The Country We Want Our Country To Be
I don’t write much about politics directly on this website, probably because I assume my liberal sensibility pervades much of what I offer here about the art of writing and literature anyway.
Today will be different. After this long and monstrous election cycle and its unspeakably monstrous result, I feel flattened, and I know so many others who feel the same way. And so I offer “Parable,” a prose poem by the great Wislawa Szymborska (winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature):
Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece
of paper, with these words: “Somebody save me! I’m here. The
ocean cast me on this desert island. I am standing on the shore
waiting for help. Hurry! I’m here!”
“There’s no date. I bet it’s already too late anyway. It could
have been floating for years,” the first fisherman said.
“And he doesn’t say where. It’s not even clear which ocean,”
the second fisherman said.
“It’s not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere,”
the third fisherman said.
They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That’s how it goes with
universal truths.
So Here many of us are, crushed. Time to get up. Time to get angry and stay determined. I’m inspired by my daughter, Hannah, who yesterday walked out of her college literature class because her professor wouldn’t let the shell-shocked students speak at all about the election, or even take a short break to see Hillary’s concession speech (the class subject of the day was: Henry James’ Portrait of a Lady; what a missed teaching opportunity that was). Brave young woman! Later in the day she took part in a giant protest march in NYC from Union Square to Trump Tower.
The Obama years are over, unfortunately, and what is coming will look nothing like them. Yes, we are all separate souls, all in need of individual help, but we are also Here together, not alone at all, not distant, not lost, and it’s time, yet again, to stand up for the country we want our country to be.
Tagged with: 2016 election • protest march • teaching opportunity • Wislawa SzymborskaRecent Entries
- May 2023
- March 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- December 2021
- October 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- September 2020
- August 2020
- January 2020
- August 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- September 2018
- June 2018
- April 2018
- October 2017
- May 2017
- March 2017
- January 2017
- November 2016
- September 2016
- January 2016
- October 2015
- August 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- November 2014
- August 2014
- May 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- August 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- March 2013
- December 2012
- July 2012
- May 2012
- March 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
Blogroll
- 3bute
- 3quarksdaily
- 99% Invisible
- A Newbie's Guide to Publishing
- A Space for Image
- Adam Deutsch
- Alma Gottlieb
- American Nyckelharpa Association
- Asymptote
- Best in Portugal
- Brevity
- Cabaret Mechanical Theatre
- Caipirinha Lounge
- CinemaDivina
- Cooper Dillon Books
- Critical Mass
- Defunct Magazine
- Dispatches from Stay More
- Dzanc Books
- Emergency
- Fiction Writers Review
- Flavorwire
- Guernica
- HTMLGIANT
- Hunger Mountain
- identitytheory
- In Love with Lisbon
- Ivebeenreadinglately
- John Bresland Video Essays
- John Martyn
- Leite's Culinaria
- Like Fire
- McSweeney's Internet Tendency
- Mira's List
- Miriam's Well
- Moving to Portugal
- Mundo Pessoa
- My American Meltingpot
- NewPages Blog
- Ninth Letter
- Numero Cinq
- Oi Musica
- Open Letters Monthly
- Os Tempos Que Correm
- Patagonian Road
- Portuguese American Journal
- Powerhouse Arena
- Practicing Writing
- Quarterly Conversation
- Remembering English
- Richard Hoffman blog
- Rigmarole
- Rui Zink versos livro
- Sahelsounds
- shadowbox
- Significant Objects
- Songlines
- Spiritual Crossroads
- St. Petersburg Review
- The Alchemist's Kitchen
- The Book Bench
- The Brink of Something Else
- The Common
- The Education of Oronte Churm
- The Literary Saloon
- The Millions
- The Morning News
- The Mouth of the River
- The Rumpus
- The World's Fair
- The Writer and the Wanderer
- things magazine
- Three Percent
- Times Literary Supplement
- Tywkiwdbi
- Words without Borders
- Write the Book
- Writer Abroad
- Young and Hip
Leave a Reply