Art of Revision / Act of War
As Russia engages in a war on Ukraine and bugles its nuclear power, I find myself in the cul-de-sac of a line break. A fellow poet has asked me to advise on one of her poem’s endings. I am pushing for the cliff-hanging ambiguity of enjambment. I know this poet well, I know this poem has already crossed into alien territory, an emotional boundary that she had established long ago. I know that there is not a definitive ending to her situation.
My love shouts from the next room, “The president’s holding a press conference about Ukraine.” I turn back to the poem. I wonder about her choice of punctuation. We’d already discussed this, but now I revisit. Her use of periods suggesting finality. A finality that doesn’t exist yet. But her periods also mimic the staccato of thought. Perhaps they indicate a brokenness.
I had asked this poet to look at one of my poems in exchange. She thinks I have an order problem. She wants me to show a natural progression, an accumulation of wealth so to speak. I argue that isn’t the way life works so why should the poem follow the expected path? My life has been an economic and emotional zigzag. Even as I write this, my retirement funds have been cut in half on paper. On paper, the lines break, then resume. Nonetheless, I reorder my poem, tidying up the narrative of my life in the process. And read it aloud, feeling the distance between speaker and poet expand.
I remember the day the Berlin Wall fell. I had travelled to East Berlin as a student through Checkpoint Charlie. Had queued up for soup and to buy sheet music and poetry. Then returned after reunification, to walk those same streets, shiny with new hotels and office buildings. The remaining stretch of Wall, a graffitied reminder. Another trip, I brought my children. Checkpoint Charlie now a museum, I tried to envision it for them. The way the border crossing felt like when the Wizard of Oz film goes from black and white to color, but in reverse. A place, half a city, devoid of color.
By then I had already been to Moscow. Had seen the trappings of the USSR turned into trinkets for tourists — a fake bearskin hat patched with the sickle and star symbol. A Russian colleague took me to a restaurant with Soviet decor and menu. He entertained me with stories from his Soviet past. A show for the visiting American. I had previously taken an evening walk to Red Square, somehow shocked by the Kremlin on one side leading up to the famous Saint Basil’s Cathedral and to the other, a shopping mall with Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Chanel. The government flanked by consumerism and religion, lit up like Oz.
In crafting a poem, it’s imperative to lure the reader in. Lately, I’ve noticed a turn to the use of long, clever titles. My first job out of college was as assistant editor for a sports magazine. It turned out I had a knack for headlines. After all the pieces were turned in, I was asked to come up with catchy headings, cover cutlines and photo captions. Yet, when it comes to titling my own poems, I struggle. Unable to provide color commentary on my own art, engage my marketing brain.
I can hear CNN now in the background. The sanctions we will invoke on Russia. I see the luxury mall lights across from the Kremlin blinking out. Maybe those shops were already emptied by the pandemic. There are similes to Nazi Germany being bantered about. The walls are going up, even as the partially constructed one along our border with Mexico rusts in sections. What marks the margins of one country or of a people? Is language a border or a bridge?
The last line of my friend’s poem holds a multiplicity of meanings. I admire how one word can take the mind in varying and sometimes opposing directions. All week the world debated what comprises an ‘invasion’? And then we know with absolute clarity that border has been crossed.
CNN’s talking heads speak of “the fog of war” another “Cold War.” I’ve known war, but mostly from a distance. Once, the close distance of speaker and poet. But over the decades it’s settled into a type of background noise, with a constancy that eventually becomes a companionable blunting of the chirpy world outside. Until it breaks through and enters my own lexicon. Will this be one of those moments?
In my lifetime, Russia has gone from foe to a big market (remember BRIC?) to foe. In my lifetime, I’ve seen my own bank account dive and rise and dive again. Seen friendships open and close and then grow closer once more. I’ve given up on strict rhythm and meter. The corset of perfection on and off the page. I pull up my poem on my screen, revise it back, let the natural disorder resume its steady march down the page to what I hope is a slightly ambiguous, but is undoubtedly a certain ending.