we photographed the scene

And so we put him up against a wall:
A mother’s son, a man like we had been
And shot him dead. And then to show you all
What came of him, we photographed the scene.

–a “photo-epigram” from Bertolt Brecht’s War Primer. Brecht’s text is juxtaposed with a photo captioned, “The Germans were ‘kind’ to this Frenchman. They blindfolded him before he was shot.”

the bicycle of the Lord

When the bicycle of the Lord bearing His messenger with a telegram for Sister Mary Bradley saying “Come home” arrived at 113 West 134th Street, New York City, Sister Bradley said, “Boy take that wire right on back to St. Peter because I am not prepared to go. I might be a little sick, but as yet I ain’t no ways tired.” And she would not even sign for the message—since she had read it first, while claiming she could not find her glasses to sign the slip.
“For one thing,” said Sister Mary, “I want to stay here and see what this integration the Supreme Court has done decreed is going to be like.”
Since integration has been, ages without end, a permanently established custom in heaven, the messenger boy replied that her curiosity could be satisfied quite easily above. But Sister Mary said she wanted to find out how integration was going to work on earth first.

from Langston Hughes and Roy DeCarava’s phototext, The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955).

 

Lorca Letter

Federico Garcia Lorca, Letter to his sisters on birch bark. Part of the exhibition “Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York” at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street until July 20th.

Letter to Miami

Miami, please forgive me for starting out my letter to you like this, and not with a well-deserved praise-song to your gorgeous tropical weather, your world-class hotels, your golden beaches. But one of the things I love about you, Miami, is that, in addition to your Housewives and Basketball Wives, your Vices and Burn Notices, you are so full of other stories. You are the beacon city in the dreams of refugees as they are becoming delirious after days and sometimes weeks at sea.

from Edwidge Dandicat’s Letter to Miami (2011)

and all the newsboys shout

1

Women and poets see the truth arrive.
Then it is acted out,
The lives are lost, and all the newsboys shout.

Horror of cities follows, and the maze
Of compromise and grief.
The feeble cry Defeat be my belief.

All the strong agonized men
Wear the hard clothes of war,
Try to remember what they are fighting for.

But in dark weeping helpless moments of peace
Women and poets believe and resist forever:
The blind inventor finds the underground river.

from Muriel Rukeyser, “Letter to the Front” (1944)

Letter to the Front

4 Sestina

Coming to Spain on the first day of the fighting,
Flame in the mountains, and the exotic soldiers,
I gave up ideas of strangeness, but now, keeping
All I profoundly hoped for, I saw fearing
Travellers and the unprepared and the fast-changing
Foothills. The train stopped in a silver country.

Coast-water lit the valleys of this country—
All mysteries stood human in the fighting.
We came from far. We wondered, were they changing,
Our mild companions, turning into soldiers?
But the cowards were persistent in their fearing,
Each of us narrowed to one wish he was keeping.

There was no change of heart here; we were keeping
Our deepest wish, meeting with hope this country.
The enemies among us went on fearing
The frontier was too far behind. This fighting
Was clear to us all at last. The belted soldiers
Vanished into white hills that dark was changing.

The train stood naked in flowery midnight changing
All complex marvelous hope to war, and keeping
Among us only the main wish, and the soldiers.
We loved each other, believed in the war; the country
Meant to us the arrival of the fighting
At home; we began to know what we were fearing.

As continents broke apart, we saw our fearing
Reflect our nations’ fears; we acted as changing
Cities at home would act, with one wish, fighting
This threat or falling under it; we were keeping
The knowledge of fiery promises; this country
Struck at our lives, struck deeper than its soldiers.

Those who among us were sure became our soldiers.
The dreams of peace resolved our subtle fearing.
This was the first day of war in a strange country.
Free Catalonia offered that day our changing
Age’s hope and resistance, held in its keeping
The war this age must win in love and fighting.

This first day of fighting showed us all men as soldiers.
It offered one wish for keeping. Hope. Deep fearing.
Our changing spirits awake in the soul’s country.

from Muriel Rukeyser, “Letter to the Front” (1944)