Poems for the Nation

Review is written and copyrighted by Adrien Begrand

About a month ago I wrote a review of The Outlaw Bible Of American Poetry, in which I mentioned, "more often than not, beneath the political posturing and the trendy Gay Pride themes are poems that are ultimately boring." While a reader like myself might feel this way after reading a head-spinning six hundred page book of poems, that's not always the case; in fact, brilliant new political poetry does indeed exist, and that point was driven home when I read Poems For The Nation, a new book of contemporary political poems partially edited by the late Allen Ginsberg.

Ginsberg had undertaken this project in the last eighteen months of his life upon the request of the magazine The Nation (although it was eventually published by Seven Stories Press's Open Media Pamphlet Series), and had spent a great deal of time selecting poems to be included in the collection, as well as helping some poets edit their own pieces. Although Ginsberg passed away before the project was completed, poets Andy Clausen and Eliot Katz (who both have their own poems in the book) stepped forward and completed the editing of the book, finalizing the project the way they thought Ginsberg would have done.

The tiny book is only seventy-two pages long, and features pieces by twenty-five writers, as well as an appendix which includes a 1972 speech by Ginsberg and several tributes to Allen himself. The poems, all submitted upon Ginsberg's request, were written by legends in the field like William Burroughs and Lawrence Ferlinghetti as well as younger poets like Antler, combining to create a state-of-the-world address to begin the year 2000.

This tight volume of great poetry is close to being perfectly written, with many high points: Antler's "Follow Orders", which humorously questions how far the long arm of the law will reach ('Charge the view from the skyscraper/with making people look like ants'); Barbara Barg's "Temporary America", a Howl for all temp workers; William Burroughs' "Remember Control", a 1996 meditation on a familiar Burroughs theme ('Yank the one essential factor, money, and the whole system will collapse like a house of cards'); Diane DiPrima's American political rant "Good Clean Fun" (the inclusion of which I personally found pleasing, since I've had that poem on my wall for the past three years); Cliff Fyman's verbatim story of a man's life as a homosexual in Cuba; Tuli Kupferberg's Fugs-like anarchistic reworking of the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" (which can also be found in The Outlaw Bible); Sharon Mesmer's "Bad Dream On Avenue A", about a strange dream involving Pat Buchanan; Peter Lamborn Wilson's Global Market rumination "The Sacred And Profane History Of Money."

The one poem that stands out above all the rest is an excerpt from the harrowing "A Visit To The Graves Of The Bosnian Muslims", by Daniel Moore, which paints a striking picture of his view of a mass grave, as well as thinking about the slaughtered victims he sees: "I went to the open graves of Bosnian Muslim victims of genocide/and leaned down into gaping holes like mouth of Jonah's whale and saw/bloodied bodies massed together...and I asked them about their state,/and they all opened their eyes and said: We're in Paradise."

Of course, a book of political poems wouldn't be complete without an appearance by Ginsberg himself, in the form of "New Democracy Wish List", his 1993 open letter to President Clinton which was included in his final volume of Poetry, Death And Fame. Personally, I don't think it's much of a poem, just another one of Ginsberg's rants where he quotes a bunch of the factoids he had been collecting, nor do I agree with a few of the things he says, but it is still vintage Ginsberg, and the poem has a facetious wink to it ("Sexuality's loose not fixed. Legalize it.").

What concludes the book is a collection of four excellent posthumous tributes to Ginsberg by his brother Eugene ("Pity your brother's self-pity, the vanity of his grief."), Eileen Myles, Ed Sanders, and Amiri Baraka, all of which are touching pieces about their friend and brother as well as yet another reminder of Ginsberg's greatness, three years after his passing.

Poems For The Nation is, short, to the point, and in its succinctness, burns right off the page. In a time where the great elder poets are disappearing more and more as the years go by and people are wondering where the next great contemporary poems will come from and what constitutes great poetry, this book is a great place to start.