Relevant? Relevant Still? Relevant Again!
An old poem to start off:
All the News #3
When the wealthy are less burdened by taxes
they will serve better food at their banquets
and the portions will be larger
and the crumbs that drop from the plates of their guests
which the worker and the unemployed scramble for
will be tastier and more plentiful.
this is what the President has in mind
when he says that better times lie ahead.
Old men and women walk the city streets.
They now have paper bags
in which to carry their belongings.
And the Welfare mother
has a few slices of bread left on the table this week
to feed her children when they return home from school.
already the Presidents sees signs
that things are getting better.
The above poem is from a sequence of newspaper poems I published in the early 1980s. Ronald Reagan, newly elected as President had run on the slogan “Let’s make America great again,” and promoted a policy of Supply-side Economics. Critics termed it “trickle-down economics,” a phrase that has a long history in U.S. politics. It gave large tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations with the promise that the largesse would “trickle down” to the poor, blue-collar workers, and the middle-class (sound familiar?). It was a time of national crisis: the Iran hostage standoff and Arab Oil Embargo. The latter was largely responsible for a steep recession which brought an end to the American post-WW II economic boom that had allowed blue-collar families to lift themselves up and enjoy a middle-class lifestyle, even though they still worked on factory assembly lines or as department store clerks or service workers. We know what happened: working- and middle-class wages stagnated—the lifestyle my own blue-collar parents had enjoyed was not to be seen again by future generations.
I'm a poet compelled to write, among other kinds, a type of political poem that, when conceded that it is poetry at all and not agitprop, is criticized for being too quickly dated. On the contrary, I have found that, like phoenixes rising from the ashes of old newspaper stories, the timeliness of such poems comes round again with renewed relevance. In the poem above, for example, if you replace the “Welfare mother” with a SNAP/food stamp recipient, and Ronald Reagan with Donald Trump, the original makes its point, unfortunately, just as effectively as it did 35 years ago.
Newsbriefs, a poetic form I invented back then and continue to employ from time to time, are a linguistic equivalent of the editorial page cartoons of such penetrating wits as the Boston Globe’s Dan Wasserman, who, among others, inspired me to create the form. They are intended to raise critical awareness of current political discourse as manifested in our news media. As such they are designed to be of the moment; just when they begin to seem passé, however, the topics they address with sarcasm and irony resurface on the political landscape—suddenly, they are current again.
The Wasserman cartoon seen here illustrates my point about the renewable relevance of topical political art. It appeared in the Globe, following the suicide of YIPPIE founder and Dada-anarchist-provocateur and ‘60s anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman.
The teen or pre-teen daughter seated at the breakfast table with her father has heard mention in the media of Hoffman’s death in 1989. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, his suicide made big news locally as well as nationally. The bottom two panels nail the point. The father may believe the issues of war, pollution, and white house corruption (Vietnam, California coastal oils spills, Watergate) from two decades ago to be passé, but the daughter—and readers—can see they are, in new manifestations, front-page news again (the U.S. funded Contra war against the Nicaragua’s Sandinistas, Oliver North’s conviction in the Iran Contra scandal, the Alaskan oil spill)!
And here is one of my favorite Newsbrief poems. Like Wasserman, to make my point, I need only to situate, to frame, the actual newspaper reportage. The title is an actual headline, which the poem then ironically illustrates—as a Wasserman cartoon would do. In this instance, I adapted the lines from an actual statement, by the Guatemalan industrialist, quoted in a newspaper article.
A GUATEMALAN INDUSTRIALIST
SEES SIGNS OF PROGRESS IN HIS COUNTRY
For example:
when peasant girls now fetch water
from springs a few miles beyond their villages
they balance on their heads
jugs made of plastic rather than clay.
At the time I wrote this in 1983, poverty and starvation were widespread in Guatemala as in other Central American countries. The Guatemalan military was engaged in a genocidal campaign, massacring thousands of indigenous Mayan peasants with the tacit approval of the country’s industrial class and with financial support from the U.S. military and CIA. (And how many of us today remember 1954? That was when the CIA, with President Eisenhower’s approval, enacted a bloody military coup to overthrow the democratically elected, socialist Guatemalan government that was indeed trying to alleviate the poverty of so many Guatemalans.)
Today, caravans of Central American peasants fleeing dire poverty and rampant violence have arrived at our southern border. Instead of being granted asylum, they are jailed in overcrowded penal facilities (overcrowding = concentration) until they can be extradited back across the border or flown directly back to whence they came.
Fast forward. Here’s another poem from a sequence I wrote soon after 9/11:
21st Century Newsbriefs
—For Aaron McGruder
PRESIDENT DECLARES WAR ON TERRORISM
As with the War on Poverty,
as with the War on Drugs,
a successful outcome
is guaranteed.
This one would be easy to revise to fit where we are:
PRESIDENT DECLARES WAR ON CORONAVIRUS
As with the War on Terrorism,
as with the wars on Poverty and Drugs,
a successful outcome
is guaranteed.
Although I could add many more, here’s one last example to conclude my argument about renewed relevance. This one, from 2003 is not a Newsbrief; rather it’s a found poem, its details lifted from an actual catalog advertising paraphernalia used in policing. It was inspired by a collage using the same catalog excerpts made by Tuli Kupferberg, the Beat poet, artist, and co-founder of the underground rock group The Fugs. As in all poems of the “found’ genre, the text, including the title, is entirely lifted directly from the source; there is no commentary or elaboration. Such poems, if they are successful, speak for themselves. For the record, this was New York Mayor John Lindsay.
"PROTECTIVE AND DEFENSIVE DEVICES"
After a collage by Tuli Kupferberg
"In honor of his fourth anniversary as police commissioner Howard Leary received a paperweight model of a nightstick from the Mayor."
—New York Daily News
Peerless handcuffs.
Precision American made,
tempered steel, double safety lock, 2 keys.
Model: Subpoena.
Leg irons.
Kick proof, pick proof, and run proof.
Model: Irons.
Handcuff transport belt.
Restrains prisoner
by keeping hands safely at waist.”
Model: Restrict.
Twister chain & holder.
Easy to apply;
uses pressure as needed to subdue."
Model: Safeguard.
Judo stick.
Unbreakable plastic persuader—defensive item.
Rubber for sure grip.
Used to persuade or subdue the unruly prisoner.
Model: Judo.
Midget thumb cuffs.
Off-duty,
especially good for juveniles.
Model: Spy.
Aluminum knuckles.
Light cast aluminum,
carries nicely in pocket,
fits hand comfortably.
Model: Slugger.
Palm Slapper.
Concealed in palm, powder loaded lead persuader.
Fits easy in pocket.
Model: Rowdy.
Lead loaded sap gloves.
Handsome, flexible dress glove
made of genuine Deerskin.
You would never know this is loaded
with 6 oz. powdered lead saps, built-in.
Black only.
Model: Saboteur.
****
Or, to sum up “the way we were”:
Subpoena
Irons
Restrict
Safeguard
Judo
Spy
Slugger
Rowdy
****
Is this poem relevant today? As the Black Lives Matter movement and its allies call for city, town, and state governments to “defund” (=demilitarize) police forces—yes, I think it is. Granted that this paraphernalia list from a 1960s catalog seems almost quaint, that it pales in comparison to what’s in use today to suppress lawful dissent and to protect property against “rowdies” and “saboteurs”—the 2020 supplies that include rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, percussive grenades, AR-15s, armor-plated Humvees and tanks—nevertheless, this list, antiquated as it is, demonstrates that the force, intimidation, and arbitrary aggression we see today is not new but is rather the continuity, across our nation, of a historical and deeply entrenched policing culture.
_____________________________
Sources:
All the News (Hanging Loose Press, 1985)
Special Handling: Newspaper Poems New and Selected (Hanging Loose Press, 1993)
Official Versions (Hanging Loose Press, 2006)
Mark Pawlak is the author of nine poetry collections and the editor of six anthologies. His latest book is Reconnaissance: New and Selected Poems and Poetic Journals (Hanging Loose). His work has been translated into German, Japanese, Spanish, and Polish. My Deniversity: Knowing Denise Levertov, a memoir, is forthcoming in 2021 from MadHat Press.