But the poetry community has been attacking this President since
he got started.
_100 Days_ was its preeminent attack.
Poetry, now, operates in current history. Unlike Blake,
many current poets stand, it seems, with the enemies of the United
States.
I await the moment with the writers in _100 Days_ declare their
allegiance with Bin Lauden. It would be an honest thing to
do.
Here in Cork, Ireland, I happened to be
watching a 24-hour news channel
when the reports started coming in, and watched disbelievingly the
live
footage as the second tower was hit. I remember my reaction on seeing
the
second and third car bombs go off in Dublin, in the early seventies,
one of
them on a street I should have been walking down. I felt the same
sense of
helplessness and disgust.
Frank's echoing of Blake displays a compassion which I expect many
individual poets will feel, but I know that I, for one, would not find
it
possible to rally round any politicians or factions on either side of
these
actions. Already, I despair on hearing a former diplomat concentrating
on
how these attacks are 'cowardly' and an attack on all civilization
and
democracy. While I don't see how a suicide bomber can be described
as
'cowardly', neither do I see how either the cowardly or the courageous
is
any guarantor of right.
Nobody appropriates my response, or can claim to speak for me at times
like
this. I'm sick of the dishonesty that passes for diplomacy in our
democracies. Grief and compassion strike me as the only
appropriate
response right now.
Trevor Joyce
>Thank you, Frank, for your kindness.
>
>Yes, it is an attack - and on more than the New York targets.
Camp
>David, the Presidential Retreat in Maryland, was targeted by a
>hijacked plane.
>
>This day in American history will be cited as another Pearl
Harbor.
>
>USA will rally around President Bush. Will the poetry
community?
>
>Richard Dillon
>
>
>
>
>>I awoke to a phone call from my mother telling me that the USA
was under
>>terrorist attack. Astonished I turned on my television in time
to watch
>>one of the towers (100 stories) of the World Trade Center in
New York
>>City collapse as its twin burns.
>>
>>The Pentagon in Washington, DC, burns at this moment too.
>>
>>Can I see anothers woe,
>>And not be in sorrow too.
>>Can I see anothers grief,
>>And not seek for kind relief.
>>
>>-- William Blake
>>
>>***************
>>Frank Parker
>>[log in to unmask]
>>http://now.at/frankshome
>
>
>--
--