RESIST STEREOTYPES: Send poems
Courtesy photo of The Red Wheelbarrow bookstore, Paris
ON WEST VIRGINIA DAY coming up Friday, W.Va. bloggers are calling for us to resist stereotypes! I’m joining in to avoid the merely black and white dualisms, on one hand the other hand, the red as opposed to the blue, right/left. The best poems rely on what Allen Ginsberg called “the lion of the real” in seeking truth. News magazines and editorial pages seek to do this too, but poetry trusts “the thing itself” perhaps more and the explanation less.
Many of us are fresh from watching Tim Russert’s near state-funeral send-off yesterday, with that tune “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in mind and that real rainbow everyone saw outside just after the memorial. Nobody could’ve arranged that. My point is, I think of how Tim Russert’s take on things was to “see the rainbow,” so to speak, and not rely on black and white. Russert’s approach to Klan guy gubernatorial candidate David Duke was not to stereotype him, but to ask him a real question about Louisiana’s economy. Duke couldn’t answer it. The emperor had no clothes.
Stereotypes are a form of sleep. The eyes are closed; the details, ignored. They are the broadbrush phrases, the sort of generalizations William Carlos Williams resisted in his “no ideas but in things.”
To stereotype is counter-reality, like comparing a woman to a flower or a summer day. It’s the sort of arrogance that Dick Cheney relished the other day with his slur about inbreeding. That was Cheney’s way of marginalizing West Virginians, people that he feels better than. Yes, I know he apologized after the uproar and that he never does that, but only after.
Cal Thomas on Faux News, the “no-spin zone,” recently vilified all black women as angry. It’s concocted. Made-up. A lie.
West Virginians are often disenfranchised, written off, denied full attention, generalized in a way that really hurts people.
This W.Va. Day and beyond, I’m looking for poems about what it’s like to be a West Virginian. MountainWord probably will not get many responses by tomorrow but will continue to collect and share these poems ad infinitum, if you’ll send them.
Also, in the spirit of my recent video about Shirley Klein, I’m collecting poems about what it’s like to be disabled.
Disabled people are also a disenfranchised group. It’s not difficult to think of many other discounted groups.
My wife Nancy has told me, and I have experienced this accompanying her and others, if you are in a wheelchair or riding a scooter, often some people seem to consider you to be invisible. If you don’t believe it, go shopping in a wheelchair sometime.
Click here to send your poems to MountainWord. This is your best option to preserve the precise line breaks and spacing of your poems. Include a bio and a phone number for verification.
Or call in and leave poems on my voicemail at (304) 348-5184.
“When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations,” JFK said. “When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
Let’s get busy, open our eyes and see the rainbow. This must’ve been what Williams was talking about — the details themselves — when he wrote:
The Red Wheelbarrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
