Poetry saving America, Day 2 #NationalPoetryMonth

The initial poem listed in Tony Hoagland's Twenty Poems That Could Save America was written by a Russian poet, Anna Akhmatova. In an essay about the Twenty Poems, Hoagland has little, if anything, to note about Akhmatova's poem, Twenty-first Night. His thoughts on the poem appeared in a prior book of essays, Real Sofistikashun, in an essay titled “Negative Capability: How to Talk Mean and Influence People."

Twenty-first Night?

Photo by J. Harrington

We readily admit to some degree of uncertainty regarding the relevance of Akhmatova's poem to saving America. However, we believe an insight regarding Hoagland's thoughts can be found in the paragraph below from the section of his essay in which he writes about a partial explanation of Akhmatova's poem:

In poetry, as in life, meanness almost always has a personal flavor, and perhaps it is even more admirable for its lack of detachment. The mean speaker is not retired from the battles of selfhood, removed to some philosophical resort where experience can be codified in tranquility. She or he is still down in the dirty human valley, fighting it out with the rest of us. In that way, the mean speaker may possess more convincing credentials than a kind or wise one.

Real Sofistikashun cover

America has become only too well known for being home to a growing number of Americans who feel free to speak with meanness about their fellow human beings. Perhaps Hoagland would have us credit all mean speakers with being "down in the dirty human valley, fighting it out with the rest of us." We admit that we have been finding it more and more challenging to attribute humanity, or even human characteristics, to those who speak, and act, meanly about what and who we value deeply. Perhaps Hoagland is indirectly suggesting that America needs to rediscover the humanity of all its residents, indigenous or migrant, and treat those living here accordingly. Perhaps, through these speculations, we may have learned something of value, even if it isn't what Hoagland intended. Ethics should teach us that propaganda should only be used against an enemy in time of war. Learning that we are not engaged in another internal war, nor are our fellow residents a wartime enemy, very well could help save America. Perhaps we could even recover from feeling sick all the time.

Twenty-first Night

by Anna Akhmatova
translated by Jane Kenyon

Twenty-first night. Monday.
Silhouette of the capital in darkness.
Some good-for-nothing—who knows why—
made up the tale that love exists on earth.

People believe it, maybe from laziness
or boredom, and live accordingly:
they wait eagerly for meetings,
fear parting, and when they sing,
they sing about love...

But the secret reveals itself to some
and on them, the silence settles down.
I found this out by accident
and now it seems I’m sick all the time.

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