So during the time of all this writing,
our public life was exploding.
And I was thinking a lot about that a lot
when I was writing "Father's Day."
And I write about this, to some extent, in "Why Poetry."
And what I'm really trying to think about is--
what's the relationship between the individual imagination
and our collective existence.
We live together.
What does it mean to think about ourselves
as belonging to some kind of common species or nation
or any group while, also, respecting individualities
and particularities and differences
and many other things about hope and grief and responsibility.
And I think poems are a great place to explore those things.
I'm not sure they're always the best place for answers
to those questions, but I think they're really
an essential place to ask those kinds of questions.
And, sometimes, I think the problem is we're not
asking good enough questions.
There are a lot of answers out there.
I mentioned Twitter earlier.
It's a series of answers.
But I think we've, now, demonstrated
that answers are not going to solve our problems.
I think we might need better questions.
So I just want to read, very briefly,
just this quote from the poet, W. S. Merwin,
which I think it's such a great quote.
He writes, "poetry like speech itself is made out
of paradox, contradictions, irresolvables.
It cannot be conscripted, even into the service of good
intentions."
So he says that, and then he immediately contradicts
himself, like any good poet, and says the following.
And this quote, I think, is really relevant,
chillingly relevant, to our current situation.
He writes-- this is Merwin.
"Poets have been known to be smug
about their fine uselessness.
But the Vietnam War led many poets
of my generation to try to use poetry to make
something stop happening.
We will never know whether all that we wrote shortened
that nightmare by one hour, saved a single life
or the leaves on one tree.
But it seemed unthinkable, to many of us,
not to make the attempt and not to use whatever talent
we had in order to do it.
In the process, we produced a great many bad poems,
but our opposition to that horror and degradation
was more than an intellectual formulation.
And, sometimes, it tapped depths of bewilderment, grief, rage,
admiration, that took us by surprise.
Occasionally, it called for writings
that may be poems after all."