Maelstrom: One Drop Makes the Whole World Kin by Anne Waldman

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 16, 2015   Maelstrom: One Drop Makes the Whole World Kin   Anne Waldman

All the world is one, like an angry deity’s essence dropped in the ocean becoming monstrous: what happens Mumbai happens Paris What happens Vicenza U.S. Base or Prodi, Kyoto Accord, XL Pipeline advanced warplanes to Japan—what happens?  Egypt, Yemen, Syria NASA’s five space probes or Aurora Borealis where we study                            shimmering light What happens on the Lunar New Year I want to know, Professor, are there names for these mercurial moves? A lexicon & vibration touch the complexity of gestural motion What happened with Augustine & his mother in Ostia? I want to know what happens Nicea 325 perhaps God creates the                     world! Let’s go back and check this out: Ex nihilio ardore/splendore Europe still riding the pull of Zeus a nuclear reactor not dismantled Heads coming off in cruelest acts, unspeakable And how that is part of your story too—flooding in Mozambique, in Morocco, in Indonesia a part of you all suffering a part of you What happens Rwanda, Darfur, Chad, Ukraine, glaciers shrinking what         happens when carbon-capped bombs fall on Natanz? on Bushehr What is the poet’s job out of numbed slumber? Entering post-poet-modernity I gave my larynx a workout Started chanting for the redemption of Irreparable Om Ah Hum for the Year of the Shy but Cunning Metal Rabbit, Inshallah O Peace Brutal Year of the Wooden Horse The Gentle Sheep Year O Help us Now, Shalom Ah Hum, Shanti            Copyright © 2015 by Anne Waldman. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “This poem is a prayer or incantation for understanding the vicissitudes of the world’s perpetual (and more and more man-made), inflected chaos. The repeated question: ‘what happens?’ is perhaps a useless query. There is no stopping ‘what happens.’ All the poet can do is sound her complaint and awareness, naming trouble spots, calling on religious mantras to further sound the alarm. Praying for a more salutary New Year that will wake the world to itself.” —Anne Waldman   Anne Waldman is the author of over forty books of poetry, including Gossamurmur (Penguin Books, 2013). She is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and the artistic director of the Jack Kerouac School’s Summer Writing Program at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.   Photo credit: Matt Valentine Most Recent Book by Waldman   Gossamurmur (Penguin Books, 2013) "blessing the boats" by Lucille Clifton "Recession" by Sydney Lea "Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames]" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti Read This Poem   For National Poetry Month, we’ve teamed up with 826 National to produce Read This Poem, a celebration of poets in cities with 826 chapters. Read this week’s featured poems by poets from Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038