Thursday, September 25, 2008
FlagSlam, Sept. 24
Manifest Destiny, a poet from Tempe, was the feature. He came up for GumptionFest earlier this month. He wound up staying for almost a week, mainly due to Lori-Ann Rella, Danielle Gervasio's cousin who was also here for the festival and stayed more than a week. She has since moved back to Sedona from New Jersey.
Manifest, Lori-Ann, Danielle Miller and I headed up to Flagstaff around 7:30 p.m.
SLAM:
Calibration
1) Random draw, 20 max.
Feature Teaser
Clearing
2) High-Low, top 7.
Feature
Scores
I had signed up with Jessica Guadarrama over the phone and pulled slot 17 of 19.
I was more nervous than I remember being in a long time. I hadn't slammed in almost a year and hadn't slammed in Flagstaff since summer 2006. I sat in half a dozen places trying to calm my nerves and get comfortable, but in the end, I had to throw up.
This wasn't just a slam. I was living up to a reputation. All the organizers knew me but hadn't seen me perform. Some of the older poets in the scene have an air of legend around us, even though we were just punk kids and are now just punk kids who look like adults. The room was all college kids, some were certainly in grade school the first time I hit a slam microphone almost eight years ago. I have slammed in Flagstaff perhaps 100 times, but because it's a college town, it's always new and fresh.
I'm also the winningist slam poet in Northern Arizona, simply because I've been in the scene as long as Christopher Lane. He hasn't slammed as much as I have because he usually hosted and removed himself from most competitions after Oren was born.
The only I poets I acknowledge as my superiors didn't stick around long: Nick Fox left after a year and Josh Fleming after two.
While Logan Phillips was a good challenger, he only slammed for four years. He's an Art Slammer, not a Craft Slammer, and art never beats craft in the long run. In a fair 10-poem head-to-head, my diversity of range and content would beat him. There's also too much hidden ego on his part, while mine is naked, which oddly makes it more sincere, less conceited, and more adapt to change with the times. He's a Niche Poet, not a Renaissance Poet.
Suzy La Follette has been the only poet who I think could beat me consistently, but she also left for Austin before we ever settled on who was the better poet. When she left, she was a great performer with many , but I never heard a tremendous range of diversity.
Many of the poets were angsty, others just angry. All in all, a typical college town slam.
It's funny how if you've been in slam long enough, you can ID poets before they speak. It seems like a person's physical build determines the kind of poetry they're going to do when they start in poetry slam.
The host, whose name I neglected to remember, asked me for a little bio before I spit. Among other things, when he said, "and he's been to Nationals four times," a kid of the right side of the audience exclaimed, "shit!" and I knew I had them.
I was the mic, cleansed, and hit with "We Call Him Papa." As soon I spoke, I was electric. No slips, no stutters, no pauses. I killed. I think I pulled 9.7, 9.8, 9.9, 10, 10.
I picked the poem because it is the most sincere piece in my repertoire. It also has such a dynamic voice, from near-whispers to shouts, and I wanted to show the young poets the importance of softer poetry and dynamic changes.
Manifest and Lori-Ann did a teaser poem after poet #19 and round two. It was great for a room full of white college kids to see a black poet perform. They need to see the range of diversity on poetry tangibly rather than theoretically through Def Poetry Jam or the occasional visit to Phoenix or other cities. I wish Flagstaff and Sedona had more poets of color. Flagstaff has Hispanic and occasional Navajo or Hopi poets, but black poets, Asian poets and foreign poets are few and far between. The demographics of the cities preclude those ethnicities from being large right now, but I wish they existed at all or that the demographics become more diverse.
As the top poet from round one, I went first, and hit with "Peach." It was a cheap ploy for scores, but I had to show my range as a performer and it was worth the move. It also established "Peach" as a memorable piece. With that poem out in the open, I'll be known for it in the future, as a form of brand identity.
I pulled a 9.5, 9.7, 9.8, 10, 10.
Lori-Ann and Manifest alternated the feature with her guitar and his poetry. She finished off the feature with two Johnny Cash-esque songs that had the audience clapping in rhythm.
For my victory, I read "My Father Hides in the Stars." I asked the audience to gaze up at the ceiling and pretend to see the stars, which I saw and heard, through the sounds from shifting chairs, they did. For some reason, I was shaking uncontrollably the whole time, due more to coffee and cigarettes than nerves.
I think the nervousness came from me realizing that I had to win. My reputation, not my ego was on the line. If I had been fluffed up so much and lost, how could I teach these young poets what I have to teach them? I'm the old man in the slam scene, the slammer who remembers the first FlagSlam at The Alley and all the trials and tribulations in the scene since the naive days of the first team. Nick Fox, Josh Fleming, Andy War Hall and Arek Dye are gone. Christopher Lane is a ghost who is in charge in name and pocketbook only. Besides, he rarely understood the struggle of the working poets, because he always wanted to earn his credit by leading, not fighting on the stage.
I simply had to win or I would have lost everything. I won by 0.7.
I plan to feature later next month.
Friday, September 12, 2008
An analysis of Abraham Lincoln’s poetic Gettysburg Address
President Abraham Lincoln wrote and delivered the Gettysburg address on Nov. 19, 1863. |
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 |
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 |
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”
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. |
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
GumptionFest music and poetry schedule
Bring merch for your slot. Be prepared for a mix of attentive audiences and wandering crowds. GumptionFest is a fluid arts festival.
Oak Creek Brewery
2050 Yavapai Drive
1 - Armand Mora & Friends
2 - Fusion Groovin'
3 - Robert Haas
4 - Kenzo
5 - Eva George
6 - Karl Jones
7 - Jake Payne
8 - Dirty Lingo
9 - Larry 4 Life
10 - The Tarantulas
11 - Hard Drive
12 - Sheer
The Underground Outdoor Stage
2050 Yavapai Drive, Suite 2A
1 - Denise Bennett
2 - Get It Wet
3 - Geoff Jackson
4 - John Robusto
5 - Lori Ann Rella
6 - OptimistiChaos
7 - Busker Eaton
8 - The Mighty Minstrels
9 - The GumptionFest Raffle, to benefit the future Barbara Antonsen Memorial Park
10 -
Creative Flooring/Devi Yoga Outdoor Stage
215 Coffee Pot Drive
12 - Connie Fisher
1 - Alex Ogburn
2 - Dave Harvey
3 - Eric Miller
4 -
5 - Naathan
6 - Ralph Illenberger
7 -
8 - Radio Dogma
9 -
lot.
GumptionFest 3
The Good, The Bad and The Gumption
Saturday, September 6, 2008
A celebration of local music, poetry, films and art
At venues along Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona, Arizona
Monday, September 1, 2008
Type Type Send
communicated into translators of T9
like U.N. ambassadors
transliterating the codes of our home countries
into global policy
each carrying more weight than
the digital characters they encapsulate
type, type, send
type, type, send
a new message in the Inbox
read at 55 miles per hour
or between classes
or minutes before deadline
the poets of this language
are the ones who choose to punctuate
the oft-overlooked colloquialisms
of “R U bizy 2nite”
into the proper grammatical structure
proper spelling still matters somewhere
AIM has the niche of brevity
with its lowbrow dialect
of “lol”, “rotfl” and “omfg” —
keep you emoticons from infecting our thumbs
the debate is as old as English
when Norman French filled manors with beef and veal
while fallen cynings tended the cattle and sheep outside
the high class thumb the seven keys for “through”
while the uninspired ignorant masses settle for “thru”
if the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. —
or MLK —
spoke today
the phrase, broadcasted into the phones of the crowd
would be that we are judged
by the content of our communications
type, type, send
type, type, send
our thumbs define us
much to the jealousy of our other eight digits
the exasperated index
the vainglorious bird
the self-important ring
and the naïve, wayward pinkie
that secretly plots and schemes
in hopes that an errant firecracker
or angry car door
will leave it as the sole articulator
the last tool to accuse in courtrooms
or scratch behind one’s ears
but none of the non-opposables
even united like a superhero foursome
can counter the voice of the thumb
they merely hold our phones like beds
while the outcast digit
the extremity intentionally uninvited to parties
articulates in an erotic tryst with keys
like lovers beneath dark sheets
sending our hopes and dreams to phones elsewhere
they, jealous and embittered
lean tightly against the battery
like guests next door in a seedy hotel
wondering what passions
can be seen on the other side
celibates envious that others can love so freely
forever uncertain how T9
rises from foreplay to climax to afterglow
between spent thumbs and their beloved keys
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Poets Needed for GumptionFest 3
1) This will give poets more freedom to see the rest of the festival as the only need to be at specific stages at their specific times.
2) It allows poets to come and go from the festival as they please. If you work late or work early, we can accommodate your schedule.
3) This offers multiple performance opportunities.
If you want to perform, give me a heads up. Poets will be welcome to show up and perform the day of GumptionFest, but these slots will fill up quickly. If I have a heads-up, I can save you a slot.
GumptionFest 3
The Good, The Bad and The Gumption
Saturday, September 6, 2008
A celebration of local music, poetry, films and art
At venues along Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona, Arizona
Friday, August 22, 2008
Swallow a Fistful of Dynamite
and I’ll swallow it whole
hold the blast deep in my belly
and explode words as sunlight
I’m dying in silence
so detonate my insides
and shake the world to the floor
the drink settles poison in my liver
wraps liquidity into between my cells
drowns the conversation between them
and the deafening paralyzes fingers
unable to speak
I plod through days
wondering why nothing brilliant happens
and minutes slip away into weeks and years
profundity has no place
when beer and booze
fuzzy the navel to the brain
erase the images of days
and leave me slumbering long after
dawn turns into day
I’m tired of the killing
clear the slate
become tabula rasa
and let the fingers do the talking
that they long to
when not holding a pint or a smoke
free the mind
bark down the noise of bullshit
and let the unimportant slide
we can become bodhisattvas
without knowing a lick of Sanskrit
the perfection of poetry
waits the measure of patience away
if I let inhibitions fade into mere vocabulary
and trust in my innards to resuscitate
the art inside waiting for the rest of me
to unlock the gate
and pour it out
spread the blood and ink
across the pages
dabble fingers in the mess
and pull out the beads
to rearrange what remains
into what should be
the banyan tree becomes whatever I choose
rest my feet beneath the keyboard
and meditate with digital characters
elucidating what needs illumination
not fretting about the details
or the perfect presentation and posture to earn a 10
those who need to understand will
and those who don’t will find their way
if they seek it
it took the open road
to find my way home back into me
the self I lost behind somewhere
between old houses and new
somewhere in the strife
I’d forgotten to become what I wanted to become
and fell down around lesser ones
it took 10,000 miles
to come home again
realize we’re not place or substance
we’re just the skin we hold
and what’s held in by skin
beyond that, it’s just this century’s tunics, sandals and leggings
and whatever false impressions we concoct
to make us worth more than we are
we’re scared to discover
we’re not that far away from single-named savanna migrants
trying to stay one step beyond the reaper’s grasp
the trappings of kingship, feudalism, cell phones and starships
paint pretty pageantries but don’t change the details
that we want to feed, fuck, and father something beautiful
before the hunter hunts us down to the ground
for the last time
knowing this isn’t the same
as comprehending it
and fearing it isn’t worthwhile either
awareness of our nature
removes the filth from our skin
so we can spend our time doing more
than watching the fluff
that takes up our time
I’ve always known this
but forget for years at time
suffering the amnesia brought about by the game
and I knew it was just game once
I saw it when I was too young to know
just thought the universe had a set of rules we’d learn
though no one acted right, like they’d learned them
and as a boy, I couldn’t comprehend
how people so much older … and taller than me
didn’t see the rulebook
the clarity came when they said I was “gifted”
through tests I didn’t understand
and still conjure mean more to others
than they ever should to me
they said I saw things clearer
and ignored the details that merely painted the walls
but didn’t change the house
everything looks different through my eyes, they said
and I understood
only when trying to live an adult life
with rules and regulations designed for people
who wouldn’t survive without them
the world looks different to me
than I think it does to others
there’s no way to tell, really,
but somehow, in the back corners of my mind
it makes sense they way it is
and nothing needs deciphering
life, death and the days between,
the mathematics of moments
equal an equation that it seems I only know
the variables drop to zero
with regular variation,
yet others seem to think mysticism will change the result
I haven’t the heart or care to correct them
because unstringing mangled matters bore me
there’s loneliness in knowing the quantities and qualities
of the decimal places
but counting out pi wastes time
though it’s impressive at parties
finding the math between the numbers
the words between the characters
the language of movements and pauses
entices my interests
but I’m playing 3D chess with checkers players
and no one speaks the language
reciting verse in an unknown tongue does nothing
but make my mouth sore
time counts on it the cycles
and we seem to think we matter in moving forward
but it seems some days
that the seconds write pages
that I can flip to forward or back
depending on circumstance
relive as though for the first time
conjecturing it’s a ball in space
rather than an unwavering string we slide on
back and forth as needed
reencountering friends long gone
and details seemingly forgotten
faith in fate fits when you’ve skipped ahead
to see how the chapter ends
all that will be will be
and all the was has been as meant
while the details make for conversation
to those paying attention
the poetry will spill in the lucid moments
for those not yet along for the ride
to catch up when their time comes
or the moment suits
explode me into sunlight
and detonate my insides into shards of glass
to shimmer through the night for the rest to follow
wherever I’m meant to go
the right words become a yellow-brick road
but it takes a tornado to clear the countryside
of all the old familiar places
leaving us with clearer paths to see
and abbreviated mysteries to decipher
make a highway of me
transform me into a ribbon of starlight
dreamers on the roofs of cars
can trace with extended fingers
to illustrate to lovers
how constellations are born
these words that spill
from sober mouth and hands
trace paths skyward
letting awareness reflect back
to what we are
beneath the bullshit
of Old Religion dread of death
or its New Age regurgitation
placed it in a tie-died coffin and paraded for profit
close the door
let the belly bleed itself dry
and put fingers to paper
without pushing the pencil where it’s unwilling to go
a good poem, with honesty up its sleeve
one that can squeeze your doubts out
for the world to read unhindered
is a Ouija board anyone can machinate
if your poems don’t shake you to your core
expose the nakedness sheltered behind small talk
quake your fear out in exorcism
then try again until you’d rather cover the page in fig leaves
then let another person read it
vomit out the sins that pin feet to soil
and turn paper into a confessional
a stage before thousands
a Gideon Bible in hotels worldwide
cut out the tongue that holds words behind teeth
swallow a fistful of dynamite
and become a second sun to light the way
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Hunting UFOs
a bear I become
wrapping these lithe arms
around her smallness
as if to keep out the cold
she stands five feet one
90 pounds when soaking wet
and I feel like her father might
if we were related by blood
but she’s already born a daughter and
I’m the one without family
she just asks me to hold her
and we lean against the car door stargazing
she believes the stars are UFOs
hiding between clumps of clouds
rolling hazily eastward
I tell her she’s drunk and silly
she swears she’s not
three beers and the way she slurs “swear”
prove my point, but I let it go
she just wants to be held
I do my duty:
hold fast and believe her
I spill stories of Saturnites
playing tag with satellites
creating new constellations
for attendant astronauts and
the Earthlings gazing skyward
watching secrets disappear with stars
behind the clouds
in the meandering,
minute hands gain momentum
reverse themselves and recycle
as her Venusians dogfight in the darkness
dodging glittering C-beams
near the Tannhäuser Gate
she drifts away in my arms
for the first night’s sleep in years
this champagne shoulder romance
is what we dream of before we learn better
the way we’re taught as teenagers
to shimmer through our glass selves
pour the vintage that remains
serve ourselves brimming with what-could-bes
in another life
we’d calculate love in the metrics of these moments
measure twice, cut once
erect a card house biography
of children and picket fences
in another life, perhaps, but
she and I took more scenic routes
with more complicated cartography and
find ourselves in the here and now
we choose roads to travel and
no one remembers the path back
it’s a long way down and
we don’t have time to rise again
so I hold her, like she asks
let the rhythm of voice more than words
soothe her into neverland dreamscapes
anything poetic at this hour,
in her state
drops its grammatical wings,
loses its rhythmic luster,
weaves through the haze and
drips through whatever color sky she’s imagining
confusing and conflating with her subconscious
so that she can’t decipher
her words from mine
if my whispers
emerge from the lips of caterpillars, centaurs
or long-dead relatives
and she smiles in her sleep
then I abdicate them to her kingdoms
retire into verbal amnesia and
hunt more words to blanket her body
she wakes with warnings
that she can’t get used to this
can’t let herself slip and fall into me
my warm limbs lacking intention
soft fingertips content on hands and hips
without delving beneath elastic
or diving into moist places
she can’t afford to fall into me
the tumble could be too deep
to find her way out again
she doesn’t want this husk of a man
I tell her, with all my broken parts
sheltering secrets and enigmas
behind verbose shrouds so
I relaunch us skyward
lose touch with again with this sudden gravity
stretch languid limbs into ether
hold her like the last lungful of oxygen and
return to stories in the stars
we tumble through jump gates
scattering ourselves into stardust
sightsee nebulas in colors
unimagined by even science fiction writers
we become skywalkers
making first contact with
whatever fantasies I can conjure
dropping through the exosphere like angels
on worlds that will be long extinct
before the rest of our race follows us here
we moonwalk above Endor
among flocks of creatures
that ride alongside like dolphins
surf stormfronts in gas giants
that could swallow Earth whole
play leapfrog on asteroids so light
we only weigh a fraction of an ounce
all the while painting word pictures
to describe everything that catches our eyes
she still swears UFOs are chasing us
so she asks me to not let her go
so I do my duty:
hold fast and believe her
even with all our words
we don’t talk about the elephant in the back seat
the night I wasn’t there to hold her
the night she wishes she could delete from the calendar
and remember only as a never-was
transform into corporeal fog
but tangibility bleeds his face through her eyelids
leaves greedy fingerprints
on the crime scene of her body
so she drinks to forget
drinks to sleep without dreams
or the need for pills
to prevent nightmares
of hot breath on resistant skin
fingernails clawing into her bones
leaving scars on the marrow
he inhabits all the shadows
in the dark corners of the Earth
so she longs to sail among stars
far above all his hiding places
where she can always see the sun
dance on the rooftops of clouds
spread her arms wide and glitter as starlight
though she mistakes them still for UFOs
even though I can see through the haze tonight
cast eyes upward on what she wants to be
there’s no point in correcting her
because she chooses to be earthbound tonight
now, she just wants to be held
so I do my duty:
believe her
and hold fast
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Citizen of the Irish Diaspora
Alun, Karl and I went to see the Irish fusion rock band Kíla, which inspired this poem.
Citizen of the Irish Diaspora
From the black stage rising like an altar
700 Irishmen who daily breathe in Dublin air
the length of a jig from the G.P.O.
wait for another revolution
in the shadows of 1916
700 free Irishmen
stand amidst the dark and sweat
a Guinness passport disguises me:
the intruder, the social tourist,
the American, whose Irish blood
thins the memory of Gaelic,
of Cromwell, of the Famine
that sent my grandfathers
to manifest their destiny
I hide in the dark of the crowd
only lit by refracting stage light
sliding between darkened bodies
as an ethnic chameleon
a cultural vampire returning to the source
two weeks in this country
but tonight, now,
she will welcome me back
as a prodigal émigré
but I don't know this yet
from the stage,
a postmodernist pagan altar
prum-ba-bum
prum-ba-bum
drumming beats
pound to Earth
prum-ba-bum
prum-ba-bum
in your toes
in your chest
prum-ba-bum
prum-ba-bum
move your feet
remember
prum-ba-bum
prum-ba-bum
Finn McCool
Brian Boru
prum-ba-bum
prum-ba-bum
the bodhrán races a rhythm
making stillness impossible
700 Irishmen and 1,400 Éireann feet
rumble the floor
down to the wood beams
into the asphalt of this dirty old town
into the soil and stone down to the Liffey
700 moving bodies
and me between them, a shadow
close enough to speakers for the beats
shake history off my skin
but I stand motionless
an American island in an Irish Sea
the bodhrán hits its peak
and at once, seven voices
join the chorus
tin whistle cuts the atmosphere
ripping angel screams from the air
with hummingbird speed
uilleann pipe beats its way through
skin, tissue and bone down to blood
with closed eyes,
through the mist
in the polls of beating blood
my veins warm with the victorious footfalls
of an ancestral memory
the angst of 530 Irish generations
remembers this tune
born in the Bog of Allen
orchestrated the Wicklow Hills
tempered on Inishmore
battered to its core on the coast of Galway
refined on Dublin's dirty streets
while King Sitric reigned
my chest drum knows this tune from memory
while my errant mind
lost in its own arrogance
tries to decipher lyrics I couldn't understand
even if sung in English
all the lads in arms reach
comprehend that language and ethnic history
are mutually intelligible dialects
I down another Guinness to drown inhibition
I am not a stranger here
to the Irishmen on the dance floor
I'm just like them
for once, my ethnicity is not speculation
and with the right twist of vowels
I'm a linguistic chameleon too
the fiddler changes the atmosphere
playing a languishing ballad
and the simultaneous image
manifests itself without conjecture
somewhere, in hills like those I was born in
a lad like me
remembers a lass he left behind
waving farewell from a coffin ship
remembers how he caressed her once
on the shores of Glendalough
telling her he’d returned someday or send for her
but they both had heard the same before
how time ticks on oblivious to our oaths
the sea dividing Éire from everywhere
is not a chasm easily crossed
by anything larger than envelopes or dreams
America isn't like Manchester
there are no summer vacations
the Dublin docks of the ends of the Earth
Ireland is an island of no return
they know this
yet still dream of ways back from neverwhere
they dream, make love and say “goodbye, for now”
because “forever" can kill when spoken
so now, one stands in amber waves of grain
the other in fields of green fields of clover
and his fiddle says “forever” for them
the bodhrán,
the tin whistle
the pipes
the drums
the guitars
the singer escalate into dance
a jig everyone knows by heart
liquid Irish courage has penetrated my liver
split open my organs with a wash of green
poems yet unborn from my fingers
and those song, burned in cells
and passed on through genes
now meet, shake hands and join the dance
blood and organs take hostage the rest of me
skin, bones and brain
slamming limbs to where they should be
and a ragdoll I become
since my feet touched the soil
barefoot in Ballinteer
I’ve felt drawn home
but until now, the city's indifference has been deafening
the floor is pulling me under
black hardwood makes adhesive
of the beer and whiskey
tightening the floorboards to my ankles
it's getting hard to move my body
hard to move my feet
eyes close and I breathe in
the sweat and smells and wonder
of my brothers and sisters
all 700 of them
I let go of the language
understanding that Gaelic is not a foreign tongue
just a forgotten one my fathers used to speak
the beer and whiskey becomes blood of ancestors
magnetized iron on the floor
pulling the blood of my feet to join
drowning in my history
in a heartbeat
in the speed of the piper’s fingers
faster than in the space between drumbeats
I am swallowed under
the floor becomes glass
my feet leap on their own
legs and ankles dance jigs as if they wrote them
Irish rhythms explode in limbs
I am made of sunlight
from the Donegal to Wexford
the Rings of Kerry to the Hills of Tara
my sonic boom wakes Irishmen from their sleep
"one of Éire’s long-lost sons has come home"
layers of sound rise over the crowd
as if the performers doubled
the Irishmen around me
begin chanting a chorus
with fists raised in the air
and the words find themselves in my throat
I have no idea what they mean
but I pronounce them flawlessly
the Dublin boys near me
who can’t speak a lick of the "country" tongue
know I’m more Irish than they are
and the snakes St. Patrick didn’t drive from this island
are fleeing toward the sea
the crowd dances as one great creature
and limbs find the proper places between strangers
fists and feet, arms and elbows
move eloquently and 701 Irishmen
thrash to the rhythm without touching
we are one Celtic race,
one Irish tribe,
one dancing body
gyrating in unison to the myth and music
poured through the priests on stage
with Gaelic poetry pulsing through us
we spit back 700 years of Irish rage
relive the risings, revolts and revolutions
we push back the invaders and conquerors
who sought to annihilate our words with their own
we take back the island tonight
with words they thought they’d broken
our feet slam the fury of our bloodlines
into the soil for the rest of the world to hear
Ireland’s sons and daughters
are only a song and dance away from home
the mythology that bore us
the faith that sustained us
the language that united us
revive the blood bonds between us still
at last, one of Éire’s long-lost sons
has found he never left home
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Wexford man
Shuffling steps, the Wexford man
passes each footfall as though he planned them
on paper years ago
he left home the day Cromwell laid siege
and has now returned,
groceries in hand
wondering what all the hubbub was about
arching over the walkway
like an apostrophe
left, pause, shift, lift, move
right, pause, shift, lift, move
planting his cane like a flag
concrete slabs become newly conquered countries
lost to heretics every night
needing a new conquest by sunrise
no one else to do it,
the Wexford man mumbles
stretching out crooks of fingers
for the weathered wooden cane
older than the cross
left, pause, shift, lift, move
right, pause, shift, lift, move
more steps, more decades
more of the same old pavement to reconquer
more mornings until times takes him
to the churchyard of his fathers
and other man with centuries of duties ahead
reaches for the weathered cane
left, right
left, right
onward, onward
until rapture relives the burden
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Day 02 Re-remembering Éire
I’ve found a nearby wireless signal to piggyback on, but the speed reminds me of the days of dial-up.
Re-remembering Éire
Green country peeks through the clouds
in my first view of unvisited homeland
like a memory of Maryland I once had
but with 10,000 more years of family blood in the soil
we prodigal sons return to the arms of mother
and she welcomes like we never sailed away like college kids
everything seems to be where we left it
familiar though fuzzy in reflection
streets welcome our footfalls, smells reengage ancient memory
our tribal namesakes cling to skin in the humidity
everything cries out for examination, comparison and resettlement
but the Jameson tastes the same
acclimation comes swift as it should
returning to America will be stranger
seeing how we’ve lost our way since the exodus
strayed from the better angels of our history
the lands we claim were taken
a plantation of Ulster perfected on American shores
and the fact of that bleeds out
in our unspoken ever-restlessness
Éire is where we've always belonged, and know it
agreeable to our constitutions, only accent marks our foreignness
so we drink a pint with long-lost siblings
both wearing the clothes of our ancestors
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Day 01
After a few hour delay at the Newark, N.J. airport, we made out of the states about 1.5 hours late, arriving in Dublin at 11:00 a.m. local time.
We took a cab to Karl Jones’ house in Ballinteer, just south of Dublin proper.
Our first stop was the Ballinteer House, for a stereotypical Irish “carvery” meal of roast beef, loin of bacon, cabbage and potatoes. We also got our first pints of Guinness.
We stopped at a nearby grocer for a few items, then came back to Karl’s house, watched TV, showered and passed out.
Karl’s sister Ciara came home shortly after six. She lives in the condo next door and met up with us. We passed out again and woke up around 20:00 after she got back from the gym.
Alun, Ciara, Karl’s cousin Martina and I went the largest mall in Europe, just a few blocks away and ate at the MAO Café, a Chinese restaurant bedecked in Andy Worhal-esque motifs of the Chinese leader. Nothing says pop culture like a restaurant stylized after a major East Asian dictator responsible for the death of millions. But the chicken was good.
Similar to Germany, I feel drawn to another cultural aspect of my ancestry. The Germans encapsulated the utility of purpose, i.e., speaking only when needed, lack of emotion and blistering intention, while the Irish encapsulate the need to share, talk, sing and drink. Martina and Ciara were very curious about our backgrounds while we asked little of them, in so far as both Alun and I, I think, are reluctant to pry.
They dropped us off at a local pub, which catered to the 20-something crowd. The customer didn’t engage us, much to my dismay, but 2 shots of Jameson and 2 Guinnesses only cost €16, so I have no complaints, mainly because I am now wasted. Alun also bought a European cell phone so we can contact the states if needed.
Karl arrives tomorrow morning and the plan is to head into Dublin proper before we meet up.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
One day away ...
Karl Jones isn't arriving until Thursday, which means we have Wednesday all alone in the new country. Of course, this means we're going to hit the pubs straight away, because there's nothing else to do.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Itinerary
Aug. 5: Fly from Dublin, Ireland, to Newark, N.J., meet up with Sarrah Wile and Danielle Gervasio.
Aug. 7: Take bus to Boston. Meet up with Jeff Berger.
Aug. 9: Take bus from Boston to New York City, then take train from New York City down the shore of New Jersey to Gervasio's grandmother's bungalow.
Aug. 11: Take train from down the shore to West Orange, N.J.
Aug. 12: Take train from Newark, N.J. to Philadelphia.
Aug. 14: Take train from Philadelphia to Chicago. Meet up with Katie Smith.
Aug. 17: Take train from Chicago to Flagstaff, Ariz., then home to Sedona, Ariz.
Aug. 18: Return home.
may the wind be ever at your back,
may the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand
and may you be in heaven a full half hour
before the devil knows you're dead