A Call For Poets of the New Reality

When I went to the Ani DiFranco concert a couple weeks ago, I didn’t expect

a) to fall in love with her as a performer, or

b) to find myself moved deeply, reminded of a passion born within me years ago in graduate school that I had somewhat forgotten about.

Yet both (a) and (b) happened when Ani and her band played the song “The Atom.” The lights seemed to get misty and the song had a husky quality to it as she sang:

the glory of the atom

begs a reverent word

the primary design

of the whole universe

yes, let us sing its praises

let us bow our heads in prayer

at the magnificent consciousness

incarnate there

Not only was a someone offering musical worship of a “scientific” particle of matter, but later in the song our troubled relationship to nature through the cause of science connects to our environmental crisis:

human beings are a cross

between monkeys and ants

you can see us from your spaceship

melting the polar ice caps

with our arroagance

summon a congress of angels

dressed in riot gear

we’ve got ourselves a serious situation

down here

It was gorgeous, moving.

Years ago, in graduate school, I took a class with Robert Nadeau, a historian of science who, along with a noted physicist, has written a number of books on “the new science,” quantum mechanics and new biology, that argue that what we learn from these new studies undermines the dualistic Cartesian and Newtonian thought that still dictates our philosophical concepts – in the humanities and elsewhere. They show that principles of nonlocality and complementarity that appear in the latest science give us new models for understanding humanity’s place in the world – we are a part of the whole, quite literally. And they stress that without this new understanding, we will continue to erode this world, and ourselves.

But Nadeua, in class and in his work, feels strongly that our culture is not going to change through intellectual argument alone. He calls for “poets of the new reality” to infuse scientific revelations with spirituality, knowing, it seems, that reason alone won’t have the heft to shift such imbedded ideals and behaviors. He and Kafatos say, speaking about the ecological crisis, that

the global revolution in ethical thought and behavior that is prerequisite to human survival may not occur unless intellectual understanding of the character of physical reality is wedded to profound religious or spiritual awareness… central to this vision would be a cosmos rippling with tension evolving out of itself endless examples of the awe and wonder of this seamlessly interconnected life… the astonishing fact of our being.

I found this quote in one of my papers, in which I tried to show how some contemporary poets seem to be attempting to use scientific fact to create a new theoretical landscape in which to consider ourselves no longer dominant masters of a subjugated earth, no longer alienated outcasts caught in Nietsche’s prisonhouse of the mind, no longer either separate and in opposition to the physical world nor completely, Romantically merged with it, but existing within it, and it within us, in a complementary, “both/and” framework.

Reading what I wrote about this reminded me how inspired I was at the time to write poetry that could do this important work… and how later, I felt like I found in Unitarian-Universalism a possible foundation for the spiritual piece of  “the new reality”…

But in the midst of things, I had kind of forgotten about those idea. Listening to Ani the other night, I was heartened to feel that she, too, is a poet of the new reality. A song about the atom could have been a goofy They Might Be Giants anthem; instead, there was a loving, mystical quality to the music that made her words powerful.

And while I like The Streets’ song about our environmental crisis, “Dodo,” I believe that human beings aren’t going to be motivated to do what they need to do to save the planet by being confronted with a pessimistic dismissal of our value. It has the same empty effect as telling a kid that smoking a cigarette will kill her. Of course,she doesn’t want to die; but death is so far off, and so inevitable, and the wagging finger so chiding, all she does is light up another one.

When that same kid gets pregnant, though, and becomes aware of what smoking will do to the baby she feels kicking inside of her, she might be more motivated to stop smoking because of the hope of new life present and heavy within her. Hope and love will encourage her to change where a picture of doom only added to her nonchalance about her health.

I had a book of stories as a child that included one with what must be a common theme. It’s about some grimy old guy in a shack who gets saddled with an orphan baby while working in a mining camp. The baby’s sweet beauty makes the guy realize she needs a clean blanket; then he sees she needs a clean bed; then he sees she needs something pretty to look at, so he puts out flowers; soon his shack and his clothes and everything is spotless, clean, beautiful – his transformation spurred by beauty, adoration, love, and the sense of responsibility that such love imbues.

How does all this relate to The Park, you ask? The litter challenge. People aren’t going to stop tossing their Dorito bags on the oak tree roots because of a posted admonishment, even the threat of a fee. So what about the beauty of the place? Can we write poetry about it, recite with missionary zeal? Should Ani DiFranco do a song about it, preaching its glory and divinity?

Those of us who want to “save the environment” yearn for “everyone” to feel that we belong to the earth, to experience the special relationship, so that we treat it as we would a mother – this is familiar language.

In the microcosm of a small little park, how does that larger vision translate to the concrete space? How can we save the earth if we can’t even have enough care to stop littering on one square of grass and trees?

One thing I have noticed about this park, which saddens me greatly. There aren’t very many visitors to it. I happen to know there are plenty of families with kids along the surrounding streets – I’ve met some of them; I see their abandoned toys in their front yards when I take walks. But the park is more often than not empty. Why?

Is it that people just play in their own little squares of owned turf? Are they afraid of mingling with others?

If people felt ownership of this common space, perhaps it wouldn’t be neglected, trashed. Someone would care about it. It would shine proudly, like all the gleaming cars in our driveways…but maybe we are too isolated in our single family homes these days to know how to have a common space. Maybe we can’t understand and live out a harmonious relationship to the earth because we can’t even find a way to heal the split between ourselves and our communities, our neighbors down the street.

I don’t have much of an answer for how to get people in the park, how to get people loving it, like it is a baby in a shack.

All I know is, I believe that we have to start where we are, with what’s before us.

Each piece, each park, is part of and reflects the whole.