I’m not saying it’s dead, but I’m sure as hell asking. First be clear about the soul. Many believe in it, insist they have one, and good for them. Regardless of its mention from ancient times to modern, it’s speculative at best; a good metaphor but a catch-all too for things we sense but don’t understand and can’t describe. We don’t see X-rays or radio waves but we know them by their effects. Soul is another matter. It’s whatever anyone says it is.
America’s soul, in reference to an entire people, may also be said to be its ethos. The national soul may not be sick unto death but it’s in bad shape–the worst being its racisms, antisemitism, anti-gay sentiment and prejudice against women.
Racism is a grave sicknesses of the human spirit; even legislation against it during an enlightened era has no lasting effect. We see it today. It is part and parcel of our national governance along with dismissal of DEI policies that sought to address so much inequality. In a trice, they’re gone –only for now, we can but dearly hope.
Antisemitism is not just old but maybe the oldest of soul-sicknesses. Today, it’s muddled, sad to say, by a miscreant strain of Israeli leadership.
Hatred towards those who romantically love their own sex is also complex, muddled in part by subterranean sexual feelings within some haters –i.e., fear of their own proclivities. Then there are those for whom it’s just a political football. Other reasons rest sadly in religion’s worst failings. Today the plight of other sub-groups and the Trans population is due largely to ignorance and misunderstanding.
We should all admit that just being a woman may not be the entire reason that the U.S. can’t elect one as president, but enough to be the deal-breaker in close elections. Other nations, of course, are long past this hurdle. Here the emergence of women as truly equal in their humanity is perceived as a real, though an unnecessary, threat to the male sex.
I’ve faced all these in my several careers, Anything said or done supportive and inclusive of all the above was met with anger, withdrawal of friendship, support and even occasions of physical violence. Go figure. When LBJ said that when he lost Walter Cronkite’s trust, he’d lost America’s –the same can be said when religion relinquishes its place in the great moral issues of the day.
As leader of a local poetry group at the Senior/Community Center, I called recently for local versifiers to share words of Black poets from days of enslavement to modern times – or to write something from their own understanding of the Black experience. To my surprise, along with much testimony from the historical archive, most of them offered their own heartfelt, soul searching of the damaging, long shelf life of animus toward other races. Those present were deeply touched, the respect earned.
If, to Shakespeare’s mind, a play might “catch the conscience” of a king. Maybe now, poetry can save the soul of America. April is National Poetry Month for an art that is and can be about everything, and what can heal the America’s sin-sick spirit. I deem it “sacred scripture” because it comes as deeply from the heart as any other art. During April, revisit poetry that touches you deeply, maybe poetry you read long ago. And/or go to a reading.
My local initiative, “Poetry In Public Places,” posts it where people can see while going about their daily lives, “that they who run may read,” as the saying goes. I’ll have a solo show again throughout NU Kitchen’s ample art-space during April: professionally printed on large foamboard.
Many thanks to our Chamber of Commerce: they will post our poetry downtown during the month. And a shout-out to the Art Association for embracing poetry as complement to the theme of each exhibit. As its poet in residence let me say, that it’s more about visual art willing to clasp hands with another expression of, yes, the human soul.
America’s soul is sick. Please don’t let it die.
John Burciaga likes “soul food.” To him, that’s all food. Join him for some at NU Kitchen or chew the fat at Ichabod142@gmail.com.