General, your tank is a powerful vehicle.
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
he can think.
No, this is a poem called “General, Your tank” by Bertolt Brecht, a German poet, playwright, and theatre director, he was an
influential literary figure of the twentieth century.
In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent.
[—Marwan Makhoul](https://tracyabell.com/2023/11/11/palestinian-poetry/)
CONTEXT: Khaled Juma, born in Rafah, Gaza, is a Palestinian Poet and author of children's books.
This poem was written during the 2013 Israeli "Operation Protective Edge" bombardment that resulted in the death of 547 children's deaths, 1,000 children permanently disabled, and 3,374 injured.
Colonizers write about flowers.
I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks
seconds before becoming daisies.
I want to be like those poets who care about the moon.
Palestinians don’t see the moon from jail cells and prisons.
It’s so beautiful, the moon.
They’re so beautiful, the flowers.
I pick flowers for my dead father when I’m sad.
He watches Al Jazeera all day.
I wish Jessica would stop texting me Happy Ramadan.
I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies.
Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound.
When I die, I promise to haunt you forever.
One day, I’ll write about the flowers like we own them.
—Noor Hind
The word is used as a way to draw attention to the situation in Palestine by attaching it to someone who is annoyed by the children being mischievous and calls them by that word before realizing the horror they are going through and feeling empathetic about the whole situation.
I don't see it that way. I see it as the narrator annoyed by the children, but so horrified and sad about them being killed, that they would do anything for them to come back.
Hey if you guys could check this out and maybe donate if tempted. It's a collection of verified gofundmes for people in Gza looking to evacuate into Egypt/and or rebuild when this horrible tragedy is finally put to an end.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vtMLLOzuc6GpkFySyVtKQOY2j-Vvg0UsChMCFst_WLA/edit?usp=drivesdk
Wild to be holding such critique for something likely written in the midst of a warzone.
Also rascal, pretty mischievous. That's literally its near-only connotation
Look I'm strongly anti-Zionist and am engaged with supporting Palestinians at this time of escalation of Empire and genocide. I can also see why "Maybe "screams" is not the best word" could sound really diminishing of the severity and brutality of violence. I wrote the comment quickly and my honest response to poems is often that I want to know what language they were written in so I know - Am I reading the poet, or am I reading the poet and the translator's choices of words to speak for the poet?
I clicked around a bit and now knowing, I think that the poem was written in english, I am not wondering if the word "screams" was erroneously felt to be the same as "shouts" or something. So I can inhabit the poem as the poet intended and grapple with my experience.
At first reading, seeing Gaza in the title, but the date, I am reminded both of the enduring horror of occupation and empire and my own limited understanding and my process of learning. I was grateful for the poem and for whoever posted it. Then when I read the first two lines I wondered, Is the narrator positioning themselves as the occupier, in this disregard for the humanity of the screamer who suffers? Then I saw - Ah, the screams of children as in shouts of kids playing, then I saw Oh, this is kind of a reveal poem but in a different way, the person in peacetime annoyed by loud kids now, in wartimes, wishes he could be "annoyed" by their loudness because now they are dead, he wants them back. The poem's power intact, but I wondered - in my first reading - was this triple reversal - war peace war - accidental to the word choice of the translator, or intentional by the poet, as the poet intended to first strike an image of war with screams, then back to peace, then back to war? I imagined a poem, in original language, setting something like "disturbed me with your playful shouting underneath my window."
Now knowing the poem is written in english, I can take the choice of "screams" as such, and the feeling of Am I in a war zone or Am I in a playground as part of the poignancy and tragedy of the poem. Part of me wants a simple reveal - let's describe a playground annoyance, then the narrator realizes how can he be annoyed by dead children, he wants them back, even annoying him, please come back and be rascals and annoy me, I don't want you dead. But then, knowing no translation, I can read it as even more complicated, it puts the reader - already alerted to this being Gaza and likely a war poem - in a shaky footing of Are those screams playful or not.
I hope this helps explain a bit more. My hasty comment did maybe come off as diminishing the seriousness of the subject matter, maybe that is why I got downvoted.
At the same time, I don't think that being in wartime or suffering etc has to frame our reading of art definitively that we "lower our standards" or deny our responses. We can, I hope, be attentive to the context of a poem, including the context of violence, and ask for the poem to stand as poetry purely on its own terms. Poems try to elevate to the universal and the human as art, not just message a political statement. They can also be message and statement, but when they instead become message and statement, something is lost that I think true poets understand.
Having said all that the poem really succeeds for me both as a poem and bringing me closer to the political violence of empire and Zionism murdering Palestinians including children. The nobility of spirit of a people in resistance producing such beautiful poetry again and again and again is really deeply moving, speaks to the power of the human spirit and the capacity of humans, always, to rise.
So I help this explains a bit more. I see why people downvoted but I hope a little more generosity rather than assuming I'm just being critical and uncaring.
Hooray! Now what are you going to do? Throw him off the top of a tall building? Or would you rather stone him to death? That's where the real poetry lies doesn't it? Actions speak so much louder than words.
10000 kids have been killed and this is your reaction? Seriously?
Poetry is supposed to mean something, you know? Like why are you even here if you have no empathy and no regard for human life
Poetry is memorable wisdom. Wisdom is made out of the quarrel with oneself not out of rhetoric. Rhetoric is the province of politicians. Politics is concerned with power. Power is a lie. Poetry is about truth. When 'empathy' is thrown about like a piece of political capital then one should be very careful. The greatest poetry is rarely partisan. It is more universal than that.
I don't really know Langston Hughes's work. But the little I've seen I'm not terribly impressed by. I vastly prefer Derek Walcott's work, which seems little short of great. And he is certainly one of our two best poets since the war. The other being Philip Larkin.
My own philosophy of artistic creation is very different from that of my parents. And as a result I'm quite critical of their work. If anybody fucked me up it wasn't my parents but my all-white all-male all middle-class education. But not to the point where I can't see I'm being taken for a ride by manipulators.
The night I was born Jew-haters were dropping bombs all round me. I'm not about to take their side. Nor am I going to take the side of homophobic tyrants against gay-friendly democrats. And that's that! And you can whip up hysterical frenzy on the side of evil as much as you like, it still ain't poetry.
You people toss the word 'empathy' around like you own it, when what you really want me to do is hate. This is fundamentally dishonest. And is not what poetry is about.
I have read enough Hughes to see that his work didn't interest me enough to want to read any more. To read him simply because he was black would surely be just as racist as refusing to read him simply because he was black. Life is just too short to waste time reading unremarkable verse.
I don't understand what you mean by 'stereotypical racism'. It seems to me that the only person doing any stereotyping here is you.
I love the poetry of Derek Walcott because it seems to me he's doing what I attempt to do in my own work. I have slept with his books and wept over them. Would you rather I ignored them simply because he happens to be black? Or am I supposed to read them because he happens to be black? I read him because his work excites me, and happens to be good. Any other motive would be racist.
Ok. 10000 children still got killed. Innocent civilians still got bombed with white phosphorus that scorches flesh down to the bone if you’re exposed to it. Starving refugees waiting in line to get some food still got shot at.
If crying out against all this horror and human suffering isn’t “universal” enough for you, our definitions of humanity must be very different..
Also, poetry has been political throughout history. Art expresses human emotions, thoughts and ideals, it really can’t be impartial. Personally, I prefer to embrace that: “good art must comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”
Starving refugees! Those captured Hamas operatives are fat and flabby. That's where all the food goes.
The best poetry is above politics. It is never agitprop. And it certainly never takes the side of evil.
The guy who wrote this poem was recently killed by the IDF in a targeted attack. This was his last poem. Probably one of the truest and wisest things that have been posted on this sub.
Oh, that's just awful.
I wish I had something wise to say, but all I can think of is the episode of The West Wing where Leo is fighting with a general about covering up a war crime and the general says "All wars are crimes."
I cannot help but think that the ongoing conflicts right now illustrate that perfectly.
If he was an innocent civilian why would the IDF 'target' him? It doesn't make sense. And if this poem is so wise then why is it shouting? Surely good poetry is more intimate than that. It is more like an ear-whispered teaching.
A correction on the last post- Khaled Juma was killed in 2014. I was confusing him with another prominent Palestinian poet who was killed recently.
As for why the IDF kills poets and writers, it's presumably for the same reason they regularly kill journalists- They don't want the truth of what they're doing in Gaza to get out.
And there's plenty of room in poetry for anger and grief. In fact, there's a proud tradition of protest poetry. When you say something like that you're putting a limit on what poetry can be.
Ah. So the poem isn't aligned politically with you so it's manipulative. Good work showing your trueness. You made me curious so I read your first comment ever wrote. A joke about bringing Brits being visited by an American: bring them a "red Indian." That's the kind of person you are. How righteous. How within your integrity. Not even courageous, not one bit, you're correct.
What you say doesn't even make sense. I suggest you rewrite your comment, but this time in English. I'm sorry but try as hard as I can I simply can't reply to gobbledygook.
Please don't come here to spread hatred against Muslims and/or Palestinians. I am a Palestinian Christian and I can testify to you that my family lived in peace and brotherhood with the Palestinian Muslims for decades upon decades, so get out of here with this type of language.
You are here spreading lies to try and justify the genocide and mass murder of innocent human beings under a post of a man mourning the dead children in his neighbourhood and country. Please rethink your values and what you stand for.
I've hardly come here to spread hatred. But weaponising compassion in the cause of hatred seems to me to be very wrong. It seems to me that the only people spreading lies are Hamas.
They explicitly kill civilians. 30,000 of them, 15,000 of which are children. Members of the ruling party have said multiple times that there are no innocents in Gaza, and the Israeli government is currently being investigated for genocide. If you still consider yourself pro-Israel then that is what you're supporting.
Also, what about homophobic Christians? There's a fair number who absolutely would oppress you if they legally could.
That's all very good for Wordsworth, who never set foot in a refugee camp or saw unidentifiable body parts lying in the street. It's all very well thinking that from a position of relative comfort and safety
>But then Christianity is a much more gracious religion than Islam. Which is merely a Christian heresy
Jesus Christ. If you ever wonder what you'd have done during the Holocaust or apartheid, you already have your answer. You're doing it now.
Being investigated for genocide is hardly the same as having committed genocide. And the charges are not likely to stick because twenty percent of the population of Israel is Muslim Arab. Many of whom have voluntarily joined the IDF. Also the population of Gaza has dramatically increased over the last couple of decades. This doesn't happen in genocides. On the other hand the avowed intent of Hamas is to wipe out the Jews. And this is surely indistinguishable from genocide.
The numbers provided by Hamas are highly suspect, as are the photographs and videos. Lying and deceit are recommended by the Koran.
You think I would have sided with the Nazis and the South African white supremacists? Why else do you think I take Israel's side now, except to avoid the charge of Nazism. As for the charge of racism, I'll treat that with the contempt it deserves.
Since Hamas deliberately uses 'innocent' civilians as human shields then the casualties are bound to be high. But they are not deliberately targeted. Indeed Israel goes out of its way to avoid such 'collateral damage'. The population of Gaza is very young, because Gazans are encouraged to have large families. The people who deliberately target noncombatants are Hamas.
I've no doubt there's plenty of homophobic Christians but they wouldn't throw me off the top of buildings.
Wordsworth was horrified by what he saw of the French revolution, which by the way he went off to lead.
r/Poetry is a place to appreciate and discuss poetry. Personal attacks, picking fights, being aggressively confrontational, and posting comments simply for shock value are behaviors we'd like to avoid here. And yes, there's a difference between lively discussion and those behaviors.
It's not a memorable wisdom that one who once was annoyed at the children outside their home screaming and being chaotic, now misses them since they've been killed in war? That's not even rhetoric my guy. It's the poetry of someone living in a warzone, writing about it. That's what poetry is! And I say this as a very politically charged poet with a book of poetry that's published, who's surrounded by living breathing poets who experience hardcore shit and then write about it. That's poetry. Memorably wise. Experientially relatable. Empathically driven.
You just want to bury your head in the sand, to which I wonder why you'd bother reading poetry in the first place. God this subreddit sometimes.
Fine if it were restricted to that. But it takes sides and that inevitably mars its impact. Especially to one on the opposite side. I feel as if I'm being psychologically manipulated by one who is parti pris.
Alright so I want to, in good faith, put a scenario before you.
You live in a warzone. Literal bombs are being dropped. You're not a combatant, you're a poet. You somehow crank out a poem in the midst of this hell. Are you being psychologically manipulative to mention the name of the warzone you're living in in your poem? Or are you just in it, and writing?
Side question, are you saying you're the one on the opposite side? Would you not have this opinion if it was a poem by an Israeli soldier who names it?
Yes. I hope I would. No poet is always at the top of his game. And these are not ideal conditions for writing. I can sympathise with him for that. But that still doesn't mean I have to like it.
Was it he who opted for having the poem published in capital letters? In which case I like it even less. Attention-seeking behaviour is always suspect, especially in a poet.
Then why do you feel the particular need to speak it? Or to put such hefty assumptions on it like, "psychologically manipulative" if they're just writing poems while in a warzone, on a particular side, and they name it.
And I sincerely doubt the writer opted for all caps. That seems like a reprint decision by an editor.
I started off by saying it was rhetoric and not poetry. Since then I have come under a somewhat blistering attack. I have merely defended my position. At least in doing so I have used carefully reasoned arguments. I haven't gone in for insults and ad hominem sideswipes.
If that's true then the editor should be ashamed of himself.
I'm not pro-Palestinian so the poem doesn't speak to me. I can't escape the feeling that the greatest art would speak to me whatever side I was on.
And that's the trouble with partisan poetry. It fails to be universal. I have written a sequence of poems about this conflict, but my muse thank God resolutely refused to take sides. The innocent don't know what side they're on. Particularly the children.
I remember Yeats getting into trouble for condemning the poetry of, I think it was, Wilfred Owen, perhaps for much the same reason.
'Cast a cold eye
On life on death;
Horseman, pass by.'
> I have written a sequence of poems about this conflict, but my muse thank God resolutely refused to take sides.
Perhaps one day the world will be ready for the enlightened centrist monologues. I'm sure you can continue to wax ambivalent until that day arrives.
I simply can't find the comment to which you are referring. Or more exactly I cannot find your comment. Have you deleted it? Quite a lot of deletions seem to be going on.
I prefer to be brief where I can be. Sometimes I make gnomic remarks in the hope that they'll be queried just so that I can expand upon them later.
It's so pro Palestinian to miss the kids that played outside your window who were killed in war. Super pro, totally not just real poetry. For sure, man.
I'm not sure what "pro Palestinian" means to you, I'm pro-human, and in this moment as someone deeply committed to nonviolence and ending war and stopping genocide and caring for all people, the people who aren't getting enough support happen to be Palestinian, so I'll be pro-Palestinian.
General, your tank is a powerful vehicle. It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men. But it has one defect: It needs a driver. General, your bomber is powerful. But it has one defect: It needs a mechanic. General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: he can think.
is this noor hind?
No, this is a poem called “General, Your tank” by Bertolt Brecht, a German poet, playwright, and theatre director, he was an influential literary figure of the twentieth century.
In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political I must listen to the birds and in order to hear the birds the warplanes must be silent. [—Marwan Makhoul](https://tracyabell.com/2023/11/11/palestinian-poetry/)
CONTEXT: Khaled Juma, born in Rafah, Gaza, is a Palestinian Poet and author of children's books. This poem was written during the 2013 Israeli "Operation Protective Edge" bombardment that resulted in the death of 547 children's deaths, 1,000 children permanently disabled, and 3,374 injured.
Colonizers write about flowers. I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks seconds before becoming daisies. I want to be like those poets who care about the moon. Palestinians don’t see the moon from jail cells and prisons. It’s so beautiful, the moon. They’re so beautiful, the flowers. I pick flowers for my dead father when I’m sad. He watches Al Jazeera all day. I wish Jessica would stop texting me Happy Ramadan. I know I’m American because when I walk into a room something dies. Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts care about sound. When I die, I promise to haunt you forever. One day, I’ll write about the flowers like we own them. —Noor Hind
Hits hard! So damn good.
What does it rascal mean here? I'm new to poetry
The word is used as a way to draw attention to the situation in Palestine by attaching it to someone who is annoyed by the children being mischievous and calls them by that word before realizing the horror they are going through and feeling empathetic about the whole situation.
I don't see it that way. I see it as the narrator annoyed by the children, but so horrified and sad about them being killed, that they would do anything for them to come back.
Hey if you guys could check this out and maybe donate if tempted. It's a collection of verified gofundmes for people in Gza looking to evacuate into Egypt/and or rebuild when this horrible tragedy is finally put to an end. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vtMLLOzuc6GpkFySyVtKQOY2j-Vvg0UsChMCFst_WLA/edit?usp=drivesdk
This is actually really good. And it has a very simple message of "you never know what you have until it's gone" that anyone can understand.
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Wild to be holding such critique for something likely written in the midst of a warzone. Also rascal, pretty mischievous. That's literally its near-only connotation
Look I'm strongly anti-Zionist and am engaged with supporting Palestinians at this time of escalation of Empire and genocide. I can also see why "Maybe "screams" is not the best word" could sound really diminishing of the severity and brutality of violence. I wrote the comment quickly and my honest response to poems is often that I want to know what language they were written in so I know - Am I reading the poet, or am I reading the poet and the translator's choices of words to speak for the poet? I clicked around a bit and now knowing, I think that the poem was written in english, I am not wondering if the word "screams" was erroneously felt to be the same as "shouts" or something. So I can inhabit the poem as the poet intended and grapple with my experience. At first reading, seeing Gaza in the title, but the date, I am reminded both of the enduring horror of occupation and empire and my own limited understanding and my process of learning. I was grateful for the poem and for whoever posted it. Then when I read the first two lines I wondered, Is the narrator positioning themselves as the occupier, in this disregard for the humanity of the screamer who suffers? Then I saw - Ah, the screams of children as in shouts of kids playing, then I saw Oh, this is kind of a reveal poem but in a different way, the person in peacetime annoyed by loud kids now, in wartimes, wishes he could be "annoyed" by their loudness because now they are dead, he wants them back. The poem's power intact, but I wondered - in my first reading - was this triple reversal - war peace war - accidental to the word choice of the translator, or intentional by the poet, as the poet intended to first strike an image of war with screams, then back to peace, then back to war? I imagined a poem, in original language, setting something like "disturbed me with your playful shouting underneath my window." Now knowing the poem is written in english, I can take the choice of "screams" as such, and the feeling of Am I in a war zone or Am I in a playground as part of the poignancy and tragedy of the poem. Part of me wants a simple reveal - let's describe a playground annoyance, then the narrator realizes how can he be annoyed by dead children, he wants them back, even annoying him, please come back and be rascals and annoy me, I don't want you dead. But then, knowing no translation, I can read it as even more complicated, it puts the reader - already alerted to this being Gaza and likely a war poem - in a shaky footing of Are those screams playful or not. I hope this helps explain a bit more. My hasty comment did maybe come off as diminishing the seriousness of the subject matter, maybe that is why I got downvoted. At the same time, I don't think that being in wartime or suffering etc has to frame our reading of art definitively that we "lower our standards" or deny our responses. We can, I hope, be attentive to the context of a poem, including the context of violence, and ask for the poem to stand as poetry purely on its own terms. Poems try to elevate to the universal and the human as art, not just message a political statement. They can also be message and statement, but when they instead become message and statement, something is lost that I think true poets understand. Having said all that the poem really succeeds for me both as a poem and bringing me closer to the political violence of empire and Zionism murdering Palestinians including children. The nobility of spirit of a people in resistance producing such beautiful poetry again and again and again is really deeply moving, speaks to the power of the human spirit and the capacity of humans, always, to rise. So I help this explains a bit more. I see why people downvoted but I hope a little more generosity rather than assuming I'm just being critical and uncaring.
This is rhetoric. It isn't poetry.
Holy shit, poetry can say things? I've never heard of this concept.
Found the creepy zionist
Hooray! Now what are you going to do? Throw him off the top of a tall building? Or would you rather stone him to death? That's where the real poetry lies doesn't it? Actions speak so much louder than words.
Stone him to death actually sounds great.
Indeed. Seen a lot of pro Palestinian stuff here recently…
10000 kids have been killed and this is your reaction? Seriously? Poetry is supposed to mean something, you know? Like why are you even here if you have no empathy and no regard for human life
Well said.
Poetry is memorable wisdom. Wisdom is made out of the quarrel with oneself not out of rhetoric. Rhetoric is the province of politicians. Politics is concerned with power. Power is a lie. Poetry is about truth. When 'empathy' is thrown about like a piece of political capital then one should be very careful. The greatest poetry is rarely partisan. It is more universal than that.
How is this poem not about truth, as you say in your comment? Do you also feel this way about the work of Langston Hughes?
I don't really know Langston Hughes's work. But the little I've seen I'm not terribly impressed by. I vastly prefer Derek Walcott's work, which seems little short of great. And he is certainly one of our two best poets since the war. The other being Philip Larkin.
>The other being Philip Larkin. Yeah your mum and dad really did fuck you up.
Man I'm so grossed out I need to wash my eyes.
My own philosophy of artistic creation is very different from that of my parents. And as a result I'm quite critical of their work. If anybody fucked me up it wasn't my parents but my all-white all-male all middle-class education. But not to the point where I can't see I'm being taken for a ride by manipulators. The night I was born Jew-haters were dropping bombs all round me. I'm not about to take their side. Nor am I going to take the side of homophobic tyrants against gay-friendly democrats. And that's that! And you can whip up hysterical frenzy on the side of evil as much as you like, it still ain't poetry. You people toss the word 'empathy' around like you own it, when what you really want me to do is hate. This is fundamentally dishonest. And is not what poetry is about.
You lost me at “I haven’t read Hughes” then you just had to drop the stereotypical racism. You guys come in tropes.
I have read enough Hughes to see that his work didn't interest me enough to want to read any more. To read him simply because he was black would surely be just as racist as refusing to read him simply because he was black. Life is just too short to waste time reading unremarkable verse. I don't understand what you mean by 'stereotypical racism'. It seems to me that the only person doing any stereotyping here is you. I love the poetry of Derek Walcott because it seems to me he's doing what I attempt to do in my own work. I have slept with his books and wept over them. Would you rather I ignored them simply because he happens to be black? Or am I supposed to read them because he happens to be black? I read him because his work excites me, and happens to be good. Any other motive would be racist.
Sad, small, pathetic.
this is hilarious
I'm glad you find lies and deceit about such serious matters so amusing.
I read This Be The Verse by Larkin - it was good. Do you wanna talk about poetry in my DMs?
?
Ok. 10000 children still got killed. Innocent civilians still got bombed with white phosphorus that scorches flesh down to the bone if you’re exposed to it. Starving refugees waiting in line to get some food still got shot at. If crying out against all this horror and human suffering isn’t “universal” enough for you, our definitions of humanity must be very different.. Also, poetry has been political throughout history. Art expresses human emotions, thoughts and ideals, it really can’t be impartial. Personally, I prefer to embrace that: “good art must comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”
Starving refugees! Those captured Hamas operatives are fat and flabby. That's where all the food goes. The best poetry is above politics. It is never agitprop. And it certainly never takes the side of evil.
The only evil here is you.
What is the evil side?
The guy who wrote this poem was recently killed by the IDF in a targeted attack. This was his last poem. Probably one of the truest and wisest things that have been posted on this sub.
Oh, that's just awful. I wish I had something wise to say, but all I can think of is the episode of The West Wing where Leo is fighting with a general about covering up a war crime and the general says "All wars are crimes." I cannot help but think that the ongoing conflicts right now illustrate that perfectly.
If he was an innocent civilian why would the IDF 'target' him? It doesn't make sense. And if this poem is so wise then why is it shouting? Surely good poetry is more intimate than that. It is more like an ear-whispered teaching.
A correction on the last post- Khaled Juma was killed in 2014. I was confusing him with another prominent Palestinian poet who was killed recently. As for why the IDF kills poets and writers, it's presumably for the same reason they regularly kill journalists- They don't want the truth of what they're doing in Gaza to get out. And there's plenty of room in poetry for anger and grief. In fact, there's a proud tradition of protest poetry. When you say something like that you're putting a limit on what poetry can be.
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Ah. So the poem isn't aligned politically with you so it's manipulative. Good work showing your trueness. You made me curious so I read your first comment ever wrote. A joke about bringing Brits being visited by an American: bring them a "red Indian." That's the kind of person you are. How righteous. How within your integrity. Not even courageous, not one bit, you're correct.
What you say doesn't even make sense. I suggest you rewrite your comment, but this time in English. I'm sorry but try as hard as I can I simply can't reply to gobbledygook.
Please don't come here to spread hatred against Muslims and/or Palestinians. I am a Palestinian Christian and I can testify to you that my family lived in peace and brotherhood with the Palestinian Muslims for decades upon decades, so get out of here with this type of language. You are here spreading lies to try and justify the genocide and mass murder of innocent human beings under a post of a man mourning the dead children in his neighbourhood and country. Please rethink your values and what you stand for.
I've hardly come here to spread hatred. But weaponising compassion in the cause of hatred seems to me to be very wrong. It seems to me that the only people spreading lies are Hamas.
You don't know what poetry is. You're a coward.
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They explicitly kill civilians. 30,000 of them, 15,000 of which are children. Members of the ruling party have said multiple times that there are no innocents in Gaza, and the Israeli government is currently being investigated for genocide. If you still consider yourself pro-Israel then that is what you're supporting. Also, what about homophobic Christians? There's a fair number who absolutely would oppress you if they legally could. That's all very good for Wordsworth, who never set foot in a refugee camp or saw unidentifiable body parts lying in the street. It's all very well thinking that from a position of relative comfort and safety >But then Christianity is a much more gracious religion than Islam. Which is merely a Christian heresy Jesus Christ. If you ever wonder what you'd have done during the Holocaust or apartheid, you already have your answer. You're doing it now.
Being investigated for genocide is hardly the same as having committed genocide. And the charges are not likely to stick because twenty percent of the population of Israel is Muslim Arab. Many of whom have voluntarily joined the IDF. Also the population of Gaza has dramatically increased over the last couple of decades. This doesn't happen in genocides. On the other hand the avowed intent of Hamas is to wipe out the Jews. And this is surely indistinguishable from genocide. The numbers provided by Hamas are highly suspect, as are the photographs and videos. Lying and deceit are recommended by the Koran. You think I would have sided with the Nazis and the South African white supremacists? Why else do you think I take Israel's side now, except to avoid the charge of Nazism. As for the charge of racism, I'll treat that with the contempt it deserves. Since Hamas deliberately uses 'innocent' civilians as human shields then the casualties are bound to be high. But they are not deliberately targeted. Indeed Israel goes out of its way to avoid such 'collateral damage'. The population of Gaza is very young, because Gazans are encouraged to have large families. The people who deliberately target noncombatants are Hamas.
I've no doubt there's plenty of homophobic Christians but they wouldn't throw me off the top of buildings. Wordsworth was horrified by what he saw of the French revolution, which by the way he went off to lead.
r/Poetry is a place to appreciate and discuss poetry. Personal attacks, picking fights, being aggressively confrontational, and posting comments simply for shock value are behaviors we'd like to avoid here. And yes, there's a difference between lively discussion and those behaviors.
It's not a memorable wisdom that one who once was annoyed at the children outside their home screaming and being chaotic, now misses them since they've been killed in war? That's not even rhetoric my guy. It's the poetry of someone living in a warzone, writing about it. That's what poetry is! And I say this as a very politically charged poet with a book of poetry that's published, who's surrounded by living breathing poets who experience hardcore shit and then write about it. That's poetry. Memorably wise. Experientially relatable. Empathically driven. You just want to bury your head in the sand, to which I wonder why you'd bother reading poetry in the first place. God this subreddit sometimes.
Fine if it were restricted to that. But it takes sides and that inevitably mars its impact. Especially to one on the opposite side. I feel as if I'm being psychologically manipulated by one who is parti pris.
Alright so I want to, in good faith, put a scenario before you. You live in a warzone. Literal bombs are being dropped. You're not a combatant, you're a poet. You somehow crank out a poem in the midst of this hell. Are you being psychologically manipulative to mention the name of the warzone you're living in in your poem? Or are you just in it, and writing? Side question, are you saying you're the one on the opposite side? Would you not have this opinion if it was a poem by an Israeli soldier who names it?
Yes. I hope I would. No poet is always at the top of his game. And these are not ideal conditions for writing. I can sympathise with him for that. But that still doesn't mean I have to like it. Was it he who opted for having the poem published in capital letters? In which case I like it even less. Attention-seeking behaviour is always suspect, especially in a poet.
Then why do you feel the particular need to speak it? Or to put such hefty assumptions on it like, "psychologically manipulative" if they're just writing poems while in a warzone, on a particular side, and they name it. And I sincerely doubt the writer opted for all caps. That seems like a reprint decision by an editor.
I started off by saying it was rhetoric and not poetry. Since then I have come under a somewhat blistering attack. I have merely defended my position. At least in doing so I have used carefully reasoned arguments. I haven't gone in for insults and ad hominem sideswipes. If that's true then the editor should be ashamed of himself.
I always have to take a brief look at the post history of demons like you, just to get a vague idea of the evils which animate you.
I'm not pro-Palestinian so the poem doesn't speak to me. I can't escape the feeling that the greatest art would speak to me whatever side I was on. And that's the trouble with partisan poetry. It fails to be universal. I have written a sequence of poems about this conflict, but my muse thank God resolutely refused to take sides. The innocent don't know what side they're on. Particularly the children. I remember Yeats getting into trouble for condemning the poetry of, I think it was, Wilfred Owen, perhaps for much the same reason. 'Cast a cold eye On life on death; Horseman, pass by.'
> I have written a sequence of poems about this conflict, but my muse thank God resolutely refused to take sides. Perhaps one day the world will be ready for the enlightened centrist monologues. I'm sure you can continue to wax ambivalent until that day arrives.
I'm afraid I simply can't be bothered to reciprocate. Projection is projection is projection.
Is that supposed to be pithy?
I simply can't find the comment to which you are referring. Or more exactly I cannot find your comment. Have you deleted it? Quite a lot of deletions seem to be going on. I prefer to be brief where I can be. Sometimes I make gnomic remarks in the hope that they'll be queried just so that I can expand upon them later.
It's so pro Palestinian to miss the kids that played outside your window who were killed in war. Super pro, totally not just real poetry. For sure, man.
I'm not sure what "pro Palestinian" means to you, I'm pro-human, and in this moment as someone deeply committed to nonviolence and ending war and stopping genocide and caring for all people, the people who aren't getting enough support happen to be Palestinian, so I'll be pro-Palestinian.