Janet, I think this poem really starts when it gets to 'Here in tolerant 
multicultural Australia ...' . Up to that point it's rather the standard 
scene-setting, and it's when it gets to its own special point that it comes 
alive.

This term an Iraqi woman has joined my women's writing class. She's highly 
educated and her English is pretty good, and at the end of the first class 
she thanked me for allowing her to join. For allowing her to pay and come 
along, to a class that's open to all women and held in a public building! I 
dunno, it brings tears to the eyes. I did my best to explain that she 
doesn't need to feel like that; yet she is still saying an automatic 'thank 
you' after each class. We got her to tell us a bit about Arabic poetry last 
night, though, and it was very interesting -- I must explore this a bit 
further.

joanna

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janet Jackson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 7:52 AM
Subject: political poem "So where can we meet?"


> Another poem, very different to my other one.
> I sometimes worry that my political opinions are naive,
> but at least I've got some.
>
>     So where can we meet?
>     ---------------------
>
>     The world rumbles on.
>     We sell each other guns
>     and lose our values in the decor.
>
>     A few years ago two planes flew into two towers, as you know.
>     I wasn't surprised about that
>     or that the cowboys said, that's an act of war! Yeah! let's have a 
> war!
>     or that two countries got trashed by the delusions
>     of deprived boys. I'm talking about Afghanistan and Iraq,
>     but maybe America is worse trashed.
>     And Australia. And our idea of democracy.
>
>     Because here in tolerant multicultural Australia,
>     doing my shift on the voluntary helpline,
>
>     I talk to a Moslem woman. She's scared.
>     The clothes she knows are right for her
>     identify her, and when her husband's at work
>     she can't take her kids to a public playground
>     like I can, and sit in peace and feel comfortable
>
>     and so hers and mine will remain apart,
>     deprived boys and girls with delusions.
>
>     You know what I should have said to her.
>
>     So where can we meet?
>
> Janet
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Janet Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
> Poems at Proximity:
> http://www.arach.net.au/~huxtable/janet/proximity.html
>
> "As long as space remains,
> as long as sentient beings remain,
> until then, may I too remain
> and dispel the miseries of the world."
>                           Shantideva
> -------------------------------------------------------
>