We have a gift
War Transformation #3 an erasure over Yeats
I was reading a book of WWI poetry yesterday and I was frozen by the following poem by Margaret Postgate Cole.
May 1916, The Veteran We came upon him sitting in the sun Blinded by war, and left. And past the fence There came young soldiers from the Hand and Flower, Asking advice of his experience. And he said this, and that, and told them tales, And all the nightmares of each empty head Blew into air; then, hearing us beside, ‘Poor chaps, how’d they know what it’s like?’ he said. And we stood there, and watched him as he sat, Turning his sockets where they went away, Until it came to one of us to ask ‘And you’re – how old?’ ‘Nineteen, the third of May.’
And the question that entered my mind is this: why do we allow our children to go to into the military? And the response might be, well, 18 is hardly a child. But we are children for longer now.
The “child” was an invention of the seventeenth century; he did not exist in, say, Shakespeare’s day. He had, up until that time, been merged in the adult world and there was nothing that could be called childhood in our sense.
Today’s child is growing up absurd, because he lives in two worlds, and neither of them inclines him to grow up. Growing up — that is our new work, and it is total. Mere instruction will not suffice.
— Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Message, page 18.
And it’s only become more absurd since the 1960s when McLuhan was originally talking about this. I recently compared American life in the 1960s to today with this poem, Route 66:
Automobiles — American Dreams. Open roads to national parks. Driver’s License unlocks goals — teenage freedom on wheels. Family and friends find freeway fuel. Where to go? Now it’s phones.
In the United States, our laws are inconsistent at best with regards to protecting children. In most states, it is illegal to buy alcohol until you are twenty-one. My roommate at the Naval Academy, received a less-than-honorable discharge from the Marine Corp because he allowed, or did not stop, underage marines from consuming alcohol. The response to this is that we should lower the drinking age then to eighteen.
I have a different proposal. I want to raise the enlistment age to twenty-five.
Why twenty-five? Because car rental companies charge a young-driver fee to those under twenty-five. I’m not typically one that sides with insurance companies but their business model requires an accurate understanding of risk. And understanding risk is a challenge for the young.
But how to go about this? Am I serious about this? Should I even be writing about war? Yeats once wrote On being asked for a War Poem:
I think it better that in times like these A poet’s mouth be silent, for in truth We have no gift to set a statesman right; He has had enough of meddling who can please A young girl in the indolence of her youth, Or an old man upon a winter’s night.
And here’s is my seven-pass erasure response:
I think it better that in times like these a poet’s mouth be in truth. A poet's indolence can please a statesman. A young girl or an old man — we have a gift.
You can’t argue with poetry except with another poem. And this, is the beauty of erasure poems.
Stay alive!
...The book Teenage by Jon Savage is interesting in how it looks at the whole creation of the teenager starting in the 19th century. Before that there were just children and adults.
It's kind of why I hate YA literature, but love children's books. In the past their was childrens literature of course, but it wasn't "YA" ... it was just kids, along a spectrum of age. Then marketing to teens became very profitable.
Despite that I do think the transition to this other time period in life written about by Savage is correct.
Also I do think Hesgeth should have to ask for funding like the people NPR have been made to do...
Josh! powerful as always. I do not have the time I usually do but I have to say I loved, "And all the nightmares of each empty head / Blew into air; ... " It reads almost like their heads were exploded! Already destroyed from war.
Thanks for sharing!