Thank you to Darrell Parry who facilitated last month’s “mini” workshop, for February’s virtual salon/open mic. Apologies for not posting the topic earlier for this month- it has been a bit busy around here.
Thinking back to some of the more political/activist workshops that we have hosted such as “Revolutionary Cento” and events for 100 Thousand Poets for Change, we are going to think about poetry and collective trauma as it refers to events or conditions that impact a group of people. *As we say, this is a 30 minute exercise so we don’t have a lot of time to dive as deeply as we should. The goal is to provide a prompt for poets to explore later and revisit, maybe using some notes from the quick session to think about a different perspective or technique.*
What do we mean when we talk about collective trauma, and how can poetry help people:
-Acknowledge an event
-Share experience and connect with others who experienced it
-Validate, hold space, speak to the experience? How can poetry do this? Should we do this?
First, what is it? And what are some examples?
“Collective trauma is the psychological distress that a group — usually an entire culture, community, or another large group of people — experience in response to a shared trauma. In order to impact the entire group, such traumas are usually devastating in their scope and impact.”
Below is a quote and poem from Ocean Vuong. The goal for this exercise is to think about an event or experience that was traumatic to a group, society, or a person but connected to a broader experience.
Think about a person, and imagine what they might have been doing during this time. Try to think of a very small detail and the context of that detail as UNFINISHED BUSINESS.
For example, food left uneaten at a table. A lunchbox on the sidewalk. A symbol of something else, an object that is about more than the object. When we look at the poem, think about the green bottle.
Vuong says:
“…how does one live in the intersectional spaces of trauma, now, in our American time? What does it mean to be a product of an American war in America?”
Telemachus by Ocean Vuong (link to article from PBS, and read more)
Like any good son, I pull my father out
of the water, drag him by his hair
through sand, his knuckles carving a trail
the waves rush in to erase. Because the city
beyond the shore is no longer
where he left it. Because the bombed
cathedral is now a cathedral
of trees. I kneel beside him to see how far
I might sink. Do you know who I am,
ba? But the answer never comes. The answer
is the bullet hole in his back, brimming
with seawater. He is so still I think
he could be anyone’s father, found
the way a green bottle might appear
at a boy’s feet containing a year
he has never touched. I touch
his ears. No use. The neck’s
bruising. I turn him over. To face
it. The cathedral in his sea-black eyes.
The face not mine but one I will wear
to kiss all my lovers goodnight:
the way I seal my father’s lips
with my own and begin
the faithful work of drowning.
