To Obama Supporters: Hope Is The Thing With Feathers> There's A Reason Poets Are Exiled

[KittyWampus]

and imprisoned within repressive regimes.

Poets and their word-smithing express the Collective Unconscious.

Their words conjure Hopes and Dreams that help us overcome the Fears and Phantoms which Hatemongers divide us with.

They bring Truth and Beauty and make Pain a little more bearable because when we read, hear and absorb Poetry, we are transformed.

Poems remind us we are not alone. They inspire the Courage that lets us move beyond Pain and begin seeking Wholeness.

Our Imaginations are unlocked from the prisons of Dysfunction when we are touched by Poetry.

Our Potential to effect Change. To do the Monumental. To seize the Moment.

All this is the Potential that resides in Poetry.

Don't let anyone take away the positive Images a gifted Poet might evoke within you. Strive to earth those Images. Make them Real.

And in time, start to express your very own Poetry in your very own Language.

And FUCK anyone who says Obama doesn't have any substance. If they can't read his detailed policy positions or bother debating them, it just means they're lazy, blinded by partianship or too afraid to break out of their cynicism.


Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

[ErnestoG]

1. Beautiful poem. Lost on the sourpusses on the Hillary side, though.

sorry.

[Avalux]

2. There have been times in my life that if I didn't have hope - I would not have survived.

I was once homeless with three children. Hope gave me the strength and the conviction to keep trying and do what needed to be done no matter how difficult. I had help too from some very kind people but hope was my beacon.

I'm sick of people bashing hope.

[ErnestoG]

3. My dear, they who bash hope are the saddest cases of all.

And thank you for telling your story.

[billbuckhead]

4. Belief is the enemy of truth

[KittyWampus]

6. one's world view is the prism through which the Light of Truth is refracted. A cynical world view

doesn't lead to Change. It perpetuates the status quo, so as to validate itself.

[billbuckhead]

10. "The change it had to come"

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that' all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie.


Won't get Fooled Again
by the Who

[ErnestoG]

14. Excellent

[arewenotdemo]

17. very nice

:)

[aquart]

23. Oh, how...painfully innocent.

We're getting change, honey. Nasty unavoidable change. We're in debt above our eyebrows. We aren't military topdog. The climate is going to change EVERYTHING not to mention killing millions.

Nobody changes unless they HAVE to. That's why inertia is a scientific and measurable force. But we have to. And change is NOT FUN.

You have it in your mind that change means BETTER. You get to keep everything you already have but there's more and you like it more. And you just feel so much better about yourself and the world. Yeah, that's the ticket. That's what "CHANGE" is. LOL!

[ErnestoG]

11. I see. So those who believed that slavery could be abolished one day were..untrue?

Tell me when you crack a history book sometime.

[aquart]

26. Did you also read how it ACTUALLY came about?

The bit about the Civil War and thousands of Americans dead? Did you read that chapter or did you decide to skip it for a self-help book on feeling good and just BELIEVING?

And that guy who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, what happened to him? REAL CHANGE spills REAL BLOOD.

BTW, we're all waiting...what IS this CHANGE you BELIEVE in?

[sandnsea]

12. been there myself

Some days that hope it's hard to come by when you're in that position, and I've had those days too. But if you don't find something to believe in, life is fairly unbearable. I can't understand people who choose the vicious status quo over hope for a more cooperative future. It's not like we can't go back to the fighting if we want to.

[aquart]

5. Co-opting Emily Dickinson?

As I recall, Emily was all talk, too. Words, words, words, hidden in a trunk by a woman who never did anything else.

And poetry is a fine and wonderful thing. But it can't buy a gallon of gas.

MY poet is Langston Hughes:

I wish the rent.
Was heaven sent.

[KittyWampus]

9. Poetry is what inspires you to get up and walk 10 miles to work, when you're out of gas and broke.

it also helps sharpen your perception.

So when someone tries to lull you into inertia, you manage to stay awake.

[aquart]

22. Uh huh. Repeating slogans sharpens your perception.

YES WE CAN!

HOPE AND CHANGE!

Sure, kiddo. Whatever you say.

[ebdarcy]

18. Wow. That's kind of insulting right there.

Emily Dickinson was an amazing poet. I'm sorry that you don't seem to appreciate her contribution to American poetry. I'm sorry that you seem to think she didn't do enough with her life.

You know what? I grew up lower middle class. And there were parts of my childhood spent in comparative poverty. Literature and poetry can be extremely powerful tools. They can provide you with hope and inspiration. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with hope or inspiration.

[aquart]

21. I appreciate her, sweetie. I just wouldn't elect her.

Would you?

As for "hope and inspiration," the only thing I see Obama inspiring anyone to do is VOTE FOR HIM and make him the most powerful man in the world. I don't notice another thing you guys are doing. Am I missing some great effort you're all making for your fellow Americans? The only who is benefitting from all this "hope and inspiration" is your beloved Barack.

Or were you all getting on buses and going down to rebuild New Orleans?

[CTyankee]

24. Well, Emily doesn't need you to validate her position as one of the greatest poets in the English

language.

I laughed when I read your post. Emily would probably be the last person on earth to run for president or anything else. But she had a few words for people who puffed themselves up with silly self importance:

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

[aquart]

28. Oh, I think she'd be more likely to quote Yeats right now.

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

[CTyankee]

31. The point is that Emily really needed no acclaimation, but her genius has given it to her.

As the triumphant Emily said:

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

[aquart]

33. You have no idea what point you're trying to make.

All Emily's words never got her out of the house. They were her substitute for action. Her substitute for living.

GREAT INSPIRING WORDS. Actual positive action? Zero. If you bother to read the poems without your teacher's lesson plan in your ears, you'll notice that, for all their undeniable beauty, Emily's poems are a tribute to the world's longest pity party.

[CTyankee]

35. OK, let me try to be more explicit for you.

EMily Dickinson was a poet. Her mission in life was not to change a poltical system. Her words, however, are great poetry and great poetry and can be incredible, incendiary points of inspiration for people who will go on to lead politically because her words, once revealed through study (whether on one's own or with a college course, it matters not) will serve as guidance to the heart and soul.

Emily Dickinson probably led one of the most fulfilling lives ever lived. Anyone with that gift could not help but do so. As foryour swipe at teachers, well, I read Emily long before I went to graduate school. But you might want try some scholarship yourself and read Shelley's "In Defence of Poetry" just for a little warm up. And, oh yes, Shelley was quite the poltical radical in his day...

[aquart]

36. "Probably led one of the most fulfilling lives ever lived."

Yeah, I'll bet Van Gogh did, too.

Here, have some Emily for Super Tuesday

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

And now her fulfilled and joyous little ditty, "Victory":

Victory comes late,
And is held low to freezing lips
Too rapt with frost
To take it.

How sweet it would have tasted,
Just a drop!
Was God so economical?
His table's spread too high for us
Unless we dine on tip-toe.
Crumbs fit such little mouths,
Cherries suit robins;
The eagle's golden breakfast
Strangles them.
God keeps his oath to sparrows,
Who of little love
Know how to starve!

[CTyankee]

42. No tears for Emily!

Yes, she had her "Persephone" poems, her winters in Hades. But she understood, as we can, that her raptures were exquisite:

Take all away from me, but leave me Ecstasy,
And I am richer then than all my Fellow Men —
Ill it becometh me to dwell so wealthily
When at my very Door are those possessing more,
In abject poverty —

And her sexually charged:

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

Her Victorian champions almost didn't put THAT poem in their compendium of her works, they were so afraid of its passion!
Perhaps those that feel the keenest sorrow, also have the capacity for the greatest joy...

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

7. Thank you for this.

:)

[smalll]

8. Obama 2008: Change. Hope. Ponies.

(All three!)

[ErnestoG]

13. Hillary 2008: Same. Same. War.

[Pale Blue Dot]

15. This is one of my favorite poems. I doubt very seriously that Emily Dickinson

would have wanted it used in a political campaign.

[Bluerthanblue]

16. thank you so much for saying this-

your words and timing are perfect.

peace~

[dchill]

19. Remember?

"Where wings take dream..."

;)

[KittyWampus]

20. kick for silly-stupid

[CTyankee]

25. Emily Dickinson is a world class poet.

I am sorry you have not had a good education, because if you had you would have an appreciation of her brilliance.

Of course, she was this woman...

[KittyWampus]

29. I am the one who wrote the opening post

:D

[CTyankee]

32. I truly did not understand the "silly stupid" part.

That is what threw me when I quickly looked thru this thread. I did a fair amount of work around E.D.'s poetry as a grad student. I am reverant towards her as a result...

[KittyWampus]

39. it just burped out of my computer as a previous post while kicking this thread. Sorry

[CTyankee]

40. Don't be sorry! Those of us fervent E.D. fans are very passionate

so we get all worked up. Interesting how we can get that way over this one poet, but we are...

[LadyVT]

27. Ignorance of the collective unconscious

...is very dangerous. The Collective Unconscious was discovered and first described by a Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung. It is used by creative people and visionaries, who express archetypes through their creative works. Jung wrote at length about the dangers of invoking archetypes in a political campaign, as a way of manipulating people, because they are quite powerful and people project their own hopes and dreams onto the blank screen of the vague candidate. People then believe the candidate actually believes exactly as they do, and will behave exactly as they would. People then feel they, themselves, have been elected. Not so. What's happened, is you've elected an image designed and packaged to get elected. It's only then that you find out what is really believed. Jung wrote about this process as it occurred around him in Germany in the 30s and 40s, and referred to other political movements, as well.

We do need change--but the change has not happened yet. Our government and media are still, right now, the way they have always been. We need to stay intelligently informed. For facts on candidates, read ALL of their websites, and search factcheck.org, mediamatters.org, and PBS websites (Bill Moyers is great!)--which are unbiased and not owned by the two or three main media moguls in this country (all of whom are Republican, and all of whom contribute to political campaigns). Stay vigilant

~A Jungian psychologist who supports Hillary The Witch in '08

[demo dutch]

30. You can't be serious! Couldn't agree more!!

[aquart]

34. Okay, on this issue I'll go with Jung.

The man understood marketing.

[KittyWampus]

37. you need to understand the import of Confident Expectation. Real change is NOW not in the Future

[Jed Dilligan]

38. Did you know?

You can sing any Emily Dickinson poem to either "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" from the old Warner Brothers cartoons.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EXyVENc05_c

http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/2121127-Music-Jazz-Blues

[K Gardner]

41. Thank you for this. If you've ever been down to your last dime, ever built a bed out of a cardboard

box (Thanks Pink!), ever watched a child go off to a senseless and immoral war and watched them come home in a casket, ever cried over the dream that WAS America, you know the need for Hope, for poetry, for inspiration. You know the need for something, anything, that gives us reason to go on, to put one foot in front of the other, when all seems lost and insurmountable.

Hope has kept me warm many a night and kept me afloat through many storms. Don't tell me, ever, that the human spirit does not need nourishment !

[Evergreen Emerald]

43. You are setting up a straw man

If you suggest that those against Clinton are also against hope. That is simply not the case.

Dickenson's poetry is wonderful. And Clinton and her supporters would all likely agree. But, to manifest the dream, there needs to be work.

Those two are not mutually exclusive.

[KittyWampus]

44. To manifest the dream there needs to be work done by a coalition being lead in the right direction

Clintons absolutely can NOT bring over enough people to the Democratic side.

Further, Obama is wisely calling on people's Better Nature from the start. Specifically appealing to their inner sense of Justice.

And that is the importance of Poetry. It helps dispel the Lies that are sure to come from the Far Right.

Poetry alone won't be enought. But it's use in the Obama campaign has created a strong Foundation.

[stillcool]

45. Beautiful post...

thank you.

“The future will not belong to those who sit on the sidelines. The
future will not belong to the cynics. The future belongs to those who
believe in the beauty of their dreams.”---Paul Wellstone

"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists, is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."-- Robert F. Kennedy

[workinclasszero]

46. That was beautiful

Thanks.

Who was the greatest? The artist Michelangelo or the pope that paid for his artistic vision?

Martin Luther King Jr who's speeches climbed the mountaintops of racism and hate to see the promised lands or LBJ?

Hillary made her decision. Funny there isn't a national holiday on LBJ's birthday eh?

Just sayin...

[Indenturedebtor]

47. Heh well done and too true

Good thread good post.

We are faced with so many problems right now that many people think "why bother"

Why bother recycling, no one else does.

Why bother getting a more fuel efficient car, no one else does.

Why bother investing in Education, government is corrupt and cynical... they'll waste the money.

Why bother paying more taxes, they don't dream my dream: government is just a business.

Etc.


We need someone to show us that we all ultimately want the same things, and that we can work together to get them. That is the magic of Obama. We need a leader not a policy wonk. We need someone who will challenge us to dream big and act bigger!

Gobama :bounce: