Reading the first issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, I was taken by Zbigniew Herbert’s ‘Poem’ and his first lines: ‘What will happen/ when hands/ fall away from poems’. They triggered an immediate response to the present political/cultural crises in the United States where I live. In my own poem, ‘Does It Matter’, I’ve dialogued with Herbert’s ‘Poem’, employing such strategies as erasure and recontextualization to create a new and very different text. Those of us lucky to have voices need to use them right now – in the many ways at our disposal. In many countries, totalitarian voices speak loudly. I’m inspired by the poets of Central Europe, particularly Poland, who kept writing through wars, domination by Germany and then the Soviet Union through today’s present political struggles.
When the black puma
sits like death
on winter grass,
when hands clamp,
no longer open to hold
poems wrenched
from the Book of Life,
then rain falls but the Earth
stays parched.
Does it matter now
that truth is dead? Fake words
scrawled on walls, websites.
Voices of troubadours
and seers quashed
in a gutted marketplace.
Poets, don’t push back
from the table. Sing – Burn –
Exhort – Roar.
No guarantee of ears,
release your poems
like bubbles like breath.
Reach in wonder
as children brim
with questions
more than answers. Why
do acorns wear hats?
Is God always
watching? Is there
room for laughter
in the burning forest?