United States of America

First of all, how on earth do I pick an American poem or even just an American poet?

Because no-one growing up on any kind of American media diet needs to be told that 4 July is American Independence Day. I don’t suppose we need to be told that George Washington was the first president, or that the Declaration of Independence was largely drafted by Thomas Jefferson. (Who, yes, owned slaves—he wasn’t, after all, Honest Abe.)

Who doesn’t know the Statue of Liberty? The Grand Canyon? Or, for that matter, the zip code of Beverly Hills?

Though not as many people remember, from conversations I’ve had here, that America was used as a penal colony—though not solely. (I only mention this because people tease me about convicts; and I remind them, remembering my Moll Flanders, that it wasn’t all Puritans in the early days… They had to send people somewhere before they found Australia.)

America, home of the combination: bacon and maple syrup.

And, again I suppose because of their dominance over pop culture, there’s no other large country whose many many states are known to people who’ve never visited—who know the stereotypes of east versus west coasts, and southerners versus their northern neighbours.

The truth is, the history is so rich but also so familiar that I don’t think I can go into it all.

I’ve been living in Washington DC for a year now, and for the most part I really like it—I love being able to visit the Smithsonian museums, and the National Gallery of Art, the monuments and to wander past the Capitol as I head to the Library of Congress. I love the free events I can go to most days of the year, and the sense that so many people are in DC doing something—studying, or working for the government, or working for NGOs. It’s exciting.

At the same time, I’m aware that there are a lot of parts of the city I don’t see, and I feel like this invisibility is true of America at large. Going to U Street, home of the Harlem Renaissance, or even to Adams Morgan, is like going to a slightly different city. Being on the east side, people look at me strangely on public transport—not antagonistically, but with a degree of surprise. It’s only realising that people are surprised that I’ll realise I’m the only white girl on a bus—I usually forget it quickly (too busy reading some book or other) but divides of the city are so clear. The streets of Georgetown too. And then, the Georgetown campus is a very privileged and beautiful place—and once a week during the semester, I volunteer as a writing tutor at a high school a few blocks north, to find that the school looks like its falling apart, many of the students, who have had to audition to get in, are from poor backgrounds, but that people are just trying to get things done in spite of the small number of opportunities they get. A good friend has just been writing about class in America, and it’s a conversation I would love to see more often, and more openly.

But, to get back to my initial problem, how do I pick a poem? There are so many American poets I follow, and love. Just as its tempting to choose a poet like Whitman or Dickinson or Williams because they do so much to define American poetry, so too is it tempting to choose a contemporary, first-generation poet.

In the end I’ve chosen Marianne Moore—in part because I just finished reading her Complete Poems, and, also, because everyone who reads poetry thinks she’s great—but no-one ever really talks about her much. She does dazzling things, that seem so simple until you look and look and see the intricacy of her forms. And, reading her complete poems, I found so many new poems to love, as well as old friends. There are at least a dozen I would love to include, but I’m choosing—because I have to choose one—“What Are Years?”


What Are Years?

     What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
     naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered questions,
the resolute doubt,—
dumbly calling, deafly listening—that
in misfortune, even death,
          encourages others
          and in its defeat, stirs

     the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
     accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
          in its surrendering
          finds its continuing.

     So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
     grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
          This is mortality,
          this is eternity.
 

—Marianne Moore
from Complete Poems