Dear Salman
You're rightly angry against the world. And art. You're right to say there
is a huge importance in words - and I very much appreciate your poem 'Of A
Broken Home.' It's spot on. Rosa never thought of barbarity as a piece of
history but this very moment. And it is the choice for all of us.
You're reference to daffodils I'm more 'iffy' about. Wordsworth "wandering
lonely as a cloud" was in a wandering after the French Revolution. For him,
the failure of a transformed society, found him looking longingly at clouds
and daffodils as collective things - which human beings should be - which he
found himself then isolated from.
One could make the same criticisms of Shelley's 'Ode To The West Wind' in
that it is not political and seems, at surface, a poem concerning
'weathering' - age, seasons, responses to withering, etc. It is not
political as such - but revolutionary. Rather than Wordsworth's passing,
Shelley is all present and future: "The winged seeds, where they lie cold
and low..." Through Shelley's lips - not his voice, but the voices from
below - the "unawakened earth" becomes the "trumpet of a prophecy." The
seeds held down can bloom still.
"O Wind/ If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
If the 'wind' is the people a seemingly personal poem about doubt is turned
on its head.
Keep being angry Salman -- and ever loving.
Rupert
----- Original Message -----
From: "Salman Shaheen" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 5:35 AM
Subject: Meaning
> Thought I'd try my hand at Haiku, but ran out of space.
>
> A feeling of art in general, and the importance of words. All the pages of
> the world are open to one's words, but how many actually say something?
> Writing for me, at the moment, is about making a statement, making a
> difference. I think that's why I don't write about daffodils.
>
> Or maybe I'm just angry at the reports from Falluja, more of that to
> follow...
>
> 'Meaning'
>
> What can I express
> In just these few short words?
> Are they meaningless?
>
> - Salman Shaheen
>
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