Thoughts on Atheism, Theism and Agnosticism, Part III

Here is a question, is it possible for there to be an atheistic religion?

I think first off there needs to be a definition of religion established here. Many people will say they are spiritual, but do not consider themselves religious, and if we look at their behavior and beliefs, what does this amount to?

Basically a religion is a set of established, communal behaviors and worldview that flow from the beliefs of the practitioners. In theory, one could be a Christian and read the Bible all by themselves, and I don;t think this makes them religious. They can believe in the "Good News" but if they do not attend a church or celebrate holidays with other people, or partake in events like communion or collective prayer, they are not religiously Christian. Certainly there are many people who are probably religiously Christian, but not spiritually so. This is what many Evangelicals believe is the case for most Christians.

So then, is it possible to have an atheistic religion, that is a series of communally held rituals that arise from set of likewise communally held beliefs? I think it is, but I do not think such an institutionalized Atheism will have too many followers, nor will it be able to prevent itself from constantly dividing. (I base this assumption off any meeting of an Atheists, Agnostics, and Freethinkers club, where the only unity present is often in a shared dislike of religion and theism).

Marxism offers a good example. I think one could argue that it functioned as an Atheistic religion (technically Marx himself was an igtheist. It had a holy writ, it had mass rituals, sacred words and language, and a priesthood in the form of Communist Party officials. Now personally, I think Marxism, though it has many flaws, still makes more sense than most of the theistic religions, but there is no escaping the fact that it had as much pomp and pageantry (and dogma) as the Catholic Church.

But looking at Marxism one sees what happens with an attempt to create an atheistic religion. Number one, it caused its followers to become like sheep and commit horrific crimes they otherwise never would have considered doing. Number two, since it celebrates reason and science, Marxists constantly fought amongst themselves and split up into smaller and smaller groups, worse than the Christians ever were.

So it is possible to create an institution that effectively functions like a religion, but has no God. It can replace that God with some other great concept like Revolution or the march of science, or establishing contact with aliens, but it will have the practical problems of both theism in its dogmatism, and atheism, in its tendency towards individual strife.

Another Poem Published!

Success! This morning I checked my e-mails before going out to take the kids out for breakfast, and lo and behold I recieved a message from Perigee Magazine, an online publication. Back in May I sent out a bunch of poems and some prose pieces to several online publications. Some have been rejected and so I was expecting this one to be the same. But it wasn't. Instead I am pleased to announce that in their upcoming issue (#17 out on July 15th), I am going to have a poem appear. It is called Flyer Guy and was written by me in response to the people who are constantly passing out flyers to me in New York City.

FIELD DAY!!!

Now I'm working at the good ole' Summer Enrichment Program at the University of Virginia. I have seven eighth grade boys that are personally under my supervision, but I get to deal with all kinds of kids between the 5th and 8th grade. They are all gifted in one way or another and they sometimes manage to surprise me with what they can do. Sunday was field day for the camp and before we got them sweaty and wet (along with some of the counselors)they had a pep rally where the suites were paired up. My suite is the 320s (we live in the dorms at UVA), and we were with a corresponding suite in the girl's quarters. Most counselors created team names around alliteration and unusual animals and let the kids do a cheer or song based on a pop tune or the old standby "We Will Rock You" by Queen.

However because I like to be different, engaged, and a rebel, I had my kids and the kids from the other suite come together under the theme of Paraguay. They created a banner celebrating the country's rich history and traditions, opening with a skit of one of my campers wearing a German general's hat and wondering where he could go since his country had just lost WWII. Another camper came out and told the beleaguered German that Paraguay was waiting to offer him a home and he was overjoyed. Then the banner was unfurled and a cheer was led by another one of my boys, John, who wrote the thing himself (though no one believed it):

Alright Paraguayans, raise a din,
'Cause this land-locked beauty is here to win!

We'll stomp you, kick you, shoot you in the knees,
Your puny lands with sea access, we'll seize.

From the canopies of Asuncion,
When we bomb you with artichokes,
You will be gone!

Look out Uruguayans, you're going down,
Upon your patheticness we do frown!

Your demise we'll weave upon a loom,
Upon you we'll spread the tablecloth of doom

Go Paraguay!

Thoughts on Atheism, Theism and Agnosticism, Part II

Alright. First I would like to begin by discussing my own personal beliefs. I do not consider myself a theist. I lean towards weak atheism in practical terms. I believe in a Being with a capital "B" but mostly for philosophical reasons. In my mind Being is everything. It is everything we may not be able to experience as well. All things dwell within it, including human beings. That said, Being is not God. Some have remarked that such an idea, of an all encompassing Being is secretly a belief in a deity. I do not think that it is. I do not hold that Being is all loving, that Being answers our prayers, or that it interacts with us on a daily basis.

I do not hold that there is any sort of afterlife and that this existence is the only one we have. If there is any possible life after death, I would go with reincarnation, but even then, since memories do not survive one's demise, and neither does ones body or personality, reincarnation cannot bring about any sort of meaningful afterlife. If you "wake up" in someone else's body, so be it. But you can't remember where you were before. So what good is it?

I was raised a Catholic and left the church in my mid-teens because I disliked the corruption in the organization and the hypocrisy of most American Catholics. After that for a while I was a generic Humanist Christian, but eventually I came to disbelieve in the Bible and saw Buddhism and existentialism as giving better insight into the human condition. I suppose I left the faith because I found a better alternative.

That said, I would like to offer up a defense of the Theist's position in sympathetic terms. All to often I see these sorts of debates revolving around what I would like to call "psychological arguments." These are arguments that are thinly veiled ad hominem attacks (that also commit the fallacy of argument from consequences). They center around accusing supporters of the other side for believing what they want in order to make them happy. Atheists often accuse theists of having faith in God because it makes them happier and they fear death. I think there are two problems with this line of reasoning.

First is that there are many unhappy Christians. One might argue that they would be even unhappier if they lacked faith in God and the afterlife, but I feel that in certain cases faith in God did not equal much happiness. After all, when you become a theist, particularly a member of an organized religion, you become worried about avoiding eternal hellfire. You may suffer more and actually be more unhappy because you are constantly delaying gratification. You may be happier as well.

Second is that there are also unhappy Atheists. Most Atheists are satisfied with their lives, but many are not. In some cases I'm sure feeling estranged from others and the universe and its purposes and despair over death and no afterlife and cause grief to certain atheists. This group I am sure is a minority, one which in the theist's mind often represents the whole of the non-theistic community. Yet they do exist, these individuals who suffer and whose lives are filled with anguish, possibly because they lack a belief in something greater than themselves, though one cannot be sure. What is certain is that happiness is not guaranteed by adopting either position, nor becoming an agnostic.

Belief in God can be very satisfying and this is why the majority of the world's theists are religious. This is why they refrain from doing things, giving money to certain groups, fighting against others, building holy shrines, making pilgrimages, and the like. God knows everything, has chosen everything, and all one has to do is trust in God's guiding spirit. God gives reason and shape to the universe and consequently people's lives and around God one can build a system of morals and ethics.

The communal aspect of religion is what I think is most appealing. It creates a sense of community for people, it gives them support when they need it, and an organized religion provides children with moral education. For individuals, belief in God acts to dispel their anxieties and fears about the world and the afterlife. Any critique of religion or belief in God must take this into account, the practical side of theism and why people believe. It is not because they have been overtaken by a virus, a genetic or nutritional defect, or are simply not as "bright." People look at their options and since we live in a country that is not a theocracy, they know disbelief is an option. Theists are not becoming atheists in droves, and in fact many atheists become committed theists. Something more powerful or more intimate than abstract reasoning must be driving this, since we know that logic tends to favor the atheist and agnostic in the debate.

Thoughts on Atheism, Theism and Agnosticism, Part I

For the past several months I have been reading posts by one Jack Rivall, who I became friends with for some reason on facebook. I suspect he saw my religious listing as a Pastafarian and then contacted me because I would be interested in analysis of God and religion from a skeptical point of view. I am, but it is daunting how much stuff this guy writes and posts. I am not a fan of churches or religious groups in general and dislike Evangelical Christianity immensely, but this guy seems obsessed with it, operating as a one man watch dog group.
Fine for him, but the notes that get posted and link attached become repetitive and take up most of my home page whenever I log into facebook. When I scroll down, its usually post after post, telling me about some facet of Atheism and overcoming a common criticism.
I guess I've been spurned on to do some of my own thinking on the matter and to analyze the way the debate is going and where the atheist side is failing to make its case stronger. I am not displeased with the debate in general. I believe that it is necessary. I am not one of those who thinks we simply shouldn't discuss religion. To ignore the fundamental beliefs people have about the universe, beliefs that shape their values and their actions, is irresponsible to say the least. Of course there is a time and place for such debates. An atheist shouldn't yell at someone in an elevator who says "God Bless You" when he sneezes. There is a likelihood that person could be an atheist as well, since such things are said out of concern and habit, not out of conviction mist of the time.

Idea for a Band Name

I saw a good name for a band, it was part of a quote by Thomas Jefferson that I have had the pleasure to read many, many times since it has been attached to the stall door in the dorms I have stayed at during the summer at UVA.

The name of the would be band is "Moral Monotony"

I think it has a good ring to it. It sounds like Moral Majority, and maybe slightly pokes fun at it. The aliteration will probably lead people to that association.

A Letter in Time

Well, I thought that I’d try and get another post in before the end of the month. I have kept up my summer tradition of appearing in at least one magazine. Last year it was New York Magazine for a luxurious spread (google my name and it will come up), this summer it is Time Magazine, which my parents subscribe to and I read when I’m home, because they keep the old issues stacked up on their coffee table.

The letter I sent in was in regards to a story run about Mitt Romney. I basically attacked the notion that a candidate’s faith is not an issue. I believe that it is. Either because A) it informs the decisions they make, or B) if it doesn’t, then they have to explain why they feel privileged to sacrifice their conscience. In the case of Mitt Romney he will be earning money from taxpayers that will go in part to the LDS Church. (Now it seems he is not accepting any salary and will donate it to charity, though I wonder if it will be one that is secular and behind all Americans.)

My Original letter was thus:

Mitt Romney in the White House? I don't think this country can take another teetotaller for president!

Your article regarding Romney's Mormon faith, claiming that it is bigotry to question his religion I think misses the point that if he is elected, at least ten percent of his income, which comes from the tax payers of this country, will be going to support the Mormon Church, and so we as Americans have the right, I think, to ask him what he believes and what he supports. Remember, this was a church that until the 1970s believed Black people could not go to heaven, is prejudiced against women's rights, and believes in a history of the New World that is directly at odds with genetics and archaeology, not mention that their holy book, despite all those problems, originally contained hundreds of grammatical errors and plagarizations from the King James version of the Bible. When several of the candidates for the GOP nomination can stand up and honestly say they don't "believe" in evolution, we cannot sit back and simply refrain from a critical analysis of what other people believe out of some sort of courtesy. Politicians' faith is a very public thing, it informs policy decisions before the facts are heard on either side of an issue.

The Letter that Time edited for their magazine:

Mitt Romney in the White House [May 21]? If he were elected, at least 10% of his income--which would come from us taxpayers--would go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Remember, this is a church that until the late '70s believed blacks couldn't go to the highest tier of heaven, limits women's role and believes in a history of the New World that is at odds with scientific facts. We can't refrain from a critical analysis of what people believe out of some sort of courtesy. Politicians' faith is a very public thing.
Benjamin E. Nardolilli ARLINGTON, VA.

You can see the criticism of their holy writ was removed and the joke I put in at the top, but I think the essence of the piece remains, the most important thing is the role of blacks and the history of the Americas in Later-Day theology.

The letter has been making its rounds throughout the world I suppose. Recently a girl I knew in Middle school talked to me a Facebook, telling me she had read my letter.

A Coat of Arms

Being in the Broome Street Residential College next year, I decided to contribute to the nascent organization by designing a coat of arms to represent us. It's a little bit complicated and so I don't know how reproducible it is, but then I guess no coat of arms or state seal really is, they were designed after all, to identify knights and the more complex the design, the least likely it would be copied.

I decided that our coat of arms should reflect what we hope to achieve this year in the college. Since we are a part of New York University, I have put it a picture of our logo, with the torch on its purple background, reflecting our school colors. The blue, white, and orange flag in the upper right hand corner is based on the flag of New York City and including it with the NYU logo reminds us of where we are and our mission of building a private university in the public service.

The Design in the bottom right is taken from Ghana and is a symbol of learning,“nea onnim”, which is representative of learning as a life long process. The green behind it is taken from Middle Eastern cultures, which use the color to signify learning. The dolphin might surprise some of you, it is taken from traditional heraldry, when the dolphin was seen as a symbol of charity. I wanted to represent this idea on the coat of arms because service is one of the goals of the residential college.

Anyone familiar with the university will recognize the bobcat towering over the shield. It is the mascot of NYU and though fierce, is caring and protective towards its young, nurturing them in full. The motto I have chosen for Broome Street: "Aut nunquam tentes, aut perfice." Translates roughly to: do not attempt, complete. I think that this is relevant to us because the Broome Residential College will have requirements for its residents and it expects these to be met as a condition of living here.

On the sides I have placed drawings of the Empire State Building, once again to remind ourselves that we are of the city and not the fields and the woods. Like the skyscraper, we aspire to great heights and lofty ideals.

Joe Hitler

Let's say one's name was Joe Hitler. It could be short for Josephine or Joseph either way you were born with the surname Hitler. Exactly like the infamous madman. What would you do if you were in such a situation? Would you live with the name, abbreviating it to "H" like some Kafkaesque character, changing it to something explosive like Joe Dynamite, or would you do something to completely change the meaning of the name forever? Let's say you chose this option and cured cancer...why then there would be a Hitler University, Hitler Prizes, Hitler Streets, Hitler Day, all named after you, with the unfortunate last name also being shared by a genocidal maniac. Despite this it would be like the bastard had won the War, so much bearing his last name. Now his reputation would remain, so I guess your actions would never be able to totally cleanse the name, but you could make it worthy of being filled out in full on a sticker with a permanent marker at some convention or other. You would never be refered to as "the" Hitler, but you would open the door for other people to take up the name and do things with it, you would free the whole family from the burden of Adolf's legacy.

Arlington - The Real A - Town

Well I am back in Arlington Virginia, have been for almost a week now. Things haven't changed much at home, but the city itself is always different. Buildings go up where parking lots once stood. Teachers leave and new students come in. The general look of things tough remains the same. Rossyln has its retro, idealistic urban planning fee, the park near me is still filled with more fallen trees than standing ones, the Metro is still distopian, and Balston continues to look as though it was designed by Will Wright at the team at Sim City 3000.

Energy-wise things have changed for me. New York was so fast and Arlington is so laid back by comparison. Of course when it comes to all things political, Arlington is always ready for a fight, but otherwise they take things much slower. They probably have to because of the humidity down here and the traffic. One of the things I have to get used to down here is that the pedestrian is but a peasant next to the majesty that is the SUV.

Yet there is an odd burst of creative energy I am feeling now. I'm not sure that if it is because I am home, or because I have mroe free time now that school is out, or rather because Arlington provides less distractions, I am getting serious work done. Already I have written two short stories (one about the IHOP in Ballston) and finished my play based on Oedipus Rex. Arlington seems to make things get done, although it doesn't seem to inspire the spark of genius that is the seed and root of each work. I guess it is analgous to the way it works with politics, obessed with the system and the departments and elections more than the ideologies themselves (though Arlington is a one party state)

Update - Poetry.com

Well a while back I wrote about Poetry.com a website that lets you enter contests and win money. They also publish your poetry if they deem it worthy. Some research on the web however, showed me the true nature of this site. How lazy of me! I had stumbled across poetry.com by typing the desire website name in Google and seeing if one existed. If only I had scrolled down, I would have seen that it is considered a fraud. They make you pay to enter their competitions and they don;t screen the poetry that comes to them for publication. Rather they agree to publish anything which makes them a VANITY PRESS.

I stopped putting things on their website except for the occasional daily poetry contest, only because I like to use their magnetic poetry to try and make poems from odd images and combinations of words. However if they ask for money for anything, I refuse. Recently they sent something in the mail to me in NY, asking if I would like to be published in their anthology. I declined by not responding. The books are dense and they only publish short poems so they can cram as many as they can into one.

When it is active, I am thinking of entering the contest over at Winning Writers, Where one can submit a poem to poetry.com that is basically doggerel and see it offered for publication. You can win a prize for showing that poetry.com will publish anything.

Here is an example from the website:

Flubblebop
by Wergle Flomp

flobble bobble blop
yim yam widdley woooo
oshtenpopple gurby
yip yip yip
nish-nash nockle nockle
opfem magurby voey
Ahh! "Wurby tictoc?"
"quefoxenjib masaloouterp!"
bim-burm nurgle shliptog
afttowicky wicky wicky
erm addmuksle slibberyjert!
Reqi stoobery bup dinhhk
yibberdy yobberdy hif twizzum moshlap
dwisty fujefti coppen smoppen dob
tigtog turjemy fydel
saxtenvurskej brisleywum
swiggy swiggy swug
yumostipijjle dobers!

Paul Giamatti and I

On Saturday I went on a cruise organized by my favorite people in the world, the Inter-Residence Hall Council. My ticket was free because I have a position within it. I went alone since Natalie didn’t have, in her opinion, anything nice to wear to the event. While I was on board the ship, we went up and down the East River and while Sinatra’s New York, New York was playing, we saw Lady Liberty.

When we got back we were detained for half and hour or so because some had stolen a bunch of gift certificates that we were handing out. They were to starbucks, worth five dollars each, and we were all going to get one. The thieves took about three-hundred dollars worth of them. So, we weren’t allowed to leave the boat for half an hour or so. Luckily they found the thieves, two girls who were drunk and who handed the police fake IDs.

While I was quarantined or whatever, I was with a group of students and we talked about many things. One topic of conversation that came up was that it was claimed I looked like Paul Giamatti, the actor. His best known role is probably in the movie “Sideways.” Let’s see the comparison:



and this, in case you were wondering, is me:



No not the Spainard in the painting, the handsome man in the three-piece suit. Hmmm I suppose there is some likeness in the beardal region, but I'm not seeing it. Maybe the beard is too long. I think our eyes could be similair, dark. Other than that, not much else. Maybe it was the sea air that warped people's vision.

I've also been compared to matthew Broderick and Toby Maguire. But that is when I don;t have a beard, which is rare. I recently found out that besides sharing a birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald and I also are the same height. We also both like to drink, although he liked it a lot more than I do and probably ever will.

End of a Marriage?

One of the byproducts of a having a two party system is that in order for a party to govern, at least in the long run, it has to build a coalition of several groups who pledge to support the organization in exchange for either patronage, programs, or policies. Coalitions are helpful because they help to stabilize a party’s long term prospects. Without them, a party runs the risk of becoming dependent on the charisma of its candidates and the regional blocs they can deliver. The problem is neither of these are guaranteed, and relying too much on one candidate can lead to their dominating the party so that it becomes merely an extent of themselves. Ross Perot and the Reform Party, Nader and the Green Party, and Wallace with his American Independent Party are all examples of this.

However there is the problem then of coalitions, namely keeping everyone with it satisfied. In Multi-party politics this is somewhat easier. Despite the fact that there are many parties, once one has entered in as a member of a coalition, it is harder for them to leave. The party gains offices and power and is reluctant to give these up, so it advocates on behalf of the coalition to its supporters and will only leave if things get bad enough or they are made a better offer from a rival coalition. In our system, when a coalition of interests groups is formed, there are few perks that can be offered, since there are weaker ties between the party and the members of its union. When a group is offended by the party, it has the option of not only voting for a rival, but also forming a new party, trying to take the old party over, or simply not voting. Since the groups within a coalition in this country are looser, they can easily slip away or find themselves in conflict with other groups under the party’s umbrella of inclusiveness.

This is the problem the GOP is facing now. For the past three decades the party has functioned through a coalition of conservative Christians, business interests, and voters whose positions are determined by issues revolving around Law and Order. The business and law and order wings of the party were traditionally members dating from after World War Two, but the religious right was needed to help mobilize the votes to bring the party into power the way it was before FDR. The law and order vote helped to break ties with the Democratic Party and the business wing of course supplied funding.

It was a good marriage at first. The older Libertarian wing of the party was somewhat shut out but was kept in line with lip service and the threat of a “socialist” Democratic Party. The coalition captured the presidency and then took over congress and many local governments. However like the FDR coalition of Southerners, Blacks, and the Working Class, the “Reagan Coalition” would start to crumble because of its own internal contradictions.

The 2008 election I think will show the beginning of an unraveling of the Republican Party. No candidate seems to be able to please all the major factions, and the party is torn over trying to adopt positions on a number of issues. Illegal immigration is pitting the Business Wing and Libertarian wing of the party against its law and order wing. Gay rights and abortion are contentious with the Religious Right and the Libertarians. The Patriot Act and the War in Iraq, as well as the ballooning deficit are also sources of conflict. Unless a candidate can come forward with the charisma Reagan had, I foresee a difficult election for the Republicans.

On Poets and Poetry

Why am I poet? Because I write poetry. A better question to ask is then, why do I write poetry? This is much more complicated. As long as we allow a place for poetry in our culture, then the place for poets is safe. But if poetry is threatened, and poetry disappears, the poet becomes in Soviet jargon, “social parasite.” Therefore we can see that what justifies the poet’s existence is not their being a poet, in upholding some sort of essential poet-ness, but rather in producing a certain kind of work, a poem. All the stereotypes and clichés we might have of how poets exist and what they look like are such because only one thing makes a poet, and that is the poem.

The poet must also remember the poem is a creation which lies between music and prose. It is able to contain discrete meaning through words, but at the same time it is dependent on the impression of each word and how they interact with the ones before it. There can be no useless and unconnected parts of a poem, there should be no tangents if possible. In prose this can occur but in poetry economy of words is key.

It is the work which defines one as a poet. The poet of course supplies the raw labor necessary for the poem to be formed and become part of reality, but knowing anything about the poet is irrelevant. It might spur certain interpretations and can be helpful know, especially for those who want write poetry themselves, but the poem can stand on its own without the help of the poet’s personality. Anonymous troubadours and bards have handed us down poems that are still part of the Western cannon such as Beowulf. The identity of Homer is such a mystery that we might consider the Iliad and the Odyssey to be part of this tradition as well. These poems are lucky in a way not to be burdened with a real authorship, for then they can be appreciated on their own without reference to a body of work or the aura that well known poets carry around themselves and tends to blind the critical eye when appraising their work.

The poet should feel liberated by this humility towards the importance of the work. It allows the poet freedom from worry about being original and outside of tradition; nor that they have to develop and remain faithful to some sort of “voice.” Instead the poet becomes a craftsman, a maker, and less of a personality. It must be remembered though, he or she can still aspire to the transcends responsibilities David Citino identifies in “The Eye of the Poet,” to be a visionary or a namer of the nameless.

Most important for the poet is the liberation from the voice. A poet who focuses on the work and lets the work speak through him or her, is freed from that search which often preoccupies younger poets. The poet must be like a charismatic preacher, able to speak in tongues, adapting to every poem and willing to write the same poem in more than one way, to examine thoughts of heartbreak in the sonnet form and in free verse, through a rambling style or one that is more reserved.

T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock might be an extension of his own thoughts on the nature of fleeting time, but the character is not a confession. Instead Eliot conceived of the poem’s subject and found a voice who could speak amply on it. Prufrock was much older than Eliot was when he wrote the poem, and one who was far more experienced in the world of one night stand, “in cheap hotels.” Eliot’s masterpiece, “The Wasteland” also shows the freedom and creativity to be gained by finding out different voices which can challenge the author. He speaks as both the blind prophet Tiresias and as a tarot card reader. He turns from rhymed verse to every-day speech. It should be noted that the original title of the work embraced this principle, “He Do the Police in Different Voices.”

Like an actor finding a character within, the poet works to find the voice. But it is still one voice out of many, not a unitary way of engaging the universe and the culture in dialogue. Even if the world is of one mind, as poet Li Young Lee would have it, still this mind must have its various ways of speaking to itself so that it might proceed to greater understanding and the poet accomplishes this not only for the society at large but also personally when they try to speak in different voices through their work. Poetry when done this way then opens up different ways of seeing and helps the poet speak for those who might not otherwise be able to.

However poetry, as T.S. Eliot might have it, is not a refuge from the self. The progress of a poet need not be a “extinction of personality.” Instead poetry should broaden the personality of the poet, it should help the poet to find him or herself in many places, times, and minds and if done properly can also send the reader there as well. Of course no poet can speak in an infinite number of ways, but they are severely limited if they can only use one.

The problem of speaking in one voice comes through especially with the more confessional poetry that details the obsessions and past crimes of the poet. Many good poems have been and can be written from the subject matter of the writer’s life and their experiences, but simply being honest about the past does not make a poem good. The principle that the work is more important than the poet still applies. The facts add nothing by themselves. Rather they must conform to the flow and the music of the words. The poem is not a database, it is a window and sometimes through a window we do not see everything, either because we can’t or we choose not to. If details have to be left out to help the poem along and keep it from being weighed down, then so be it.

The problem of writing with a personal voice is that it makes editing harder because it feels as if the poet is compromising themselves. Instead of worrying about the work and the craft, the voice takes center stage and limiting it in any way appears to the poet to be a form of self-censorship. If the work is the central focus it will determine already what is necessary and what is not and the poet merely has to trust his or her intuition about the poem.

Politics s not suited for poetry. The bad political decisions of poets should alone prove (e.g. Pound) this but the substance of poetry itself is also problematic. A political poem should understand that it can only treat political concerns in either a direct way or an indirect one. The middle ground of naming names and –isms fails because it reads off a list of details and trivializes contemporary positions and politicians. It uses too much metaphor to describe something that is best argued for in real terms.

However, there can be good political poems. A successful political poetry must either elevate political struggle to pure myth in a dualistic world of diametrically opposed camps or it must be discrete. In the first case it would frame Bush in Iraq as a crusader, going with that as a theme and sticking seriously to it. It would make a commitment to viewing events in that way and then would develop honestly from that point rather than starting with facts and trying to dress them up with a little flourish.

In the second method, the discrete way, the poet is writing about the effect of something terrible and letting this create a passion for solving the problem. A poem about the problems of capitalism would talk about the concerns of miners and their terrible working conditions in order to then inspire an inquiry into why this is going on and lead the reader to further action. But the poem does not preach any solution, it tells about the problem. In addition a political poem could operate by critiquing the language used in politics. It can show the absurd corruption of a word like freedom used to defend tyranny and oppression, or justice used to cover up injustice. This approach goes back to the practical role of the poem, to critique language and how it is used.

If poetry is going to become read again and become popular, it must avoid confessionalism, confrontationism, and esotericism. The work must not be compromised by the poet’s personality as much as possible. The read cannot be treated as the enemy and poetry should not be a shibboleth to separate the educated and uneducated. Attention must turn to the poem and what the poem is supposed to achieve, this sounds simple but many poets have ignored it. All too often they understand what they are trying to achieve but forget they are working with a poem and not an essay or a treatise. They have a limited space and have to select their words carefully.

Of course all great future poems have the potential to be exempt from these rules. It is such works that the rules themselves are built around. They help to define poetry and what the perfect synthesis of word and sound can be. These rules are based on the combined cannon of such works and on the possibilities they open up, but also on the things they tend to do in common.

The Duel

We were at a vague intersection,
Where there were no rules only
Customs and accepted behaviors,
Laws etched in silence.

In silence we stood looking
At each other
Facing off across an empty street
Wondering, who would go first?

Who would go first and
Take the road
Seize the asphalt and grind
Prints into its black crystals?

Into its black crystals I went
Timidly,
Trembling before a silver grill
That smiled in anticipation of my steps.

In anticipation of my steps,
The carriage lurched forward
But stopped, unsure if there
Was a sign which I saw and it was blind to.

It was blind to nothing,
There was no sign, only
An understanding that those
Traveling on foot would rule.

Those traveling on foot should have ruled,
The street was ours to take
But we had to take it
No sign would give it to me.

No sign would give it to me,
I did make tracks on my own,
The machine smiled with tin teeth
Understanding how fragile the habits were

The habits of the intersection were
Trampled under the treads of the
Carriage which held a man prisoner,
In yellow chains.

A man, prisoner in yellow chains
Looked at me,
Dragged through the intersection
By a chariot he could start, but not stop.

Not stopping, he conquered the street,
He took it away from me and all
Others traveling by foot, took
It because we were at a vague intersection