Dear Earth, Happy #WorldPoetryDay!

free 2019 National Poetry Month poster

It's #WorldPoetryDay, first proclaimed by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999. In the US, National Poetry Month begins next month, in April. Two days ago, March 19, was the 100th birthday of one of our favorite poets, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. His latest book, Little Boy, is published this month. In honor of all of the above, and the times we live in, we've dug out our copy of Ferlinghetti's Poetry As Insurgent Art and will reread it over the next few weeks. The opening lines are reproduced below. Do they seem appropriate for the start of an Anthropocene?

I am signaling you through the
flames.

The North Pole is not where it used
to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer mani-
fest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?

The state of the world calls out for
poetry to save it.

      Ferlinghetti 

            X 

Poetry As Insurgent Art

This IS "Planet B"     credit: NASA Visible Earth

Each day, the sun also rises a little further to the North. The same sun is indifferent to the state of the world, a world dependent on energy from the sun. The same world is indifferent to the state of civilization, civilization(s) dependent on the state of the world. We live on Planet B. Next month, April, is not only National Poetry Month, it is also the 49th anniversary of Earth Month. The poem which follows demonstrates how poetry can help bridge that indifference. Until we learn to care well enough for that on which we depend, those who depend on us will curse our failures and, perhaps, us as well.

[Murmurs from the earth of this land]

By Muriel Rukeyser

Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters,

       from the bowl of darkness. Down watercourses of our

       dragon childhood, where we ran barefoot.

We stand as growing women and men. Murmurs come down

        where water has not run for sixty years.

Murmurs from the tulip tree and the catalpa, from the ax of

        the stars, from the house on fire, ringing of glass; from

        the abandoned iron-black mill.

Stars with voices crying like mountain lions over forgotten

        colors.

Blue directions and a horizon, milky around the cities where the

        murmurs are deep enough to penetrate deep rock.

Trapping the lightning-bird, trapping the red central roots.

You know the murmurs. They come from your own throat.

You are the bridges to the city and the blazing food-plant green;

The sun of plants speaks in your voice, and the infinite shells of

        accretions

A beach of dream before the smoking mirror.

You are close to that surf, and the leaves heated by noon, and

        the star-ax, the miner’s glitter walls. The crests of the sea

Are the same strength you wake with, the darkness is the eyes

        of children forming for a blaze of sight and soon, soon,

Everywhere your own silence, who drink from the crater, the

        nebula, one another, the changes of the soul.

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