This is a reflection of mine on a poem from the Poets Against The War database.
an interruption of one's routine during war
After browsing through various poems on the poets against war website, this one caught my attention. In the introduction to the poem, the poet feels the need to draw attention to the silence people have towards the reality of war. She includes this quote from Audre Lorde, “When we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak”. The poem is short and relatively simple, but I still felt very moved by it. The first half illustrates a man close to tears in a coffee shop, reading a newspaper. I felt the poet created an image of an everyday man confronting war in any everyday situation that demanded the reader to stop an think. The poem made me realize the place of embarrassment our country has been put in by our silence about war. War finally causes a man to indulge in his frustrations and break his silence in a public place, and yet he simply must buy his latte, and move on with his day. I approve of the poem’s encouragement to do more than be held captive by silence.
I like the way that this poem establishes a relationship between the speaker of the poem and the man. Perhaps the speaker is the Barista who makes the latte. Perhaps s(he) is an observer. By witnessing of the man's frustration, his need to speak, the poet is creating a connection and breaking the silence. And haven't we all been there--wanting to make a noise in a public place in response to something that outrages us--but then stifling ourselves?
ReplyDeleteThanks for introducing this poem! I didn't see it while meandering the website. Why are we afraid to speak about war? It is probably true that "our words will not be heard or welcomed," but that's because other people are afraid to HEAR about war. How can we happily go about our lives if we openly acknowledge that there is hell on earth somewhere?
ReplyDeleteThis caught my attention as a false. War is on the news, it's in the papers, and people talk about it in their message boards. People argue about the numbers and the weapon all the time. But it's usually in a casual setting, tossed aside just like conversations about celebrities and sports games. That's still a form of silence I suppose, a disturbing one at that.
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