Yup, even mainstream poets are marginalized here and in some--not
all--other countries.
But I think you misread me: I'm not claiming that the US is uniquely awful,
but we are, as the only superpower, uniquely visible. And our brand of
national hypocricy, that we are in all things a light unto the nations,
while not being unique, is pretty unusual. And it's a hypocricy aimed
inwards--most Americans live within a myth about their lives that disarms
them from demanding change and devalues their actual lives. And the
favorite poem project supports that bit of hypocricy. It's one of a long
series of such ceremonies. And the divisions and injustices aren't going to
be fixed by pretending they've been fixed.
I stood about fifteen years ago at the edge of a cliff bordering one side
of the plaza of a resettlement village at the end of the road high in the
Cuchumatanes Mountains of Guatemala. The village housed people who had been
so terrorized by the genocidal war of a few years earlier that they had
hidden in the forest for seven years, where many had starved, and the
survivors weren't in great shape. Next to me was a Pentecostal MD from
Florida. I had signed on for the day with the group he was a part of, who
were doing dental work for the lord. And they did good work. But we'd seen
a lot of pretty disturbing things. So the doc says to me, his body shaking
with rage and despair, "Damn those communists!" And I patiently explained
to him that it wasn't communists but our paid and armed minions who were
responsible for the slaughter. To him all the ills of the world were the
work of our enemies.
That degree of innocence, which a lot of Americans share, may be unique.
My Mexican friends' reaction to the Norman Rockwell show was that Mexico
could never produce a Norman Rockwell. The closest to a national image in
the arts, they said, were the great muralists, particularly Rivera. That
image was distorted by Marxist ideology, they said, but was a lot closer to
the lived reality.
Projects like the Rockwell and the favorite poem project come loaded with a
lot of baggage.
By the way, I never asked Henry to name names, I asked him to quote verse.
But that's another matter.
At 10:27 PM 1/4/2001 EST, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Favorite Poem Project
>Oh, give me a break! The US has a long and dense history of false
>self-advertizing. I recently took a couple of Mexican friends to a show of
>Norman Rockwell's paintings and magazine covers to show them what I had to
>deal with, as I told them. Endless veiled kiddie-porn and an America that
>was all small-town wholesomeness and prosperity. And entirely white
>protestant.The official American image of itself, even now for much of the
>population. Although radically disjunctive with the magazine headlines and
>the lives of the vast majority of Americans. And even Stockbridge, the
>wonderful small town of his imagination that Rockwell chose to move to from
>his native New York city and upon which he modeled his anthems to the
>general goodness--I know it well--didn't stand up too well to scrutiny.
>When Rockwell died it was still spewing raw sewage into the Housatonic
>River in violation of the law--the town meetings had consistently voted
>against spending the money for a sewage system, altho it's a rather rich
>little town, living, as it has since the 1850's, on tourism rather than
>rural industry. And Pinsky's smarmyness calls all of that up--calls up the
>gag reflex. And reminds me of a Coke commercial from the 60's.
>
>This is a country so divided that the Civil War was the tip of the iceberg.
>And committed to papering over the differences, because after all, in the
>words of any politician, aren't we "the greatest country on earth?"
>
>Hard not to distrust the feel-good stuff in this atmosphere.
>--------
>Mark,
>give me a break...you've suddenly, & undeservedly, loaded a lot
>baggage on this project. There is probably a utopian country out
>there without the taint of racism, but I'm not sure where it is? As
>you invited Henry, I here invite you to name names--your place on
>earth where the people are always kind to one another despite skin
>hue, sex or creed?
>Unlike the Coke commercials I defy you to walk outside your front
>door and find anyone who even knows the Favorite Poem Project
>is going on...Marginalization, mon amor?
>Finnegan
>
>
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