The Role of the Poet in Contemporary Culture(s)

By Jody Aliesan. From the Raven Chronicles, Vol. 6, No. 1, “Power of Language" Fall, 1996

These days, especially in a city, our definition of culture/community is often something other than geographic: it’s a matter of affinity, experience, solidarity, common purpose and struggle. For example, I consider myself a member of:

—the women’s community, ever since the second wave of feminism in the late 60’s, early 70’s, when I had the first experience of my words being useful to others, the function of the “cultural worker”;
—what I will call, in order to be most inclusive, the queer community: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gendered people;
—the “counter-culture” or “alternative” community, although I might not choose those labels;
—and other communities, such as those who have suffered rape, or clinical depression.

But my sense of the place of the poet in a culture has come most (consciously or unconsciously) from what’s leaked into me out of my Irish ancestory.

Gaelic bards were perceived as a particular obstacle by the colonizers, not just because they epitomized a cultural tradition which the occupiers hoped to destroy, but, more practically, because they were figures of political influence in their own right, second only to the chieftains, to whom they sat next to in council. —Declan Kiberd, “Irish Literature and Irish History,” The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland.

The resident officials in Ireland gave considerable thought to the wiping-out of the two significant and overlapping elements in Irish society; the traveling craftsmen, messengers and entertainers, and the learned class of brehons [jurists] and poets…. This would have torn asunder significant parts of the structure of Irish society, more particularly by eliminating the jurists—the poets were more difficult to silence. —D.B. Quinn, The Elizabethans and the Irish.

In ancient Irish/Gaelic culture, the people, led by their chieftains, were married to the land. But there was an itinerant learned class who moved with safe conduct around the country, uniting the nation:

—the druids (a word I hesitate to use because of what’s been invented about them by New Age writers. If you read anything that claims to know what the druids believed or what rituals they used, it’s creative writing. Everything was oral, and it was all lost). They were priests, healers, and philosophers;
—the brehons, who were judges, legal counselors, and scholars of the law;
—the filii, the poets, who were the seers, historians, and keepers of the myths and sagas. They looked forward and backward and spoke of what they saw.

All this was orally produced and transmitted, and the filii studied 21 years before they were considered poets—they were walking libraries among the clans, and members of scholarly communities.

Most important to me is their twofold function: telling the truth, and speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves. Giving them words. The poets were called to sit beside chieftains because they could be counted on to do this. And they were protected from the consequences.
After this ancient culture was finally crushed, the poets became dispossessed outcasts sheltered by the people; itinerant teachers and custodians of literacy during the Penal Years of the Seventeenth Century when the native Irish were forbidden education. They were hunted down, because they raised the spirit of the people and reminded them of their history, of who they were. Their power, of critique and satire, was feared.
 
So what does this mean for me, personally? What does it have to do with the present? During the reign of the English King Henry VIII, ancient Irish manuscripts on animal skin were cut into strips and used to stiffen the spines of English books. Now these books are being taken apart and the strips recovered. One of them includes a fragment that reads: “The poet is the wick in the lamp of the community. Not the oil, and not the flame; but the simple piece of cloth that unites the two so that the people can see their own light.”

I am a member of communities. I feel a responsibility to them. Being a poet is a job, a calling, a way of life (also a doom, a fate, and a curse). It’s a function among other human beings, an absurd assignment—but somebody has to do it.

So I contribute to my communities as a poet by doing things like organizing benefit readings for Hands Off Washington; or providing an invocation at Tilth’s 20th Anniversary conference; dedicating royalties (such as they are), or donating books and performances to auctions. Most of all I believe I contribute by living my life, writing about what moves me, from my community-influenced point of view, and telling the truth: pursuing it down through the mazes of my own self-delusion and denial.

But here’s the central paradox: I can do this best if I’m separate, detached, standing one step away, independent and spiritually itinerant. If I don’t belong to anyone, no one owns me. Then I can speak the truth, even if I’m not protected from the consequences.

It’s a matter of binocular vision: one eye is the personal “I”, the ego, the personality; the other is the mythic eye, that sees my life as representative of human experience. So, my community, my culture, is our common humanity. I aspire to speak for that.

from the Raven Chronicles, Vol. 6, No. 1, “Power of Language”, Fall, 1996
The Raven Chronicles. A Journal of art, literature and the spoken word
ravenchronicles.org

Jody Aliesan 1943—2012, poet, writer, and feminist



This Place

By Linda Boyden ©2015

Listen to the silence of the great trees.

Birds shelter among branches
heads tucked beneath wings,
feathers preened.

Underground, the earth vibrates
with hungering roots
the trembling hearts of rabbits
the shuddering dreams of moles.

Above, clouds scatter and collect,
reflect muted colors 
as the sun seeps along the horizon,
and stars parade to center stage.

Time to go though there’s something 
about this place that urges me to stay;
something that makes me want to whisper.


Breakfast
By Linda Boyden ©2015

Your toast is burnt
            the way you like;
coffee strong 
            as I demand.
Cream drenches mine, sinful sweet.
Yours stays blacker than 
the argument 
our account depleted again 
when you found a deal,
“Golf clubs, half-price, a steal!” 

At breakfast,
the argument slides
into shadow.
You linger
at the counter
watching me
            watching the toaster. 

It’s the peanut butter we share
our one agreement,
other than how the curves of me 
            find home
                        within the angles of you.

All the rest,
our differences,
are melodies played in a minor key

You cup my face;
dare me to lick peanut butter 
from your thumb.


Finding Home 
By Linda Boyden ©2015

If you have a true heart,
you know how to listen.
You understand the 
negative space of silence;
how words linger near our hearts,
how stories dwell within our ears.

If you have a true heart,
you are a friend for life;
who will listen and laugh
or smack you upside the head 
from time to time.

If you have a true heart, you will 
catch the unspoken need 
within the words
and be there 
with him
            beside her
hold a hand
            jump-start a battery
let supper grow cold
            pace lonely hospital halls
because you know,
you remember  
what the elders taught us:
We are here to help each other find home.


About The Author: Linda Boyden has loved words all of her life. After teaching for a long while, her husband’s work took them to Maui, Hawai’i where she stopped teaching and started to get her stories published. Her titles are “The Blue Roses,” (Lee and Low Books, 2002), “Powwow’s Coming,” and “Giveaways an ABC of Loanwords from the Americas,” (University of New Mexico Press, 2007, 2010), and ”Boy and Poi Poi Puppy,” (Progressive Rising Phoenix Press, 2013). “RoxyReindeer” is the fourth book she has written and illustrated. Besides picture books Linda has had poems published in many journals and belongs to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and Writers Forum of Redding CA. www.lindaboyden.com

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