by Nils Peterson
One of my favorite ways of beginning the morning is by having Siri put on “Grand Canyon Suite” by Ferde Grofe. It’s pleasant and gives a sense of the day beginning and going on its way. Also, in the middle, if you’re an old guy like me, you’ll hear the music that used to introduce “Call For Phillip Morreez,” the voice of Johnny, the hotel bell boy calling across America inviting us all to smoke. At one time I wanted to be an ad man. I wonder if I would have refused to work on a cigarette ad at the possible cost of my job. Of course, the question wouldn’t have come up when I was younger and smoked, but if I had been older and knew better, what would I have done. In truth, I’m not sure. There are many ways of convincing yourself that you’re not doing a wrong thing.
I have the door to the patio outside my second floor flat (I like that British word better than the American apartment) to let some fresh air in in the morning. I never sit on my patio though it would often seem to be attractive except it overlooks Greenwood Avenue N where the traffic is constant and noisy. Just now a car went by claiming it’s place for a larger share of world domination by having its muffler removed. There are many of those and we live too by a fire house and emergency vehicles emerge both night and day. I’ve just ordered some earpods with a noise cancelling feature. Maybe that can recover lost space or at least the ability to listen to music with the door open.
I wanted to write this this morning because of a sentence in my notebook that I read in the NY Times Book Review. The book (it’s so long ago now, I can’t remember title or author) is about a woman’s attempt to live “an honest life. More than that,” actually: “a good life. You can do nothing or you can do better.” What a helpful last sentence. It relieves you from the burden of solving the world’s difficulties while offering a way to live well. “You can do nothing or do better.” I hope I can at least do something in some ways. While I was brooding over this, Facebook recovered something I wrote years ago, forgot about, but now find helpful.
I’m throwing things out which is hard for me because I love all my possessions and don’t want to lose them. Possessions, like the wardrobe door to Narnia, carry you to a different place, an earlier time in your life. So as one finds things one finds a younger self. What I found was an introduction I wrote for a collection of political poems, an edition of americas review lower case and no apostrophe are on purpose. But I was delighted to find it and I can’t think of a better time to share.
Introduction to americas review
After Having Read More than a Thousand Political Poems, Some Other Quotations
1. Wallace Stevens said, “the fury of poetry always comes from the presence of a madman or two and, at the moment, all the madmen are politicians.”
My guess is that Stevens found the madness necessary in a poet, frightening in a politician. I could not agree more. I do want a divine madness in a poet, but nothing of the sort in a politician.
2. Robert Bly in his poem “Call and Answer” describes the great task of our time and its difficulty:
“We will have to call especially loud to reach
Our angels, who are hard of hearing; they are hiding
In the jugs of silence filled during our wars.”
3. William Mathews talking about Robert Bly’s poetry: “So one tries to base an honest life on an understanding of experience that will not fix, systematize, or otherwise falsify experience. Poetry is a very subtle tool – art is subtler than the intellect – for this impossible task.”
Maybe the main reason to publish such a magazine as this is to assert the necessity for the “impossible task” politically as well as personally and also to assert that poetry is a tool that can help us live “an honest, unfalsified life.”