Fire On the Page - On the Responsibility of the Writer (and the Human Being)

It is no secret (to anyone on any of my social media feeds) that I opposed vehemently the candidacy of the incoming President-elect (or “he who shall not be named”).  The last few days have been dominated by my determination to oppose everything he stands for - working with local protests, sharing information, developing networks to protect all those he has, through his hateful rhetoric, put at risk.  I hardly slept, for days, until the urging of friends and sheer necessity drove me to a long and deep sleep just last night.  Waking refreshed, finally rested following days of tension, action, and combined rage and determination, I settle in front of my computer.  I have lists.  Things to do.  People to respond to.  Information to get out.

My fingers go to the keyboard, and I begin…...to work on my latest fiction piece - book three of a trilogy -- about a group of people who, through no fault of their own, have changed in a way that makes them an object of fear to others - and to their own government.  I didn’t plan that this part of

this story would be written at a time like this in our country, and, in point of fact, when I began this trilogy, it was all for fun, a result of a dare, a lark to break into one of my favorite genres.  Not so much serious work as an exercise in form.

I have been writing fiction and poetry, essays and articles since I could hold a pen, driven to the page in my youth by one of two separate and very different urges:  either the vivid, insistent, and shining pressure of a story in my head begging to be told, or fire in response to wrongs I perceived in the world.  In graduate school, under the guidance of two amazing thesis advisors, (British author Nicola Morris and award-winning poet and author Mark Doty)  I realized that these two motivations were not, and could never be, separate or separated.

“All responsible art,” I was once told, “is social criticism.”  There was a time when this admonition, though it has stuck in my brain for more than thirty years now, put me off, and in point of fact annoyed me - why is there not room in the creation of art (or of life, for that matter) for simple fun?  I wanted simply to have fun with writing a sci fi trilogy, but my deep training, the core of who I am, the essence of the strong, aware, and ethical culture in which I was raised, won out, whether I was aware of it or not.  

Asked once, when I was applying for a residency for writers, about the purpose of my work, I wrote that the over-riding themes of my work were and always had been exposing abuse of power, dispelling myths about the working class and equivalent myths about activism.  The words, as I wrote that application, came easily, as long ago I had been forced into a realization that cultural myths had

marginalized and denigrated the strength, integrity, and humanity of the wonderful people with whom I was raised, and had conversely and covertly covered up the failings and flaws of those involved in social and cultural movements.  Speaking the truth about these things became the guiding force of all my work from that (very early and very transformational) day forward.

And what I found was that, aware or not, intentional or not, conscious or not, those themes, those guiding influences, that determination for truth and for honoring integrity denied and exposing flaws hidden, was in my work whether I intentionally put it there or not.

I write these days to expose and oppose the rising darkness in our country, to combat the abuse of power, and to save my own soul from descending into fear.  Whether I am writing essays, submitting op-ed pieces, creating fiction, or writing on this blog, those will be my goals.  And I hope they are yours.

Of a River in Ireland, and Why I go to Standing Rock

Ten years ago, I spent most of a summer in Ireland. I had gone to hike the Wicklow Way, from Dublin to southern Ireland, but thanks to a grate on a sidewalk in Dublin, I sprained my ankle the first day there, and my plans had to change. This turned out to be a fortunate accident, as I ended up spending a lot of time with locals. I spent a couple of weeks in Dublin, a few weeks in Glendalough valley, and a few more in a tiny town in southern Ireland where my grandfather was born - Carriag na Suir, or Carrick-on-Suir. The town straddles the Suir River, part of the town in Waterford County, and part in Tipperary County.

In that town I met many lovely people - a printer who introduced me to a local historian who had a THICK file on my family heritage, a lovely woman who worked at the local mill who I almost daily shared a pint with at the local pub, my hosts at the B & B where I stayed, who sent me off each day loaded down with food and plenty of local wisdom. Everyone I met - everyone - kept telling me that I needed to meet Michael Cody - a local teacher, writer, poet who had won many international awards for his poetry, and who could tell me a great deal about the town.

I finally got up the nerve to call him, and he invited me over immediately, and he and his wife were lovely. When a birthday call came from a friend while I was in their home, Michael - exclaiming that it was my birthday and a gift was called for - got down several of his poetry volumes from a shelf, signed them, and presented them to me. As we talked that day about the town, it came out that both his grandfather and my grandfather had worked on the Suir river as boatmen. In the county at that time, the “port” for ships coming in was upriver from Carrick at the town of Clonmel, but the boats couldn’t make it that far upriver without help. The Carrick boatmen would stand on shore and grasp ropes tied to the boats, and haul the boats upstream to Clonmel - seven miles. I walked the seven miles along their “tow-path” while I was there, and, just hauling my back-pack, it was not an easy walk.

We talked about our ancestors, about the town, and, at one point, with a wistful look on his face, Michael said to me, “I can’t imagine life anywhere but on the river - it *is* life.” I think often of that day, of his face, and of how I felt as I later stood on the banks of the Suir, watching the blue water rush by, as I prepare to leave for Standing Rock. My grandfather, though he left Carrick when he was very young, loved that river, just as he later grew to love the Kootenai River in northwest Montana, on which he lived many of his later years. In his notes, I found a quick scrawl about the Kootenai, where he wrote “There is nothing like the exhilaration of life on this river.” Yes. The exhilaration of life. The profoundly true notion that water IS life.

This is why I go to Standing Rock. Not only are the Standing Rock Sioux honoring their ancestors by protecting the water, but they are honoring ALL of our ancestors, and I must honor mine.