[Gregory Palmerino]

What was your point, Michael, that white poets have the luxurious choice of conversation?

Read another author's literary take on the outcome of this election

Greg

[Michael Juster]

Gregory:

You're proving my point too.

By the way, both of you, my late father was 60% Hispanic and no one on my mother's side went to college before me, so you should cool both the privilege rhetoric and the ad hominem remarks about someone you don't know or understand.

Mike

[Gregory Palmerino]

Michael,

Not sure where you see the ad hominem remark. Your sensitivity proves your point as well. I live in a black/white family. I now have a neighbor who flies a confederate flag because of this election. How do I go over to that neighbor's house and start a conversation like the one Wilbur (and I presume you) are advocating for? And why is it that the minority has to be the one who knocks on the door?

Greg

[Michael Juster]

My point--and Wilbur's--is that our democracy works better if we talk civilly to each other rather than ranting angrily. In my opinion, there are tens of millions of people--maybe more--of all points of view who should be accepting that premise.

I regret that you & Andrew don't share my opinion, and hope in time you see a need to change your rhetorical approaches.

[Gregory Palmerino]

[quote=I regret that you & Andrew don't share my opinion, and hope in time you see a need to change your rhetorical approaches.[/QUOTE]

Michael, please stop speaking to me as if I am Andrew. I agree with you about civil discourse. (Although I do find yours a bit condescending.) I am a college teacher, which means that it hasn't avoided me that we just elected the most uncivil candidate in our lifetimes. I, too, am struggling to find a way to communicate this outcome to my family and my students in a way that does not inflame but informs. It's still a work in progress, but thanks for your help.

Greg

[Julie Steiner]

Richard Wilbur's endnote on this poem in his Collected Poems 1943-2004 may be of interest:

For the Student Strikers This was written one afternoon at the request of Wesleyan students, during a "strike" against U.S. military actions in Southeast Asia. The poem supports a student-proposed "canvassing" program, under which the students were to go from door to door in the city of Middletown, discussing their views with the citizens. As the poem did not flatter the students in the manner to which they were accustomed, it was at first thrown into the wastebasket at the offices of Strike News, but later retrieved and published.

[Julie Steiner]

By the way, there are some very good essays in the link Gregory P. provided, too, and I encourage people to check them out.

I wish Toni Morrison's essay didn't focus only on the most extreme cases of racism. Yes, doing so drives the point home that racism is horribly still present in modern American society, and a very serious, ugly thing. But it is dangerously easy for white readers to grade their own racism generously, on a curve skewed by such atrocities: "Yes, bombing and shooting up black churches certainly is terrible, but I'm not doing those things...so how dare anyone think I'm at all racist when I support the actions of my police force without question, and when I advocate the deportation of millions of people who don't look like me?"

As a Californian who is a big fan of John Chiang--obviously, I have a weakness for nerdy, Democratic, Roman Catholic, Chinese-American engineers, since I married one--my favorite was the essay by Evan Osnos titled "On Saying No."

I also found Jeffrey Toobin's essay, "The Highest Court," riveting. It included a very poignant simile:

If Trump succeeds in overturning the Affordable Care Act, the Court’s two landmark endorsements of that law, in 2012 and 2015, will become nullities, like rave reviews of a closed restaurant.

But I'm digressing from Gregory's point.

Mary Karr's essay entitled "Donald Trump, Poet" makes much the same point I was trying to. Words matter.

If you ever doubted the power of poetry, ask yourself why, in any revolution, poets are often the first to be hauled out and shot—whether it’s Spanish Fascists murdering García Lorca or Stalin killing Mandelstam. We poets may be crybabies and sissies, but our pens can become nuclear weapons.

Clearly she uses that image because she means us to admire words' power, whether used by poets or politicians or protesters. But it occurs to me that, like nuclear weapons, certain kinds of language (such as demonization of one's opponents, thus robbing them of their human dignity) should be regarded as toxic to both attacker and attacked, and as inviting retaliation. No one wins a nuclear war.

I like her last three paragraphs.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Richard Wilbur's endnote on this poem in his Collected Poems 1943-2004 may be of interest:

Interesting note, Julie. Whether Wilbur can be taken seriously as a poet with a conscience regarding those events depends on what else he did to oppose the murderous War in question. If he simply wrote that and nothing else then I wouldn't think much of it. I have zero knowledge and zero opinions about him or his work. I would be happy to hear about his poetry in the face of all that blood.

[Paddy Raghunathan]

Originally Posted by Michael Juster

My point--and Wilbur's--is that our democracy works better if we talk civilly to each other rather than ranting angrily. In my opinion, there are tens of millions of people--maybe more--of all points of view who should be accepting that premise.

I regret that you & Andrew don't share my opinion, and hope in time you see a need to change your rhetorical approaches.

Mike, I am intrigued by your original post. You are, from what I read about you, known for your Republican beliefs. I can't say that is wrong.

That said, I remember a lot of Republican anger in 2010 against Obama and the ACA spill out...as the Tea Party manifested itself into our consciousness, well known Republicans like Colin Powell told the Tea Partiers that mere anger for anger's sake wasn't the solution. Republican anger has continued to swell as Obama pushed through much of his agenda.

Now the left and the Democrats are returning the favor.

The next few years will be interesting, no doubt.

[Michael Juster]

I changed my mind & decided to pass.