a journal on the writer's
role in society
edited by
esther altshul helfgott
Contributors are invited
to address the question:
What is the writer's
responsibility
to self & society?
Letter to The Washington Post
Don Barnes was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1957. He lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and family. He writes mostly in free verse and is currently working on a collection entitled Bending in the Early; it should be ready for publication in 2002.
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 01:43:23 -0600
To: letters@washpost.com
From: Don Barnes <dbarnes@frii.com>
Subject: Where Are the Voices?
Don Barnes
PO Box 33973
Denver CO 80233
303-903-4319 day or night
To the editor:
I realize you don't regularly print poetry. I submit this as a letter because it is an open letter to the poets of this country- Pinsky, Merwin, Angelou, Kunitz and the scores of others. Poetry is the universal language of pain and human tragedy. Today, America needs her poets more than she has in many years. I submit this letter with the hope that some of these, at least, will step up to help us move ahead toward whatever future lies before us.
I also use this note to request that this newspaper open its pages to their work, sharing it with the people of this country, so that we may continue this country's long tradition of honest, free dialogue in every circumstance. Whatever the tragedy, poets have always been the first to speak to the needs of the people. Help America hear their voices in this time of decision and struggle.
Don Barnes
Denver, Colorado
Where Are the Voices?
Speak up!
Whose are the voices
that will call out
of this bloody dust?
The roll call is mighty
and the names well known.
Come out of stunned silence.
Step off the factory floor and say
the words we need-
we long for.
There was no monument
at Babi Yar.
Let ours begin with voices
of poets and spread
to the hearts of this people.
Speak up!
Let us hear the strong
voices of this land. If not now
then let them evermore
keep silent.
Response from a member of the National Writer's Union:
Don
The Washington Post may not hear you, but I do. I belong to an on-line listserver for the Poetry and Fiction Writers of the National Writer's Union. There was a discussion as to what the NWU could do to help. I just proposed the other evening, when I managed to finally get on-line, that the Union create a web-site of essays, poetry, etc. done by Union writers and a separate one for plain and/or talented folk to contribute statements and verses that mean something to them. I was thinking of Pinsky's template from the other year, for his Poet Laureat Project. This idea could be expanded, of course.
I will pass on your post, as soon as I can get to a better computer, to the Union participants as I mentioned above. I hope that's okay.
If you are interested in trying to interest him [Pinsky] in some type of group effort, I just met him this spring and know where he is. E-mail me, okay?
If we can't do it in newspaper print, we can do it in cyberspace...!
We need to create a testament to human civilization and suffering, and the power of the human spirit.
Best wishes to all,
Courtney
Babi Yar, a ravine in Northwest Kiev where, in September 1941, the nazis killed tens of thousands of Jews, as well as Gypsies & Soviet prisoners of war.
The poet,Yevgeni Yevtushenko, wrote his
poem, Babi Yar, in 1961.
Philip Levine, factory poet. Detroit
