sfharper

Learning from Poetry
2012-09-12 22:18:45 (UTC)

Life on Mars, Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky and The Making of a Poem

After I wrote yesterday about not knowing why Tracy K. Smith had titled her poetry collection "Life on Mars" it dawned on me that there wasn't any life on Mars, and many people believe that humanity shouldn't try to go to the stars while people were living below the poverty line in the world. Many of Tracy K. Smith's poems questioned what life meant. For instance:

"They May Love All That He Has Chosen and Hate All That He Has Rejected"

features letters from people to their murders, talking about how they see life at the moment.

I get somewhat irritated by the idea that progress to the stars is a worthless enterprise with money better spent elsewhere. I think instead that our world has a serious problem with carbon dioxide emissions, lack of water, and an unproven warming trend. We (as a world) also lack the resources to put a car into the hands of every driver in the world, with India, China, and much of the Asian world headed toward that goal. So perhaps seeking resources off Earth might really be a good thing?

Ilya Kaminsky's poems are likewise challenging. He too has a poem about laughter titled "In Praise of Laughter" in which he talks about the trauma's his family endured and how his aunt composed odes to everyday things she encountered in a city of the wind that belongs to no nation. The contrast is stark.

So dancing made life worth living in Odessa ... perhaps all poems really always are about the meaning of life.




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