Processing Current Events with Muriel Rukeyser and Emma Lazarus

In light of the truly horrifying news that the whole world woke up to this morning, I thought it best to revisit two PennSound Daily posts from Trump's first term in hopes that poetry might live up to the power embodied in William Carlos Williams' beloved dictum, "It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there."

In the aftermath of election day in 2016, we chose to post Muriel Rukeyser's "Poem" (1968), which had been making the rounds of social media as a reminder of our vital humanistic duty in the face of wearying injustice. You can listen to a recording of the poem released on the 1977 album The Poetry and Voice of Muriel Rukeyser here: MP3

Poem 

I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane,

The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,

The news would pour out of various devices

Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen.

I would call my friends on other devices;

They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper,

Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,

Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,

Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.

As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,

We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile

Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,

Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means

To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,

To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.

Not long after the inauguration, as the administration closed our borders to immigrants from a number of nations and started the systematic deportation of refugees, we turned to Emma Lazarus' sonnet "The New Colossus" as "a reminder of the high-minded ideals of acceptance that we, as a nation of immigrants, should hold ourselves to." We also quoted the organizers of a 2004 Library of Congress exhibit on America's "century of immigration" who explain that that: "Lazarus, who had worked with East European immigrants through her association with the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society, composed 'The New Colossus' in 1883 as part of a fundraising campaign for erecting the Statue of Liberty." The story then jumps forward thirty years to 1903, when "a tablet with her words — 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free' — was affixed to the statue's base." As the curators note, "These words remain the quintessential expression of America's vision of itself as a haven for those denied freedom and opportunity in their native lands."

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Faithful PennSound Daily readers will recall that this wasn't the last time we'd discuss "The New Lazarus" in this space, and perhaps that last post will serve as both a little well-needed levity today, but also a potent reminder that the indignities of the first Trump administration, no matter how great or small, were swiftly met with fervent resistance as we gear up to do the same again.