Image courtesy of the Tate Museum; Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) license
“You never know What is enough Unless you know what Is more than enough …”
William Blake
(How can I see so much into
those burned and writhing faces?
Not together. They are so apart.)
In a siege, an overture of feeling,
Blake pulled emotions flat,
froze the tears, hung guilt in a running,
Eve rounded stiff, giving her birth away to a grave.
Adam knows the cows won’t come home
And his arms roam in anguish.
The whole painting a tomb
of what should not, could not, but was.
Arms stretching unique,
Wheels, a circular unrolling,
The sun a fiery inert shape
casting dubious anti-light.
Behind the straight lines,
ineffable tragedy burning.
Father I can’t say Son, please don’t go away Death dropped me dead, dad, in a coffin under I wonder who sees anything over anyway These colors exacerbate us all alone
Bread and stone locked in bone here
Blake pours out the beginning of the end
A deafening overtone driving us deep
A heartland of grief in ballistic color.
Looks without seeing. Nights without breathing.
Blake lets us look, stunned, alone, after, while grief is weeping.
LINDA E. CHOWN grew up in Berkeley, Ca. in the days of action. Civil Rights arrests at Sheraton Palace and Auto Row. BA UC Berkeley Intellectual History; MA Creative Writing SFSU; PHd Comparative Literature University of Washington. Four books of poetry. Many poems published on line at Numero Cinq, Empty Mirror, The Bezine, Dura, Poet Head and others. Many articles on Oliver Sachs, Doris Lessing, Virginia Woolf, and many others. Twenty years in Spain with friends who lived through the worst of Franco. I was in Spain (Granada, Conil and Cádiz) during Franco’s rule, there the day of his death when people took to the streets in celebration. Interviewed nine major Spanish Women Novelists, including Ana María Matute and Carmen Laforet and Carmen Martín Gaite.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
Permanent Free Speech Wall in Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S. courtesy of Daniel Rothamel under CC BY 2.0
“It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what.” I saw hate in a graveyard, Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005”
As the U.S. lurches into what promises to be a vitriolic campaign season, battles over free speech on campus are simmering again. Students, administrators, and faculty are certain to find themselves at the vortex of a national conversation on threats to free speech and how to address them.
To avert censorship on campus and prevent free speech controversies from causing turmoil, PEN America just published a first-of-its-kind digital resource, the PEN America Campus Free Speech Guide. The guide provides step-by-step instructions for scenarios involving invited speakers, academic freedom, hateful expression, and campus protests, among other topics. The online resource is rooted in PEN America’s own Principles on Campus Free Speech and the organization’s extensive research on campus free speech issues. The guide provides a concrete, accessible reference for how to cope with speech-related challenges in the classroom, on the quad, and online.
“Now more than ever, university leaders and students need a go-to resource to understand how to protect free speech and keep their communities open and thriving,” said Jonathan Friedman, director of PEN America’s campus free speech project. “For the past three years, PEN America has been working with administrators, faculty, students, and staff across the country. This guide brings together their collective wisdom, and aims to fill their need for detailed, actionable guidance on how to balance protections for free speech on campus with efforts to advance diversity and inclusion. We hope the guide serves as a starting to place to inform campus stakeholders not only about the law, but also about best practices for how to promote dialogue, encourage the free exchange of ideas, and ensure an inclusive environment where all community members have opportunities to be heard.”
PEN America’s Campus Free Speech Guide walks users through some of the thorniest campus speech scenarios. It offers case studies on how to address hateful speech; a legal roadmap for public and private universities to adhere to the First Amendment and uphold precepts of academic freedom; a resource library stocked with advice, sample policies, and sample statements; and FAQs specifically designed to answer the questions of administrators, faculty, and students.
“Since we began our campus speech work, educators across the country have been crying out for a roadmap to help them navigate clashes that can erupt into violence and destroy careers,” said PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel. “Our university campuses are crucial breeding grounds for the broadest range of ideas and opinions. This guide offers concrete tools and methods to help them stay that way, while dealing constructively with inevitable clashes of opinions and values. Building on years of research and consultation, we are moving beyond finger-pointing over curbs on speech to advance concrete solutions that enable everyone on campus to have their say.”
EVENT THIS EVENING / 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time / New York / Free and Open to the Public but seating is limited /Registration Required
The launch of this new resource coincides with a panel event at NYU on September 26, “Campus at a Crossroads: Free Speech, Truth, and Democracy in an Election Year.” Co-sponsored by PEN America and New York University’s Center for the Humanities and Institute for Public Knowledge, the panel will bring together academics, writers, and students for a discussion of debates over free speech, truth, and the university. Read more about the event here.
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This post is courtesy of PEN America, The Guardian, Wikipedia, and my bookshelf. The Poet by Day actively supports freedom of speech and artistic expression and human rights.
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PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. It champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.
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“Providing food, shelter, clothing and education is not enough any more, because all of this would have no meaning in the end, if your children do not have a planet to live on with health and prosperity.” Abhijit Naskar, The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth
this perfect blue-green planet, her youth
dream among the strains of their hope,
dream of us like our sun and moon,
coordinating … if only we would,
sowing the rich soil with right-action,
cultivating a greening of our compassion,
acting on a commonsense vision
the fruits of our being-ness plant their
ideals, shared values, a call for accountability,
for a re-visioning unencumbered by insanity,
rich fields to harvest, color, sound, textures,
rough and smooth, the deep rootedness of
their stand and stand for, their wise demands
casting a spell that we might see with one eye,
splendor hidden behind our irresponsibility,
their effervescent call, blossoming unity, vision –
bright spinning planet gently graced with these
wildflowers, these precious perceptive youth.
Dedicated to the young people of the world who teach us many lessons as they reach across borders in their stand for climate action.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
“Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.” Friedrich Nietzsche
January Is On the Wane
after Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz
January is on the wane leaving behind early dark
and champagne hopes for the genus Rosa.
Garden roses want pruning now, solicitous cultivation.
Layer shorter under taller, drape on trellises
and over pergolas, the promise of color and scent,
climbers retelling their stories in a ballet up stone walls,
an heirloom lace of tea roses, a voluptuous panorama
rhymed with shrubs and rock roses in poetic repetition.
Feminine pulchritude: their majesties in royal reds
or sometimes subdued in pink or purple gentility,
a cadmium-yellow civil sensibility, their haute couture.
Is it the thorny rose we love or the way it mirrors us
in our own beauty and barbarism, our flow into decrepitude?
They remind of our mortality with blooms, ebbs, and bows
to destiny. A noble life, by fate transformed in season.
Divinely fulsome, that genus Rosa, sun-lighted, reflexed. And January? January is ever on the wane.
A Una Rosa
Rosa divina que en gentil cultura
eres, con tu fragrante sutileza,
magisterio purpureo en la belleza,
enseñanza nevada a la hermosura.
Amago de la humana arquitectura,
ejemplo de la vana gentileza,
en cuyo ser unió naturaleza
la cuna alegre y triste sepultura.
¡Cuán altiva en tu pompa, presumida,
soberbia, el riesgo de morir desdeñas,
y luego desmayada y encogida
de tu caduco ser das mustias señas,
con que con docta muerte y necia vida,
viviendo engañas y muriendo enseñas!
– Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz (Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana)
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
I thought we’d do something a bit different this week. I hope it’s something everyone will enjoy. Instead of a theme, write a poem in the spirit of one that you love and was written by someone else. Put your poem in the comments section and reference the poem you’re working off of.
please submit your poem/s by pasting them into the comments section and not by sharing a link
please submit poems only, no photos, illustrations, essays, stories, or other prose
PLEASE NOTE:
Poems submitted through email or Facebook will not be published.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, September 23 by 8 pm Pacific Time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, check The Time Zone Converter.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZineand its associated activities and The Poet by Dayjamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
Jamie Dedes. I’m a freelance writer, poet, content editor, and blogger. I also manage The BeZine and its associated activities and The Poet by Day jamiededes.com, an info hub for writers meant to encourage good but lesser-known poets, women and minority poets, outsider artists, and artists just finding their voices in maturity. The Poet by Day is dedicated to supporting freedom of artistic expression and human rights. Email thepoetbyday@gmail.com for permissions, commissions, or assignments.
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