Saturday, March 28, 2020

"The trees will carry what we don't say." -- Robert Bly

Here in the US there is a huge amount of misinformation about coronavirus (COVID-19) at all levels. In the end, reality is what matters whether anyone says it, or not, writes it, or not, sees it, or not. Robert Bly said "The trees will carry what we don't say."

I recall him discussing Alden Nowlan’s poetry: “First of all, he breaks through denial. You know denial is now used as a guide for foreign policy in the United States [. . . .] But especially in poetry there is a lot of denial [. . .] You can say that you can practice denial by saying that radiation won’t hurt you. That is the NSB [National Science Board] way [. . .] Then you can say that our bombs resemble high-level surgeons. That’s Bush’s way. Or you can practice denial simply by not mentioning death, cancer, or poverty at all. So we could call Nowlan a teacher of grief [. . . .] This moment of suffering and confusion is the real place where we touch our reason for being born.”

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