Opinion

Poetry and politics should mix

Ellen Simonson
Guest Columnist

"To have great poets," Walt Whitman once said, "there must be great audiences too." In the more than 100 years since his arrival on the American literary scene, Whitman has come to be considered a genius -- Americais poet, a man with a great love of this country and the multitudes contained within it (and within himself, and within all people).

Whitman, as well as Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes, was to be honored at a White House "Poetry and the American Voice" session planned for Feb. 12. The event was part of a series honoring American writers, sponsored by first lady Laura Bush.

It was abruptly canceled last week. The reason given by the first ladyis office was that "it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum." Some of the poets who had been invited said they planned to register their opposition to a war in Iraq at the event.

Putting aside the mistaken idea that literature and politics are somehow mutually exclusive, it was in many ways strange that this White House was planning on honoring those three poets in the first place.

Bureaucrats found Whitmanis poetry distasteful in his own time; he was fired from his job at the Department of the Interior after Secretary James Harlan discovered he was the author of <I>Leaves of Grass<P>, which Harlan found offensive.

There is little doubt that the sanctity conferred upon his works by the passage of time is the only reason Whitman is not viewed with the same antipathy by the current administration. "Americais poet" wrote openly about such topics as the joys of sex, including homosexual sex, and his political views were extremely leftist. (He once referred to elected offices as being "bought, sold, electioneered for, prostituted, and filled with prostitutes.")

However, it was not Whitman -- or Dickinson, who criticized war, or Hughes, a proud liberal -- the White House was worried about. It was the modern poets who had been invited -- Pulitzer Prize-winner Philip Levine, Sam Hamill, Connecticut poet laureate Marilyn Nelson and several others.

Levine said he was sorry the first lady canceled the session before he could refuse his invitation. "I had no doubt in my mind that I couldnit go, if only because of the hideous use of language that emanates from this White House: the lying, the Orwellian euphemisms," he said.

Hamill speculated that his request for friends to send him anti-war poetry to bring to the symposium might have been what prompted the cancellation. His call has since brought in more than 3,600 responses from such poets as Adrienne Rich, W.S. Merwin and Lawrence Ferlenghetti (read more at PoetsAgainstTheWar.org).

Poets across the country have expressed their anger at the White Houseis decision.

"The abrupt cancellation of the symposium by the White House confirms my suspicion that … this White House does not wish to open its doors to an ‘American Voicei that does not echo the Administrationis misguided policies," said Rita Dove, Americais poet laureate from 1993 to 1995.

2001 and 2002 poet laureate Stanley Kunitz said, "I think there was a general feeling that the current administration is not really a friend of the poetic community and that its program of attacking Iraq is contrary to the humanitarian position that is at the center of the poetic impulse."

Of course, the White House has no obligation to lend its support to any event, literary or otherwise. But the cancellation of a session meant to honor "the American Voice" -- due to the fact that several Americans might take that opportunity to use their voices -- is a little too ironic to be taken lightly. It appears the Bush administration indeed has little patience for any voice that is not its own.

Whitman wrote of the need for great audiences if a society desires great poets. Canceling an event meant to honor him for fear it might become "political" in nature is misguided not only because Whitmanis own works were political in nature (one could make the case that all writing is), but because it sets a dangerous precedent for the future. After all, what better way to ensure great poets never develop than to take away their audiences?

Thatis a bit melodramatic, of course; anybody who would like to read Hamill or Levine (or Whitman or Dickinson or Hughes) is still able to do so. And an alternative poetry reading in response to the cancellation, titled "A Poetry Reading in Honor of the Right of Protest as a Patriotic and Historical Tradition," has been planned for Feb. 16 in Vermont.

Nonetheless, the White Houseis decision is more than a bit hypocritical, considering the people and ideals the session was supposed to be honoring.

In the end we would do well to take Whitmanis advice, little though the Bush administration might like it:

"Resist much. Obey little."

Simonson, a Psychology Department employee who is now far more knowledgeable about both the structure of the human brain and the concept of irony, can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.