, however, become one of the most famous speeches in the history of the United States.

Lincoln invoked the principles of human equality espoused by the Declaration of Independence and redefined the Civil War as a struggle not merely for the Union of the American states, but as “a new birth of freedom” that would bring true equality.

Everett’s speech was the day’s planned “Gettysburg address.” His 13,607-word oration began:

Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from the labors of the waning year, the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering before us, the graves of our brethren beneath our feet, it is with hesitation that I raise my poor voice to break the eloquent silence of God and Nature. But the duty to which you have called me must be performed; — grant me, I pray you, your indulgence and your sympathy.

And ended with:

But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that wheresoever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg.

Although deemed brilliant by those in the crowd and contemporary journalists, Everett’s speech is now rarely read in favor by Lincoln’s shorter and more poetic speech.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


Thematic analysis
Lincoln employed many rhetorical devices in his artistry with words, but his mature speeches are especially characterized by:
· grammatical parallelism
· antithesis
· alliteration
· repetition
He would use all four strategies in his Nov. 19 address.
Notably, the voice in the Gettysburg Address is not a first-person singular individual. The address is full of first-person references, but everyone is plural. Ten times Lincoln uses the plural “we,” and three times “us.” The “speaker” is, in effect, Americans and Unionists, not the president. 

Without naming the South or the Confederates, the speech makes no reference of the rebels as enemies. Their dead are not omitted from the speech, as though Southerns could look back after the abolition of slavery on the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War and the address as a dedication to their dead as well, the cost in blood had to be paid to remake a free nation.

The sheer coincidence of the battle's cost — estimated at just over 23,000 on each side seemingly suggests both sides paid almost equally, rather than a rout like Fredericksburg the first and second battles of Bull Run, or the bloodbaths Union Gen. Ulysses S Grant would use to win battles of attrition toward the end of the war.

First Paragraph
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.


Sets time and place to establish the scene and directly references the Declaration of Independence, considered a sacred document to both the Unionists of the North and Secessionists of the South. Confederates referred to the Civil War as the second war of independence.

“Four score and seven” was not a simple way to say 87. Lincoln was asking his audience to calculate backward to discover that the nation’s starting point was not the Constitution in 1787 nor the election of Gen. George Washington in 1789 as the first president, but the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and its sine qua non declaration of equality:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The main overt reference is the “all men are created equal” line in both.

Scores, i.e., 20 years, are also a shorthand way of measuring generations. While stating 87 years would have been felt an a long time to people whose life expectancy was an average of around 60 years, Lincoln’s reference shows that only a short time in human terms had passed; assuming that most people in the 1860s became parents in their late teens or early 20s, a 40-year-old listener or reader could have a grandparent who lived at the time of the county’s birth, a relatively short time, in which to create a new nation based on a social experiment in liberty and equality. The shortness of time also pointed to the fragility of the nation.

Poetically, the cadence began with two rhyming words: “four score.” The line also contains a rhythm of alliteration, “fathers … forth” and “new nation.”

The Hebrew cadence, rendered in Elizabethan English, would have been stated slowly: “Four . . . score.” The biblical ring of his opening words was rooted in Psalm 90: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years."

Lincoln never named verse or quoted directly from the Bible in his speeches, although he did do so in his Second Inaugural Address, when his speech included allusions to Matthew 18:7, Luke 17:1 and Psalm 19:9. Lincoln’s whole address was suffused with both biblical content and cadence.

Lincoln built the Gettysburg Address upon a structure of past, present, and future. The three parts of the speech, broken into their composite parts, relate a brief summation of history, a reflection on the current struggle and how the choices of the present dictate the future course.

Thematically, Lincoln started in the past by placing the battlefield at Gettysburg and the “insignificance” of the dedication in the context of American history. His opening words highlighted historical continuity. His biblical allusion accented permanence — keep in mind that the Bible was a not merely seen as an unassailable document, but the wisdom of God and God’s chosen people passed on to believers, a concept most Americans accepted without question — while noting that the continuity of the United States had surpassed the biblical time frame of life and death, in turn making the United States and its constitution a sacred document ordained by God as part of a divine plan for both Americans specifically and humanity in general.

In speaking of “our fathers,” Lincoln invoked the common heritage of the Founding Fathers for both Northerners and Southerners. At the same time identified himself, not with the “leaders of the American people,” but with his audience as children of their great experiment.
The trajectory of the crucial, first sentence underscored the timeless American truth that “all men are created equal,” which, although had been controversial among the landed leaders of the republic in 1776, had been accepted as common fact by the 1860s.

Whether a man — women and blacks still had no voting rights in most electorates — owned thousands of acres or merely worked a farm as a hired hand, in the American social landscape, they were equal both before the law as they were before God. All white men had been given the right to vote regardless of property ownership beginning in 1820 and by 1850, this right was almost universal. Free blacks in the North also had sufferage. When Lincoln reaffirmed this truth he asserted that the war was about both liberty and union.

Lincoln began by invoking the Declaration of Independence, but his use of the word “proposition” — theory — spoke to a different certainty than Thomas Jefferson’s “truths,” which were “self-evident.” Through the address, Lincoln emphasized at Gettysburg that the United States was not a completed entity at the time of the Declaration, but still an experiment still in process. He implied through “proposition” that Jefferson’s language had to be proved as fact through the country’s minor and major struggles. The Civil War and Gettysburg specifically were tests of that proposition, tests which had to be overcome to prove them as true as Jefferson had “theorized” with the Declaration. Because of the war, Lincoln had understood the fragility of the Union and sought to expose them through the architecture of his speech.

“Proposition” was the turning point of the speech wherein Lincoln shifted his from past ideas to present realities.

Second paragraph
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

The first line of the second paragraph establishes the moment of the speech in its precise political context. At the beginning of the body of his address he used two perfect parallels: “that nation so conceived” and “any nation so dedicated.”

Lincoln directly references the aforementioned “proposition as being tested by “a great civil war.” Its success or failure, i.e., reunification or division after the war, will prove or disprove Jefferson's proposal.

As Lincoln spoke about the dimensions of the past, he constructed the content of his political purposes by repeating key words: “great civil war,” “great battlefield,” “so dedicated,” and “come to dedicate.” Lincoln’s use of repetition allowed him to underscore his rhetorical purpose.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

The funerary oration has longstanding tradition. Funerary orations date back to ancient Greece, one of the best known is Pericles’ Funeral Oration spoken in 410 B.C.E. during the Peloponnesian War and recorded in Thucydides’ (460-395 B.C.E.) “History of the Peloponnesian War.

Pericles's speech acknowledges Athens’ predecessors: "I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honor of the first mention on an occasion like the present"; then praises Athens’ commitment to democracy: "If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences"; honors the dead and their sacrifices, "Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonor, but met danger face to face"; and turns to the living to continue the struggle: "You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue."

Later accounts of Lincoln’s life strongly suggest that he had not read that part of Thucydides’ history. Battlefield dedications have been visited by leaders throughout history. Lincoln's statement that he, as the nation’s leader, should perform this duty was more of an accepted fact among the political leaders of the time. The unusual nature of this specific dedication was that it was happening during active wartime and the battle had happened so recently.
Another point was that Everett, as a classicist, not Lincoln, would have been more likely to impart Pericles’ sentiments. Lincoln’s references lean toward Biblical ones, as his speeches often drew on scripture for allusions.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

The line establishes the justification for the audience to be at the event, while the following sentence immediately contradicts the importance by shifting the emphasis on the dead.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground.

His words, “But in a larger sense,” were his clue to the audience that he was about to expand the parameters of his intentions. He was announcing his purpose to speak to a “larger” subject.

Stating the negative “but” served to first prepare the audience to agree with his evocation of what each person in the audience could do, both following the speech, in the larger scope of the war, and in the larger sense of America’s history years and decades after the war became just a memory. These three parallel clauses focused on the present space: “this ground.”

The importance of “hallow”
"... We can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow ..."

What is most notable in a poetic sense is the use of two Latinate root words, — “consecrate” and “dedicate” — contained in parallel with a distinctly English root, “hallow.”

Most native English speakers invariably attribute more weight to words with inherent “Englishness” to them, be they original words, imported word with an “English sound” or more recent portmanteaus. The structure of the English language was slowly re-ordered and restructured after the Norman invasion of 1066 by using a Latinate languages, specifically French, but the lexicon of English remained based with the roots of Old English.

As a linguistic aside, for instance, veal, beef, venison and poultry are the common names for prepared dishes, names imported from the Norman French, whose French-speaking lords dined on meat from animals tended to by Old English-speaking farmers who used the words calves, cows, deer, ducks, chickens and turkeys. Playwrights and poets, such William Shakespeare and his contemporaries, often used this fact to make characters seem “lower” on the social strata by having them speak more “English” words while kings and nobles spoke with more Latinate-root words.

Lincoln used this linguistic abnormality as a parallel. While “consecrate” and “dedicate” are synonyms, “hallow” carries more weight because it is more “English” and more “emotionally sincere” for the mood. The structure of the sentence itself subtly suggests that Lincoln is perhaps searching for the “right” word for the moment. “Consecrate” and “dedicate” are not sufficient, but as he hits on the third word, it seems as though he has found the exact word for the moment, one that “consecrate” and “dedicate” are too formal, too lofty, too unemotional to properly express the emotional mood. It also seems as though Lincoln is actively thinking of synonyms to properly express his emotional connection to his duty, a scratching out “consecrate” and “dedicate” before committing to “hallow.”

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

Note that the audience of the speech is at the event to consecrate the battlefield, but trivialized by the actions of those who died on the field. Coincidentally, this is also the theme of Pericles’ funeral oration, which draws the comparison.

At this point, Lincoln employed a dramatic antithesis. He contrasted “the brave men” with “our poor power.” He simultaneously framed “living and dead” at the beginning of the sentence, and “add or detract” at the end of the sentence, in another parallelism.

The Final Paragraph
In the last three sentences of the address, Lincoln shifted the focus a final time. In the architecture of his address, Lincoln had recalled the past and what the nation did at its beginning, recited what the soldiers did in the near present, and now prepared to open out the future and speak to the responsibility of the listeners.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

The line trivializes his own importance while again adding to the emphasis of the dead.
Lincoln pointed away from words to deeds. He contrasts “what we say here” with “what they did here” in another antithesis. Lincoln also speaks in the plural, which places his identity among the audience, not as the leaders of the nation or speakers at the event.

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here ...."
The irony is that Gettysburg Address is engraved in stone on the
south wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Of course the irony is that Gettysburg Address is engraved in stone on the south wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

The initial words of the sentence achieved energy from contrasts: “It is for us the living,” contrasted with “those who gave their lives here”; “the unfinished work which they who fought here,” was an invitation to finish the work.

The line continues to empowers the audience to take inspiration from the deeds of the dead and continue the struggle for union.
Although the “work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced,” Lincoln’s subtle point is that the dead gave all they had but can go no further. The emphasis shifts from what they did to the audience to continue to struggle with all they have — that is the true way, Lincoln argues, to honor their sacrifice, not simply in winning the war, but in rebuilding the nation in the Declaration of Independence's proposed vision afterward.

Last line
Lincoln’s closing sentience, in a speech ironically known for its brevity, is a long, complex sentence of 82 words.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion —

This part of the sentence emphasizes the passion of the dead to have fought and died for a mere cause. Lincoln continued repetition: “to be dedicated we take increased devotion,” and “to be here dedicated the last full measure of devotion.” His repetition rhetorically reiterated the accountability of the audience.

“Dedicate” and “devotion” are both religious words which conjured the call to commitment in the revival services of the Second Great Awakening and in the churches Lincoln attended in Washington during the war.

“The last full measure of devotion” is far more poetic than simply “death,”as it immediately, eloquently and metaphorically postulates that the dead died for a purpose, struggling toward a goal which they failed to reach but which we must continue to pursue. Lincoln seems to suggest that the died knew their purpose was not to take a hill or prevent a charge, but to reunite the nation and remake the country as it should have been, almost as though the soldiers had heard the Gettysburg Address before the battle and knew the costs they would have to pay.

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom —

Note the use of “in vain” which in the context of “under God” has Biblical implications. The line “under God” is only found in three of the five original manuscripts, but in neither of the two first drafts. Lincoln most likely used the second draft at the speech itself. The other three manuscripts were written later at the request of contemporary historians and “under God” may have been added even though it was not spoken at Gettysburg.

Regardless of the reference, poetically, “under God” continues the theme of past and future.
Lincoln felt the United States and its special place as the birth of democracy had both religious and political parents. He consistently invoked God in most of his major speeches as president.

“Under God” also aims at the future in “shall have a new birth of freedom.” Without the twin guidance of God and the liberty and unity of the nation, Lincoln argues that freedom isn’t possible. In the first years of the Civil War, Lincoln found himself wrestling in new ways with the purposes of God in history. The death of so many soldiers brought him face to face with the meaning of life.

“A new birth of freedom” was layered with political and religious definitions.

The metaphor first contrasts with the old. The “new birth” which emerged in the context of the war and Lincoln’s leadership meant at Gettysburg he was no longer defending an old Union, like he did in his First Inaugural Address in 1861, but proclaiming a new Union. The old Union tried to deal with the hypocrisy of slavery and the ideal that “all men are created equal” by ignoring slavery in the interest of national unity and survival. Now with the country at war, maintaining that duality was politically pointless and metaphorically dead as it hadn’t keep the country together peacefully, but driven it to civil war. Lincoln was declaring that the new Union would fulfill the Jefferson’s promise of liberty for all, the crucial step the founders were too afraid to take in 1776.

The “new birth” in Christianity and evangelical movements was a spiritual birth made by the choice of the believer. In essence, through the horrors of war the United States is “born again” as it should have been. In this context, the cost to make an America a nation of liberty and equality was paid at Gettysburg in 1863 not Lexington and Concord in 1776 nor at Yorktown in 1781.

The “new birth” was a paradox in both politics and religion. Lincoln and scholars since had come to see the Civil War as a ritual of purification. The old Union had to die just as the old man had to die. In death there was preparation for a new Union and a new humanity.

and that government
of the people,
by the people,
for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people,” is a perfectly parallel structure that essentially sums up the American democracy in 10 words. These 10 words have been used by Americans and American politicians ever since as the justification for the United States’ existence and the moral rightness in its cause — the inherent "rightness" of representative democracy.

It also forms an if-then summary conclusion for the entire address: If we honor the dead here by fighting to preserve the union at all costs, like they did, and if we ensure liberty for all, our experiment — then democracy — will be born again — in the way it should have been, without slavery — and never die.

While it inspires certain inevitability in victory and immortality in the United States as a nation, the use of a negative in the last line demonstrates the threat of annihilation if they fail. Lincoln was putting fate of the war in his listeners’ hands. They weren’t putting down a small rebellion that could have been won or lost with little consequence — they were fighting for their very survival. The grand experiment of representative democracy, universal liberty and the nation’s existence were on the line.

In peacetime, Lincoln could said “will live forever,” or “flourish for all time,” but the struggle of the Civil War put the importance on victory. If the Union failed to defeat the Confederacy, the United States could have Balkanized and broken up over time, so the use of “shall not perish” implied that the nation was potentially on its deathbed.

Lincoln’s opposition to slavery was not overtly stated in the address. In his 1860 presidential campaign, he was willing to accept slavery for the sake of union. However, as the Civil War became less of a issue of a state’s right to secede and more about liberty and freedom of all the country’s citizens, Lincoln turned his attention toward emancipation, in as much as its morality as its ability to hurt a rebellious South. In 1862, after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect in January 1863.
In turning the war against an political contention and into a issue of morality, he galvanized the North and drummed up support for the effort on moral grounds, even as the war was stalled.

Although the wording of “Government of the people, by the people, for the people,” was Lincoln’s, the sentiment was not.

Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon had given him sermons of abolitionist minister Theodore Parker, who had written in “The Effect of Slavery on the American People:” “Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people,” a line which Parker later wrote Lincoln had especially liked. Lincoln pared the wording down to its constituent words into a more succinct and poetic rendition.

In the immediate aftermath of the speech, Lincoln was uncertain about how it was received. He reportedly turned to another person on the platform and commented, in effect, that the speech fell on its face. Journalists were mixed, some complaining the the speech was too short, so short they had thought the address was only an opening remark before a larger and more political speech. Other journalists commented on its poetry, eloquence and brilliance. The address has become one of the best known, most repeated, and beloved speeches in American history, so the latter group eventually won out.


As proof, Everett, the great orator, wrote a note to Lincoln the next day: "I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes."

Through the address, Lincoln created the idea of a unified nation in which states’ rights were subject to the rights of the nation as a whole. The issue of states' rights valued over national common good had were a determent to military capacity in the war.

The South, which placed the value of individual states over the central government of the Confederacy stayed true to this cause and often refused to allow their brigades and regiments to be commanded by colonels and generals from other states, which contributed to inefficiency in movement and on the battlefield, and the occasional military blunder.


The North, which valued union over all, didn't suffer from this single-mindedness. The North's blunders were due to the general incompetence of some of it's leaders alone.


After the war ended, the idea of national unity expressed in the address also contributed to a dramatic shift from provincial to national political identity.

No longer would citizens refer to themselves as a "Virginian in America" or a "New Yorker in America" but "an American from Virginia" or "an American from New York." Before the American Civil War and the Gettysburg Address, we were A united states of America, but afterward, we were The United States of America.

Monday, May 23, 2011

"Revolution 2.0 (We weep with you, Wael Ghonim)" audio recording

Revolution 2.0 by FoxThePoet
Revolution 2.0
By Christopher Fox Graham

type, type, send
type, type, send
the revolution begins not with a bang
but with a text message

Wael Ghonim on DreamTV, Egypt, on 9 February 2011.
we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
you did not sign a declaration
shoot a gun
nor take an assassin's bullet
you ran a Facebook page

Egyptian secret police held you blindfolded for 11 days
promised you would be buried nameless, anonymous


as a Facebook event,
your ghost of Khalid Said,
brought down a dictator

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
you unintentional revolutionary,
you sob as the names of boys fallen
crawl across the bottom of the screen
as Mona el-Shazly asks you to gaze up
swallow the Facebook images and off-kilter photographs
taken at parties
or late-night on-the-towns
images become epitaphs,
of boys like us
who before January 25
just watched girls pass
traded albums
downloaded music
called their mothers on thieir birthdays
and never thought their country
would ever be theirs

if we could stand with you, Wael Ghonim, we would
embrace you as man to man
wrap arms around you to hold you standing
convince you to believe us
that your hands are clean
your soul is unstained
the blood of brothers and sisters on them
wasn’t spilt by you
use it to paint flags
touch it to your childrens’ foreheads
and tell them “this was shed for you,
by men and women who gave more than we did,
it is why you now have a voice
why 'freedom' is more than a noun”

wash it off in the Nile
let it taste of the mother river
swim upstream to the sources
and down to the Delta
tell all of Egypt
from Luxor tombs
to pyramid shadows
to the library halls of Alexandria
that your country is free
shake the earth
so dead pharaohs wake trembling
and living tyrants flee from their thrones

Egyptian Christians protecting Egyptian Muslims from pro-Mubarak
counter-protestors during their prayers in Tahrir Square, Cairo, Feb. 10.
we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
we stood with you in Tahrir Square
we were the breath of bravery
you felt beside you
when the enemy rode in on camels
we stood beside you
five times a day
when you knelt to pray to Allah
we,
atheists, Christians, Buddhists
Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews
we watched your back
stood guard in silence
we were the ghosts you felt
assuring you the world was listening
we don’t know your prayers
but understood each word because
“freedom” never needs translation
it feels the same
no matter the shade or age of skin,

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
because your tears are too heavy for one man
let us carry them for you
permit us bear their weight
because we could not physically stand alongside you
allow us sing our lullabies in 1,000 languages to your children
let us tell them our words for "liberty"
so no matter where they travel
we have that in common

we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
because you are not alone
you never were

                  now,                 sleep,
guiltless

weightless

and free




Wael Ghonim is an Egyptian computer engineer and head of marketing of Google Middle East and North Africa who was living in the United Arab Emirates. He ran the Facebook page that organized the Jan25 movement to protest Egyptian President and dictator Hosni Mubarak. In January 2011, Ghonim persuaded Google to allow him to return to Egypt, citing a "personal problem." Planning only a six-day visit for the protest, he was captured by Mubarak's security forces and held blindfolded for 11 days and the protests swelled in Tahrir Square, Cairo. The day he was released, he appeared on a DreamTV program hosted by Mona el-Shazly.

On 9 February, Ghonim addressed the crowds in Tahrir Square, telling the protesters: "This is not the time for individuals, or parties, or movements. It's a time for all of us to say just one thing: Egypt above all."

On 11 February, Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned as president and transferred authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

"Where am I from?" by Stefan S. Sencerz


An earlier draft appeared in From Page to Stage and Back Again: The 2003 National Poetry Slam, ed. by Michael Salinger, Lucy Anderton and Regie Gibson (Wordsmith Press, 2004), pp. 20-21.

I first heard this moving poem at Southwest Shootout in Austin, Texas. To begin the poem, Stefan Sencerz instructed the crowd to phonetically pronounce the Polish tongue twister "Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie," and after we terribly repeated the finally assembled phrase, he said, "see how easy that was?" then proceeded to launch into the poem. It is best read while imagining it performed with an incredibly thick Polish accent.



"Where am I from?
By Stefan S. Sencerz

Over and over and over again
I great people with the usual "How are you?"
and hear "What's up? Where are you from?"

"Detroit," I say, for I spent four great years in Motown,
I left my heart in that town I found sunshine
on a cloudy day, I still root for the Pistons.

"I knew you were not from here,"
I heard in Texas where I live now
most of the time I meet with an incredulous stare
"Yeah! Right! Detroit?! Where are you really from??"

I ponder this question for the matter is serious,
feel like a beginner about to meet the Zen mind --

Where am I from, really, Who am I?
What was my face before my parents were born?
What is the sound of one hand?

I don't know. So I say, "I was born in Warsaw, Poland."
"Say something in Polish!" I hear and oblige
"Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie."

This sounds so weird that one can doubt it means anything, but it does:
Chrzaszcz is a scarab, a kind of beetle, "brzmi" means "resounds,"
"w" stands for "in" or "amongst," trzcina is a kind of reed,
and "Strzebrzeszyn" a name for a village.
A scarab resounds amongst reeds, in the village of Strzebrzeszyn.
Easy to say, if you are native,
some claim impossible, if Polish is your second language..

Whichg leads me to my father
it's Warsaw, 1943, the midst of the war
my father, an officer of Polish underground receives an order
to meet someone whom he had never seen before.
So they must identify each other, they exchange the password
greed each other with the usual

"Jak sie masz?"
"How are you?"
"Where are you from?"

"I am from Warsaw," my father says.
"Great," the guy continues, "I need to get some tobacco?"
"The best tobacconist is right here, right across the park,"
my father completes the password for now he knows
this is the right guy
the guy he was supposed to meet
and kill
a suspected Nazi spy.

They walk through the park.
My father pulls out a pistol, points at the guy
"You've been tried for treason , sentenced to death.
In the name of the Polskiej Rzezcpospolitej . . . "
And the guy says, "It's is some kind of mistake."
So my father says, it's no mistake, we have surveillance photos of you.
And the guy pulls out a photo of his young children
bursts into tears and swears upon their heads and the love of the virgin Mary
that he is innocent.
So, my father says, "Who are you, really? I need some proof!"
And the guy says, "Jestem Polakiem. I'm Polish."
"Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie w Strzebrzeszynie,"
fluently without any mistakes.
And my father
had mercy for him, and let him go.

Sometimes I wonder how could he trust him
burdened by his orders
burdened by the trust of his friends
what would I've done had I been there?
I don't know.
I never had to kill someone who looked straight into my eyes and cried.
I still do not know where I am really from.



Stefan S. Sencerz is professor of philosophy at Texas A&M in Corpus Cristi. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Rochester in 1992. He teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Foundations of Professional Ethics, Issues in Philosophy of Religion, Environmental Ethics, Eastern Spirituality and Western Thought, War, Terrorism & Ethics, Zen: Culture and Art and Philosophy & Science Fiction.

His published papers cover ethics and moral philosophy.

He published his first poem, "Writing a Poem," in ByLine magazine, issue 224, July/August 1999, and has since been published in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Freedom to Speak: National Poetry Slam 2002, and From Page to Stage and Back Again: The 2003 National Poetry Slam, di-verse-city; Anthology of Austin International Poetry Festival, 2004 (ed. Vicki Goldsberry ); a runner-up in the competition for The Christina Sergeyevna Award.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Oil Dealers and Deepwater, Part I

Part I – Oil Dealers*

drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



used to have our own,
but never enough
I found some pure stuff
bought it cheap
right next door
who knew the neighbor was a dealer?
had to go under the water
not so easy and finding it in the dirt
but don’t matter none
once it goes in
you don’t think about where it came from



got it pure and cheap
got it from B.P.
always trust a Limey, I say
they talk like us and don’t do no wrong



drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



we don’t trust the Saudi dealer anymore
he’s got too many issues
beats his wife for speaking out
little brothers always bitchin’
’bout how we smack ’em around
Saudi thinks we like him
but we won’t even know his name
if he didn’t have any



his crew don’t trust us none
last time we went there
one o’ them ragheads
left us with a bloody lip
knocked over a few towers in our neighborhood
but we done fucked him up good



we only go to the Saudi for this junk
when we’re desperate
— and when we’re armed, rollin’ with our boys
got to show ’em who’s boss
if you want a fair deal



had some homegrown
but it’s gone bunk
always need more
if we’re going to make it ride
and if it runs out
we still got the Saudi
he’s eager to deal
if he don’t sell to the Chinaman first
but if he do
we’ll just go back with bigger guns
bleed him dry till he’s done
maybe go visit the Chinaman
sure, he packs heat
and rides with his boys
but I think we can take him
We’re ’Mericans,
and we don’t take no shit
John Wayne wasn’t no pussy
we're bad motherfuck'rs



drive the needle deeper
we need this to fuel us
drive it deeper
till it hits
suck it out like Mother Nature
was givin’ a blowjob
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none



spill a little, no big deal
always more where this came from
if you lose control
let it flow, let it burn
give Mother Nature a facial
it hurts, yeah, but hurts more
when we don’t have none

*All BP satire logos from www.logomyway.com