Poetry to the rescue!

“If poems touch our full humanness, can they quicken awareness and bolster respect for this ravaged resilient earth we live on?” asks Stanford Professor John Felstiner in his new book,  Can Poetry Save the Earth?

Yes, I would agree. And poetry can save the humans too, as Ariel Dorfman and many of the Guantanamo detainees I suspect would agree.

In an essay which concludes the collection Poems from Guantanamo, Dorfman writes about a woman arrested and tortured in Chile repeated poetry to herself to protect herself and her identity.

Writes Dorfman,

Just some words, just some precarious, almost evanescent, words from the past as a defense against what seemed an eternity of pain and humiliation.

Later he writes how breath unites us, one and all. Even the tide is a form of breath, flowing in and out. “The written word, ” writes Dorfman, “is nothing more than the attempt to make that breath permanent and secure, carve it into rock or mark it on paper or sign it on a screen, so that its cadence will endure beyond us, outlast our breath.”

In Felstiner’s argument, which he offered to NPR recently, he provides this William Stafford poem:

‘The Well Rising’
by William Stafford
NPR.org, April 10, 2009 ·

The well rising without sound,
the spring on a hillside,
the plowshare brimming through the deep ground
everywhere in the field —

The sharp swallows in their swerve
flaring and hesitating
hunting for the final curve
coming closer and closer —

The swallow heart from wing beat to wing beat
counseling decision, decision:
thunderous examples. I place my feet
with care in such a world.

from John Felstiner’s new book,  Can Poetry Save the Earth?

which, according to NPR,  presents poetry from dozens of English and American writers who have spoken passionately to — and for — the natural world including these two poems; you can find the text and more at npr.org.

‘Anacostia River’ by El’Jay Johnson

‘Hearing Your Words…’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Which poet or what poems save the world for you? I’m fond of Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver for this category, and always fond of Sharon Doubiago, Ray Carver, and Al Young, for starters.

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