The Poet's Obligation

Poet's Obligation

By Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up

in house or office, factory or woman

or street or mine or harsh prison cell:

to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,

I arrive and open the door of his prison,

and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,

a great fragment of thunder sets in motion

the rumble of the planet and the foam,

the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,

the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,

and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,

I ceaselessly must listen to and keep

the sea's lamenting in my awareness,

I must feel the crash of the hard water

and gather it up in a perpetual cup

so that, wherever those in prison may be,

wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,

I may be there with an errant wave,

I may move, passing through windows,

and hearing me, eyes will glance upward

saying "How can I reach the sea?"

And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,

the starry echoes of the wave,

a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,

a rustling of salt withdrawing,

the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea

will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

I think a lot about what it means to be a poet. Do I have a certain responsibility to myself, to others, to the strange, post-forbidden-fruit condition of humankind? Most of the time, I write for myself. This keeps me sane, keeps me actively engaging the world around me. Sometimes I share that with others, so they become part of my human experience. I want to write for bigger, more universal causes, though. The phrase I've latched onto is "Be a voice for the voiceless." To do that takes a boldness I haven't yet possessed, but I'm getting there.

This Neruda poem captures so beautifully the obligation I too feel as a writer and as an active citizen in the world. I love the union of freedom and the sea. My experiences in Charleston resonate strongly with that connection. I also love the poet as a vessel through which the imprisoned can find what they seek. 

What do I seek?

I seek the discernment to hear the voices that are silenced in the systems of a broken world.

I seek the wisdom to do those voices justice and create a forum where they would be heard.

I seek the boldness to tell their stories no matter how ugly, painful, unresolved, offensive they may be.

I seek the burden of birthing the stories of the silenced in the societies that silenced them.

I seek freedom for the sake of freedom : for myself, for others.

In all things, I seek grace to give me the hope to ask, "How can I reach the sea?"

If you speak Spanish, I implore you to read the original Spanish version of the poem. The sounds are magnificent and lost in translation: http://thepoeticquotidian.blogspot.com/2006/12/pablo-neruda-deber-del-poeta-poets.html

Peace or Passivity?

I used to blog. Then I went to Honduras, worked at a summer camp, and started my junior year of college. And here I am now.

September 21st: Today is the International Day of Peace as declared by the United Nations. I know this because one of my Bonner friends told me about it during freshman year, and rarely do I forget a date. I also got bombarded by people in Cougar Mall while walking home from my internship at Darkness to Light this afternoon:

Hey! Do you want a sucker? Do you want a sticker? We have free cookies! Don't forget today is International Peace Day!

I'm so glad they were more interested in offering me a prize than telling me about the International Day of Peace (yeah, sarcasm)...or perhaps they just thought I was more likely to stop and talk to them if they offered me a cookie or a "peace pop." Wrong. I kept walking.

Peace is a concept I've spent a lot of time thinking about. It started in the eighth grade when my friends and I decided it was cool to be a hippie. We were also really into the Beatles and making our own trendy buttons--original hipsters. At that point, I mainly associated peace with the antithesis of war. Peace is perpetually trapped in a binary relationship with war by our society. Now, I think it's a lot more than that.

I grew out of the hippie phase within a couple years but clung to my belief that war is wrong for much longer. That's a controversial belief, though. I had a lot of conversations with people much wiser than me who challenged my belief and forced me to consider the implications of my belief. Was I prepared to declare all war wrong? Even wars that were fought to end genocide, holocausts, mass suffering? Should/could Christians be involved in war? I was pointed toward St. Augustine and Aquinas's Just War Theory. I wrestled with mixed feelings about the armed forces. I did a lot of research. My opinion on the relationship between war, peace, and Christianity has become deeper and more complex...but that really isn't what I want to talk about right now.

No, my thoughts about peace of late have been on a much smaller scale. In Honduras, I participated in a peace march in a neighborhood in Tegucigalpa where gang and domestic violence are the norm. Child abuse is nothing new there, and guns are a routine safety precaution. Being part of the rally was chilling, incredible, and thought-provoking. I began to think about peace within communities and families instead of within nations. Maybe it's an easy way out because advocating for peace in the home and in communities is less controversial than protesting for peace on a national level (at least in the States). But if peace begins in the homes and moves out into the communities, who is to say that it won't then become more of a priority on a larger level, too? Besides, peace in the homes and neighborhoods feels more urgent to me. Those should be places of refuge...

This pushed me to think on an even smaller scale. The individual! Of course! Shouldn't peace begin with the individual? As I returned to the States with this incredible experience at the peace march in my back pocket and began working as a staffer at Camp Longridge, I began to process what it means to be peaceful at an individual level. How could I become a peaceful person? More importantly, how could I become a peacemaker? I saw very obvious answers to those questions while working with the kids at camp. There were moments when I had to intervene in conflicts (both physical and verbal). Now that I'm back in the real world, though, how does my life reflect my desire to be peaceful, to be a peacemaker?

So when the people with the free suckers and cookies yelled at me to remember Peace Day, this is what went through my mind: Scorn. Of course I remember the International Day of Peace. Of course I care. Of course I am seeking to live peacefully and advocate for peace in my daily life. Of course I'm not going to give up my fight for peace.

Wait. A fight for peace? Is that allowed? Can I fight for peace? If I don't, I'm being passive. And in my experience, passivity is one of the more dangerous sins. I guess what I've been getting at this whole time is that people often mistaken passivity for peace. Sitting idly by and choosing not to engage in violence does not make you peaceful; it makes you passive. If I were to go to Honduras and choose not to abuse a child or become part of a gang, I would be passive. But if I were to go to Honduras and choose to help rescue a child from abuse or speak against gang violence, I would be a peacemaker. I believe it's important for me to actively pursue peace in my life. I want to be able to have a spirit of peace so that my actions stem from that. I want to pursue peace in my friendships, in my family, in my community. I want to eradicate the violence that systematically finds its way into the institutions of my life...by fighting for peace.

What does it look like to fight for peace in all areas of my life? I am still not sure...but it's something I'm thinking about, particularly today.

So, happy International Day of Peace! I can't offer you a free cookie, but I hope I've offered you some things to think about...