Pep Talk

On writing as the world burns

Hi, Friend.

A confession: It’s hard for me to write right now. So I’m writing this tiny pep talk as much for me as for you. There’s a little voice inside that says, “What does any of this matter?” It says, “What can a poem do?” Maybe you hear that little voice sometimes. Maybe it’s gotten bigger and louder lately. Maybe it says that a poem can’t protect people from being targeted, abducted, or murdered in the street—so what’s the point?

It’s hard to write, feeling like you’re bringing a pen to a gunfight.

But can poems remind us of our humanity? I think they can, and I think we desperately need a reminder.

Recently, someone commented on a poem of mine, “I wish we could force the president, and these ICE agents, to read poetry every day.” As if maybe, just maybe, if they read poems, they couldn't keep doing what they’re doing. As if the poems would change them. I thought of the wise words of Richard Blanco, who was the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet for President Barack Obama.

Poems may not change the world directly,
but a poem can change a person
who can change the world.
—Richard Blanco

YES. Poetry changes us. Poetry has certainly changed me. But I approach poetry with openness, expecting to be changed. I approach it with gratitude for what I know it has to offer. I approach it as someone who is interested in humanity. It’s hard for me to imagine not being interested in humanity. If I found myself in that dark, narrow space, could poetry reach me there? Can poetry reach the people among us whose hearts have been hardened? I don’t know, but we can try. I’m not ready to give up on us yet.

I’ve also been thinking about something I read in the New Yorker, from the writer Philip Pullman.

Poetry is not a fancy way
of giving you information;
it’s an incantation.
It is actually a magic spell.
It changes things; it changes you.
—Philip Pullman

We’re transformed by our experiences—the people we meet, the things we try, the places we go, and the art we engage with. Poetry can be part of that transformation, if we let it. It’s my hope with every episode of The Slowdown: that a poem might reach someone where they are and work its magic.

Poems can help us articulate what we struggle to find words for. Poems can be there for us in our grief, and in our joy, and in our confusion. In an earlier For Dear Life post, I wrote that sometimes a poem is the stone you carry in your pocket—the one you rub when you’re worried. So let’s fill our pockets with poems. Here’s a long list of Poems that make you glad to be alive. I need those poems now, and maybe you do, too.

And maybe you need this reminder from Brecht?

In the dark times
will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.
—Bertolt Brecht

Please, let’s keep writing. Let’s keep singing, even if we’re singing about the dark times. It matters.

The pen is mighty.

Take good care out there.

Love,
Maggie