There are many levels of witness that poetry fulfills in this world.
1. There is the poetry that witnesses the beauties of nature and praises them--think of Wordsworth
2.There is the poetry that bears witness to human suffering and pain and brings it to our attention and commiserates with it and sometimes condemns it.
Think of the poems of Nazim Hikmit or Pablo Neruda. or Leroi Jones.
3.There is the poetry that bears witness to the daily pains of life and existence. Think of the songs of the blues singers like Robert Johnson.
4. There is the poetry that bears witness to the humble daily joys and sorrows that we all share in daily life. That is where Galway Kinnell bears witness in his work,
5. There is the poetry that bears witness to the sacramental nature of the created world. Poets like Hopkins, Shelley and yes again, Galway Kinnell
6, There is the poetry that cries out against the tyranny and atrocity that an oppressive political regime can impose on an entire society. These poets risk imprisonment and death to tell truth to power,
Think of the brave work of Nazim Hikmet and Garcia Lorca. Perhaps the greatest playwright and poet of witness in Bertolt Brecht
.
Bertolt Brecht:
In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.
Yes, there will be singing.
About the dark times.
A contemporary poet Carolyn Forche has written about her experience of the Poetry of Witness.
How did she come to be a poet of witness?
"Well I was very troubled in childhood by learning about the Holocaust. And I read and read.
I suppose like all little girls it began with Anne Frank’s diary, but it led to much more. I was
deeply disturbed by this event and I read more than other children did about it. I imagined
, I tried to imagine, what I would have done had I lived in those times. And I wanted to
imagine that I would have opposed it at risk of my life. I wanted to imagine that."
I wondered how she moved from imagination to action.
How did she come to be a poet of witness?
"Well I was very troubled in childhood by learning about the Holocaust. And I read and read.
I suppose like all little girls it began with Anne Frank’s diary, but it led to much more. I was
deeply disturbed by this event and I read more than other children did about it. I imagined
, I tried to imagine, what I would have done had I lived in those times. And I wanted to
imagine that I would have opposed it at risk of my life. I wanted to imagine that."
I wondered how she moved from imagination to action.
"When the civil rights movement happened in the United States I was a teenager. I was born in Detroit
, and I lived very near Detroit. It was impossible to escape knowledge of the utter lack of civil rights
in the United States, and the utter rightness of Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement. And I, of course
, lived in a community, a rural – somewhat suburban, but mostly rural – white community; and I was
shocked to realize that there were classmates of mine who were openly racist. So I fought them
in school. And I got in a lot of trouble with my classmates because they didn’t understand me,
and I didn’t understand them.
, and I lived very near Detroit. It was impossible to escape knowledge of the utter lack of civil rights
in the United States, and the utter rightness of Martin Luther King Jr.’s movement. And I, of course
, lived in a community, a rural – somewhat suburban, but mostly rural – white community; and I was
shocked to realize that there were classmates of mine who were openly racist. So I fought them
in school. And I got in a lot of trouble with my classmates because they didn’t understand me,
and I didn’t understand them.
Then comes the Vietnam War, and my classmates are among those who fight in the war. And I go
away to college because of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Program, which allowed people
without means to go to college. And when I arrived at university of course the anti war movement
was flowering. It was 1968 and I was a freshman. I had not been exposed to antiwar movements
before and I linked them to civil rights movements and linked the whole thing to the Holocaust
and linked the dying Vietnamese to the people who died in the Holocaust. It was all linked together
, I felt that – so I joined the antiwar movement.
away to college because of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society Program, which allowed people
without means to go to college. And when I arrived at university of course the anti war movement
was flowering. It was 1968 and I was a freshman. I had not been exposed to antiwar movements
before and I linked them to civil rights movements and linked the whole thing to the Holocaust
and linked the dying Vietnamese to the people who died in the Holocaust. It was all linked together
, I felt that – so I joined the antiwar movement.
I didn’t understand the war in Vietnam. It took years of reading before I understood the utter
nihilism that must have afflicted our leaders to take us into the war and prosecute the war in that way.
When the war was over, everyone seemed to disappear. It seemed to me that the millions of people
in the streets, the tens of thousand protesting the war, the great mobilization had vanished
. Suddenly we were going on with our lives and everyone was gone.".
Some more lines from Brecht underscore the feelings of isolation that all poet witnesses can feel also.
At least I’m still alive, as you may see.
I’m like the man who took a brick to show
How beautiful his house used once to be."
No witness is complete --we are all able
to make a contribution -- new ones must come.
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