Being a witness to the times we are living in and what a writer can/should do--

I could write to you about the fear and horror I feel every time I read more about the GOP's plan for the rest of us, called Project 2025. That sort of dystopian vision reaches far beyond anything I've ever read in 1984, Brave New World, or various Holocaust narratives. The idea of an all-powerful president surrounded by hand-picked loyalists, the establishment of a state religion and the cessation of individual rights scares me. The GOP marches on, ready and slavering over the idea of eating the country-- you and me included.

But that's not a great way to start Monday (or any day, for that matter). I could meander through what I did all weekend, that the rain has been omnipresent, that the pollen continues to make things yellow, but that's probably not news to you. And, to be honest, not very interesting. 

Nor will I ramble on about the tediousness of the last few days of work for the school year: the small hiccup in my paycheck, the cleaning of classrooms, etc. Boring. 

I will tell you about the reading I zoomed into last night online. While listening to prominent poets read from their work will not solve any of the issues I've just touched on, what it does do, however, is establish that there is reason to keep trying. Reason to push back against the darkness. I've had a long and sometimes complicated relationship with the Frost Place, stretching back to 2000. I've met a lot of working poets over the years, and that's the part I want to focus on. The organization, like so many other small nonprofits, goes through fits and starts, growing pains and institutional choices and regrets, and my association with the FP on that level has been both wonderful and upsetting in turn. The poets, however, have been the most instructive and inspiring part of my adult life. 

Last night, four poets whom I have had the privilege to meet, and three of whom I've worked with on my own craft, read beautifully. I heard new and old poems by Rebecca Foust, Vievee Francis, Afaa Weaver, and Ellen Bryant Voigt. Their work was engaging, of course, but also deeply pain-filled. The experiences they write about are not necessarily mine-- I am not an aging black woman or man, I'm not an older white woman recollecting the harsh realities of growing up poor and with a father who was both dear and a little frightening, for example. To hear the controlled and transformed pain and rage in their work brought me all the way back to why I both love and struggle with poetry and writing. The work that words can do, and does, was front and center. Rebecca Foust wrote powerful, angry, political poems, but they were not rants-- no, they were an emotional beacon, like those the ancient Celts used to light on the heights as a call to arms. 

We are all worried about what will become of us under possible authoritarian rule. We all have our part to play. We who are writers --poets, essayists, fiction and nonfiction alike-- have a job to do. What we do with the time, talent, and treasure we have is critical, as it always has been. 

Have a good day,

C