TGIPF - October 11, 2013

At this point in our reading of 1984, Winston has finally found another rebel, and love, in Julia. We immediately recognize the importance of finding another to be on one's team--suddenly, there is hope and opportunity and solace. This was also National Coming Out Day at school, so both in honor of political struggle and the importance of allies, we read this, which is one of my all-time favorite poems.

The Low Road
Marge Piercy

What can they do to you?
Whatever they want..

They can set you up, bust you,
they can break your fingers,
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember.
they can take away your children,
wall up your lover;
they can do anything you can’t stop them doing.

How can you stop them?
Alone you can fight, you can refuse.
You can take whatever revenge you can
But they roll right over you.
But two people fighting back to back
can cut through a mob
a snake-dancing fire
can break a cordon,
termites can bring down a mansion

Two people can keep each other sane
can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.

Three people are a delegation
a cell, a wedge.
With four you can play games
and start a collective.
With six you can rent a whole house
have pie for dinner with no seconds
and make your own music.

Thirteen makes a circle,
a hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity
and your own newsletter;
ten thousand community
and your own papers;
a hundred thousand,
a network of communities;
a million our own world.

It goes one at a time.
It starts when you care to act.
It starts when you do it again
after they say no.
It starts when you say we
and know who you mean;
and each day you mean
one more.

TGIPF - September 27, 2013

We have begun reading Orwell's 1984, and are plunged immediately into Winston's dystopian world of telescreens, surveillance, and thoughtcrime. It's a perfect place to revisit Dunbar's classic poem about the conflict between inner turmoil at injustice and seeming outer calm.

We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask. 

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!

TGIPF - Sept. 13, 2013

As conditions worsen on Animal Farm, we start to see how cycles of oppression replicate. This poem is a poignant reminder of how sometimes we can fail to see how our actions might contradict our own values. We discussed how Joudah, a Palestinian-American poet, might have felt after this encounter with his daughter.

Mimesis

Fady Joudah

My daughter

Wouldn't hurt a spider

That had nested

Between her bicycle handles

For two weeks

She waited

Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said

It will simply know

This isn't a place to call home

And you'd get to go biking

She said that's how others

Become refugees isn't it?

TGIPF - September 6, 2013

We spent a lot of time talking about the "dream" of Socialism on Animal Farm--both Old Major's literal dream, and the metaphoric dream of a utopian ideal. We are seeing this dream start to break down; this poem from Langston Hughes considers what happens when we believe strongly in a dream that we are somehow prevented from achieving. I asked students to predict what the animals might do as their hopes are gradually thwarted by the power-hungry pigs--will they... explode?

"Harlem," by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?