Fear No More the Heat o' the sun

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great; 
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; 
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
 All lovers young, all lovers must
 Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!

 — William Shakespeare

from Cymbeline, Act IV, Scene 2.
 lines spoken by Guiderius and Arviragus

A Call for a "Stephen King" Law

Author Opinion on Current Events
The Media is an Accomplice in School Shootings: 
A Call for a "Stephen King" Law
 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer.
  
The ideas and opinions expressed in this article are solely the opinions of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of VitalSmarts.


Monday I watched in horror with most of America as the story of the Chardon High School shooting unfolded. But my horror was twofold. The first misery came as I heard the names and numbers of victims and thought about the pain they and their families will endure for the rest of their lives. The second dose came as I held my breath—hoping and praying the media wouldn't amplify the violence.


But they did.


They did exactly what they needed to do to influence the next perpetrator to lock and load.


1. They named the shooter.
2. They described his characteristics.
3. They detailed the crime.
4. They numbered the victims.
5. They ranked him against other "successful" attackers.


School shootings are a contagion. And the media are consistent accomplices in most every one of them.


There's really no useful debate on the point. The consensus of social scientists since David Phillips' groundbreaking work in 1974 is that highly publicized stories of deviant and dangerous behavior influence copycat incidents. Phillips' and scores of subsequent studies showed, for example, that suicide rates spike in the week after an inappropriately publicized celebrity suicide. Contrast this trend with no increase in suicides in the week following a media strike that unintentionally suppresses such coverage.


The same is true of school massacres. On Groundhog Day, February 2, 1996 a 14-year-old boy walked into his Moses Lake, Washington, Junior High School algebra class and started shooting. He killed his teacher, two classmates, and severely wounded another student. The media obsessed over the color of his clothes, his insidious planning, and the inventory of his arsenal. In addition, they practically offered a how-to guide for concealing and deploying weapons in a coat. But what got the most attention was the fact that after shooting his teacher, he delivered a line from the Stephen King novel Rage with charismatic panache. Suddenly, the invisible adolescent was a cultural icon. Within a week, another shooting occurred that clearly echoed that of February 2. Then another on February 19. Another on March 11. And yet another on March 13. More than one of the apparent copycats also cited King's novel as a creative resource in their crimes.


Of course, when the Rage pattern became clear, the media scurried to get King's reaction. King could have defended his right to free speech and used the "guns don't kill, people do" argument—claiming the problem was the perpetrators' mental health not his book.


But he didn't. He apologized for writing the book. In an interview he said, "I took a look at Rage and said to myself, if this book is acting as any sort of accelerant, if it's having any effect on any of these kids at all, I don't want anything to do with it." Then he insightfully added, "Even talking about it makes me nervous." King understands that attention is influence. He asked his publishers to pull Rage from publication and let it fall out of print shortly thereafter.


The challenge our society faces is balancing the need to not cause additional mayhem through known influence methods with the right of free speech. As is the case with all complicated issues, there a multiple values to consider here.


It's time to ask if we should find a way to stifle such reports, limit the anguish, and disallow one form of speech, for the greater good.


One thing is for certain—those who write about, talk about, televise, and otherwise report on school shootings need to take their lead from Mr. King by examining their own motives and methods—given that when news outlets include certain details of a crime in their reports that act as a virtual workshop for would-be acolytes, they are likely to incite similar actions.


Surely, media specialists feel the tension between their own values and staying in business. And yet, they must realize that their goals to get more air time, sell more ad space, and earn more attention don't justify the potential to create new pain and sorrow.


The obvious first step is to talk openly about all sides of the issue—including the latest research. Media outlets need to examine their own tactics, impact, and motives. It would be wonderful if the entire industry started regulating certain aspects of what is reported. This could only be accomplished through collaboration between competitive entities and so far, we haven't seen any progress in this direction.


Perhaps it's time for legislators to start their own dialogue. Perhaps we now have enough scientific evidence to suggest that it's time to take action before more lives are lost. It's time we matched responsibility with influence.

Pursuit

Pursuit
by Stephen Dobyns


Each thing I do I rush through so I can do
something else. In such a way do the days pass—
a blend of stock car racing and the never
ending building of a gothic cathedral.
Through the windows of my speeding car, I see
all that I love falling away: books unread,
jokes untold, landscapes unvisited. And why?
What treasure do I expect in my future?
Rather it is the confusion of childhood
loping behind me, the chaos in the mind,
the failure chipping away at each success.
Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape
and so move forward, as someone in the woods

at night might hear the sound of approaching feet
and stop to listen; then, instead of silence
he hears some creature trying to be silent.
What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly
down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks;
the other ever closer, yet not really
hurrying or out of breath, teasing its kill. 


"Pursuit" by Stephen Dobyns, from Cemetery Nights. © Penguin Books, 1987. 

Do it sooner this year.

Four Kinds of Lilacs by Leo Dangel

"Why don't you turn at the next corner,"
she said, "and take another road home.
Let's go past that farm with all the

different colored lilacs."

"That's seven miles out of the way,"
he said. "I wanted to plant the rest
of the corn before evening. We

can look at lilacs some other time."

"It'll take only a few minutes"
she said. "You know that lilacs
aren't in bloom for long—if we

don't go now, it will be too late."

"We drove past there last year,"
he said. "They're like any other lilacs
except for the different colors. The rest

of the year, they're all just bushes."

"They're lilac, purple, white, and pink,"
she said. "And today, with no breeze,
the scent will hang in the air—no flowers

smell as good as lilacs in the spring."

"I thought of planting lilacs once,"
he said, "for a windbreak in the grove.
The good smell lasts only a few days.

I suppose we can go, if we hurry."

"Now slow up," she said.
"Last year, you drove by so fast
we couldn't even get a good look.

It wouldn't hurt to take it easy."

"Well, there they are," he said,
"and looking pretty scraggly—past
full bloom already. You should
have thought of doing this sooner."

"Four Kinds of Lilacs" by Leo Dangel, from Home from the Field: Collected Poems. © Spoon River Poetry Press, 1997.

Two poems from the New Yorker 2/6/12

The Chameleon by David Orr


Alone among the superheroes,
He failed to keep his life in balance. 
Power Man, The Human Shark--they knew 
To hold their days and nights in counterpoise, 
Their twin selves divided together, 
As a coin bears with ease its two faces. 


Not so The Chameleon. He was 
Too many things to count, and was counted on 
To be too many things. When he came to grief, 
As was perhaps inevitable, 
His body was overlooked for hours, 
Having been pressed by force of habit 


Into the likenesss of what had killed him.

The Westerns by Philip Schultz


Once again, 
Randolph Scott is thinking out loud on TV 
about the end of freedom, 
God, mercy, why
barbed-wire fences no longer hold back 
old or new grudges, rabid squatters, 
the wagonloads 
of gruelling pilgrim faith 
in an ever-westward-expanding destiny, 

while once again 
I'm up late remembering 
the lacquered sunsets 
on the Paramount's patched screen 
Saturday mornings, me 
and ten to fifteen other hoodlum sons 
ofimmigrant dreamers aloft 
in the filthy froth of the balcony, 
surrounded by the ear-popping
fall-to-your-knees-
and-say-hallelujah serendipity 
of the swooning music. 
Westerns 
were what we wanted, couldn't get enough of, 
all those standoffs between 
postwar rectitude vs. existential greed 
feeding our burgeoning hunger 
to be part of 
the great American rhapsody. 
Everyone mumbling, believing only in gullibility, 
Technicolor, 
eradicating evil, 
owning everything--is this why 
every ten minutes the plot questioned 
everyone's manhood for no reason whatsoever, 
the town drunk drank, 
the hero sought revenge from a flashback 
(that'd murdered his entire family in slow motion), 
why everyone believed in 
the rewards of futility, 
the solace of violence, 
the dignity of misfortune, 
waited endlessly for the always late, 
just around the bend, 
steeped in appetite, 
in irresistible grief,
beaten to a pulp
utterly insulted point to arrive, 
hoping 
it'd tie everything together, finally, maybe, 
why 
all these peculiar curlicues 
are whirling through my sleepy brain, 
because nothing has changed, 
and my tiny moment is also quickly passing 
while the end is taking me somewhere 
the beginning never wanted me to be? 


Two poems from The New Yorker 2/6/12

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?

Isn't it romantic?

Poetic Propositions: Verse And The Art of Seduction


by DAVID ORR


Valentine's Day is a tricky occasion for poets. Granted, it's hard not to be pleased with a holiday on which poems are thought to be genuinely useful, in the ordinary sense of the word. As the former Poet Laureate Charles Simic puts it in his introduction to an anthology called Isn't It Romantic, "Love poetry is the only type of poetry that can be put into practical use" — which is to say, it supposedly results in "spirit becoming flesh; words becoming deeds; the two of you hopping into bed."

The problem is that love poetry's record as an aphrodisiac is fairly mixed, at least for its authors. W.B. Yeats, possibly the greatest love poet of the last century, wrote poem after poem to Maud Gonne, who not only turned down his four marriage proposals but didn't sleep with him for decades (at which point, it's tempting to credit persistence rather than virtuosity). Robert Lowell's "Water" can be read as a love poem directed at his close friend Elizabeth Bishop, who was (unfortunately for Lowell) a lesbian. And of course, Dante barely even knew (if he met her at all) the Beatrice he idealizes in La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy.


If you're thinking about seducing someone by writing a poem, you might be better off picking up some conversation hearts instead. You'll spend less time, and at least you'll have something to eat afterward.


There are counterexamples, to be sure, but in general, if you're thinking about seducing someone by writing a poem, you might be better off picking up some conversation hearts instead. You'll spend less time, and at least you'll have something to eat afterward.


But why is that? After all, we've been assured by everything from movies like Shakespeare in Love to novels like A.S. Byatt's Possession that poets are in the business of huskily whispering their lines into the ears of the soon-to-swoon. One clue comes from that very reluctant love poet, T.S. Eliot. In a lecture from 1953 called "The Three Voices of Poetry," Eliot declared, "Surely the proper language of love — that is, of communication to the beloved and no one else — is prose." This is the case because "a good love poem, though it may be addressed to one person, is always meant to be overheard by other people."


This helps underscore something unusual about love poems: They're explicitly both private and public. They say "I love you" or "I would very much like to sleep with you" or "I'm very sad that I'm no longer sleeping with you." But they also say, "And you people reading this poem, I hope you're entertained by what I've said thus far." As Eliot puts it in his charmingly stilted love poem "A Dedication to My Wife": "These are private words addressed to you in public."


To understand the difficulty that this sort of poem poses, it helps to think about that classic meditation on love poetry, the Cameron Diaz movie Bad Teacher. Diaz (the bad teacher) reluctantly befriends a sensitive junior high doofus named Garrett. We know Garrett is a doofus in part because he insists on reciting his own poems. Worse, they're poems about the girl he's got a hopeless crush on. He does this twice in the film — once in front of his supportive family and an eye-rolling Diaz; then again in front of his classmates on a field trip. The poetry is wonderfully dreadful. A sample:


One glance, one dance
because together
we can achieve ba-lance.


But the interesting thing — the reason the scenes are excruciating — isn't the ineptitude of the poetry, but the way in which the character seems oblivious to the audience hearing his lines. He seems to think he's alone when he isn't. Of course, if Garrett were performing his awful poems to himself in his room, we'd still think they were bad. But we wouldn't cringe as we do when he blurts them out in front of kids who are going to say (as his beloved does), "Gross!" We want him to recognize that his private thoughts are public as well.


In good love poetry, that sort of recognition is built into the lines themselves: The poem is a performance, not a confession. And not just a performance for the object of the poet's affection, but a performance for the many readers the poet hopes for, yet probably will never meet.


There are plenty of ways that a poet can signal to us that such a performance is happening. He can engage in elaborate formal maneuvers (as William Meredith does in "The Illiterate"), develop surprising conceits (Paul Muldoon's "Quoof" ) or throw wrenching metaphors at us (Plath's "Daddy").


But one of my favorite approaches is what you might call twice-removed authorship. In this sort of poem, the poet declares his work to be "after" or "adapted from" another writer, which automatically indicates to us that a performance — in this case, a performance of someone else's work — is in progress. Here is the entirety of Lee Ann Brown's "After Sappho":


So many people
advised me against you.
How glad I am
we could not resist.


It's lovely — and it's Brown's poem just as much as it is Sappho's. Which brings up maybe the best Valentine's Day advice a poet could give you: If you're thinking of adding a poem to the roses, use somebody else's words. That's what they're for, you know.


David Orr writes about poetry for NPR Books. His most recent book is Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry.




Modern Verse for Valentines: A Sampler
"Runaways Cafe II," Marilyn Hacker
"Will Not Come Back," Robert Lowell
"The Shampoo," Elizabeth Bishop
"Having a Coke With You," Frank O'Hara
"Departures," Devin Johnston
"Domestic," Carl Phillips
"Syntax," Maureen McLane
"Gift of the Book," C.D. Wright
"The Rain," Robert Creeley
"Valentine," Tom Pickard
"You and I Saw Hawks Exchanging the Prey," James Wright