Saturday, March 3. 2007
Why Poetry Matters Now
“Poets and intellectuals - who are paid little, and who are usually ignored by the general population - have this consolation, at least: they are the ones the tyrants go after first.”
-Frederick Smock, “Poetry & Compassion”
“If I keep listening to it, I won’t finish the revolution.”
-Lenin, regarding Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata
(as recounted in “The Lives Of Others”)
I read Frederick Smock’s article, “Poetry & Compassion,” in the February issue of The Writer’s Chronicle just before going to see the German film “The Lives Of Others.” Thought is the pairing of different experiences together into new understandings and relationships. The insights issuing forth from pairing these two profound experiences together have propelled me toward a deeper understanding of the power, purpose, and significance of poetry.It all began with this: according to Smock, “The U.S. Treasury Department - which, among other things, handles cases of treason - recently warned American publishers against translating poetry from Iran. Such translations, they avowed, would be considered ‘trading with the enemy,’ and would be punishable by fines and jail time.” Since World War Two, strong cryptographic algorithms have been classified as munitions and banned from export outside the U.S. Why, going further, would the import of a different intellectual commodity with seemingly far less practical application be considered treasonous? Why ban poetry?
It is not true, as Ossip Mandelstam believed that, “only in Russia poetry is respected - it gets people killed.” The so-called “self-murder” of countless (and deliberately uncounted) poets and other writers in Eastern Germany is brought close to home in “The Lives Of Others”. The similarities between their climate of fear and ours are striking - from unscrupulous wiretapping to simple, insidious acts like regulating the import of Western literature - an act not too different than banning the translation of “enemy” poems.
Yet Iranian poems are produced in a sovereign nation against which we have declared no formal war. They are not officially “enemy.” So, why the ban? Because people can not be made into an enemy, Smock points out, if they move us as deeply as - for example - the great Persian poet Rumi. Poetry, in its ability to embrace and elevate all that makes us human, runs contrary to the demonization and divisiveness required to engage in any war against a nation or culture. Humanization is enmity’s undoing. Poetry is one very powerful instrument.
The crux of “The Lives Of Others” is the idea implied by Lenin that great art puts us in touch with the very humanity we must harden ourselves against in order to continue a course of action like the establishment or maintenance of an oppressive Communist regime. Imagining what happens when just one person is inspired by great art to make humane choices in a climate of terror and oppression - and doing it with sensitivity, spareness, and captivating pathos - is what makes this film a masterpiece.
Furthermore, this film is not an Orwellian vision of the future - it is a look at the very recent past, and a warning against our own potential future. Banning the humanization of any group of people - silencing our ears to their voices - is an act no less dangerous and terrible than any other act in the systematic dismantling of free expression that went on in the Soviet Bloc. The ability to capture a people’s imagination is more powerful than any munition. Because an essential humanity exists in every citizen, sounding the note of truth can cause it to resonate further, faster and wider than any propaganda. It can turn us back into men and women, save lives, stop wars.
Though we live in a country founded on principles of free speech and free exchange of ideas, such privileges can only continue to the extent that we remain vigilant and awake. Poems can keep us awake. Films like this one can keep us awake. Truth demands a kind of insomnia. And in an age of soporific sound-bytes and the collusion of government and media toward distraction, divisiveness, and war - both poetry and compassion have never been more important.
Yet Iranian poems are produced in a sovereign nation against which we have declared no formal war. They are not officially “enemy.” So, why the ban? Because people can not be made into an enemy, Smock points out, if they move us as deeply as - for example - the great Persian poet Rumi. Poetry, in its ability to embrace and elevate all that makes us human, runs contrary to the demonization and divisiveness required to engage in any war against a nation or culture. Humanization is enmity’s undoing. Poetry is one very powerful instrument.
The crux of “The Lives Of Others” is the idea implied by Lenin that great art puts us in touch with the very humanity we must harden ourselves against in order to continue a course of action like the establishment or maintenance of an oppressive Communist regime. Imagining what happens when just one person is inspired by great art to make humane choices in a climate of terror and oppression - and doing it with sensitivity, spareness, and captivating pathos - is what makes this film a masterpiece.
Furthermore, this film is not an Orwellian vision of the future - it is a look at the very recent past, and a warning against our own potential future. Banning the humanization of any group of people - silencing our ears to their voices - is an act no less dangerous and terrible than any other act in the systematic dismantling of free expression that went on in the Soviet Bloc. The ability to capture a people’s imagination is more powerful than any munition. Because an essential humanity exists in every citizen, sounding the note of truth can cause it to resonate further, faster and wider than any propaganda. It can turn us back into men and women, save lives, stop wars.
Though we live in a country founded on principles of free speech and free exchange of ideas, such privileges can only continue to the extent that we remain vigilant and awake. Poems can keep us awake. Films like this one can keep us awake. Truth demands a kind of insomnia. And in an age of soporific sound-bytes and the collusion of government and media toward distraction, divisiveness, and war - both poetry and compassion have never been more important.
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Robert,
Brilliant comments. You cut right to the point. "It can turn us back into men and women, save lives, stop wars." The "it" you refer to here can be poetry, art, creativity, spirituality, compassion, empathy, etc., etc… The point is that beauty & humanity are inextricably woven. That is where the power lies.
Brilliant comments. You cut right to the point. "It can turn us back into men and women, save lives, stop wars." The "it" you refer to here can be poetry, art, creativity, spirituality, compassion, empathy, etc., etc… The point is that beauty & humanity are inextricably woven. That is where the power lies.
I’ve come to your blog via John Baker and am very glad that I have. A good post, and I will definitely see the film (in the original, since I live in Germany) though I don’t often go to the cinema. And I’ll be back here as well.
Thanks very much, Lee. It was a profound film. More significant even, to me, than "Wings of Desire" ("Die Himmel über Berlin"). I look forward to hearing what you think.
A friend emailed me this piece about Auden in response to what I wrote above:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-hitchens4mar04,1,6135495.story?coll=la-news-comment&ctrack=1&cset=true
I found it compelling.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-hitchens4mar04,1,6135495.story?coll=la-news-comment&ctrack=1&cset=true
I found it compelling.
Hi Robert. Thanks for sharing what sounds like a very compelling film. I’m def. going to have to watch it. In an effort to learn more about it, I searched and found this interesting article: "In a peculiar coincidence, the release of the film has come just as former Stasi officers are waging an aggressive campaign to shed their image as brainwashing torturers who infiltrated every aspect of East German life. […] "We harmed no one," said Gotthold Schramm, 74, a former Stasi colonel who has authored recent books asserting that the secret police have been unfairly demonized. “The GDR was not a criminal state. With good conscience, I can say the Stasi only served the people and obeyed the laws that were the laws of that time.
Article here: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/05/29/german_film_prompts_open_debate_on_stasi/
Article here: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2006/05/29/german_film_prompts_open_debate_on_stasi/
Thanks, Jess. The film opens by asserting that the Stasi’s "stated goal" was "to know everything." So clearly the "laws of that time" involved widespread wiretapping, the service of over 200,000 informants and the strict regulation of all literature - all in service to state-sanctioned goals which became law. And each law must have began somewhere, with people acquiescing liberty for the illusion of security and humanity for a sense of control.
Inspired by an article from Frederick Smock and a viewing of the German film "The Lives Of Others," Robert Peake considers what it is that makes tyrants and warmongers silence the voices of poets and other artists...
Tracked: Mar 04, 14:27