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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Poetry Off the Shelf: The Utopian Business

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Helena de Groot: This is Poetry Off the Shelf. I'm Helena de Groot. Today, "The Utopian Business." Steve Zeitlin and Bob Holman are both professional collectors of "the poetry of everyday." Zeitlin is a folklorist and founder of the New York-based cultural nonprofit City Lore, and Bob is a slam poetry activist and founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Both have a deeply utopian bent. They see poetry as a way to mend their broken world. So, during these days, when the world seems broken beyond repair, I wanted to hear how they were doing. When we talked, Bob and Steve were in the middle of a project called All the Voices: Across the Great Divide. It started in 2019. That was several years into the Trump presidency, when Bob and Steve decided to invite Americans across the political spectrum to write a poem. They had a whole plan. They found a restaurant willing to participate, designed a special placemat inviting diners to write a poem, and built the ballot box to drop these placemats in. But before the first poem for the project was even written, the pandemic hit and the whole thing had to move online. The prompt they came up with was write a poem about your politics, but make it personal. Here's Steve Zeitlin.

Steve Zeitlin: And we're talking about politics by using the "Where I'm From" prompt.

Helena de Groot: And here's Bob Holman.

Bob Holman: That poem, "Where I'm From," has sort of become the emblem of this project that we're working on, Across the Great Divide.

Helena de Groot: This classroom favorite is often attributed to the Appalachian poet, writer, and teacher George Ella Lyon. Although she would probably tell you she got it from somewhere too. Here she is reading her own "Where I'm From" poem.

George Ella Lyon:

"Where I'm From."

I am from clothespins,

from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.

I am from the dirt under the back porch.

(Black, glistening,

it tasted like beets.)

Steve Zeitlin: The secret of it is that it brings out the details of where a person is from. And as my daughter actually put it, it's asking you where you're from, but not the place. (LAUGHS)

George Ella Lyon:

I'm from He restoreth my soul

with a cottonball lamb

and ten verses I can say myself.

Steve Zeitlin: You know, they say God is in the details, but each of us is in the details. That's really where we're from.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Steve Zeitlin: And you can kind of see that, even though there's 300 million people in the United States, there's really 300 million different nuances to the politics and make people see that everybody has got their own voice. And it's oftentimes, if you're putting it in its deepest form, it has a truth to it. You know, that other people can relate to that you wouldn't be able to relate to if you just had an argument with them.

Bob Holman: Yeah. The project began as a website, and their first batch of poems came in over the transom through the internet. And then, when we realized that most of the poems we were getting were from the left, we started doing some outreach like this, and the trip to Galax ... (BACKGROUND CONVERSATION) Was our first major expedition. (BACKGROUND CONVERSATION) And believe me, we reached the audience that we were looking for.

Helena de Groot: And how did you find that place? Why there?

Steve Zeitlin: Why there? Because bluegrass festivals in general do actually attract both conservatives and liberals. And this particular festival in Galax, Virginia, really attracts a lot of conservatives, as well as a smattering of liberals as well. And also, the music concerts are all at night, so people are free during the day. So there was a real chance to talk to people and get to know them. And you know, we can... I'll pull up one of the more outrageous poems that we were able to collect during that time. Let's see.

Bob Holman: Is this a Trump poem?

Steve Zeitlin: Yeah.

Bob Holman: OK. Well, there was this guy I just, you know, he had had a couple of beers, but he really wanted to talk to somebody from the other side and use poetry, if that's what it takes, as a vehicle to get the truth out. So we leaned up against the truck and I had a notebook on a clipboard, and he just started to go on. After I had done the writing, he took over and began to edit it the way that a poet begins to edit — and he'd never worked on a poem in his life.

Helena de Groot: And describe him for me. Like, what did he look like? Or how did he talk?

Bob Holman: He was a macho guy, you know, probably in his 40s, about six-foot. Sandy hair, receding hairline. He'd been around. He had a sense of joviality about him. And this, I think, was going to be for him a new experience. And it was an opportunity for him to voice this really intricate political dialogue he'd been having with himself about why he came out so much in favor of Trump. He was very engaged with the editorial process there, as he crossed out and added in. And then he walked off — he left us with his name and walked off. And he gave us his OK to use the poem, but I wish that we'd been able to get in touch with him later and have him go over what the final version of it is.

Helena de Groot: Because, like in general, when you would ask someone to write a poem for you or speak a poem for you, would you chat with them too? Would you learn a little bit about, like, what is it that you do in life? Like, where do you live? Any sort of talk like that?

Steve Zeitlin: Yes.

Bob Holman: That's what it's all about.

Helena de Groot: OK.

Bob Holman: You know, it's not like, "Now we're gonna write the poem" time. You know, it's like, "Just tell us where you're from."

Steve Zeitlin: OK. Here's his poem, I think.

Bob Holman: OK. It's called "Liberty and Responsibility" by David Bradley.

Where I'm from, freedom and liberty require responsibility.

My dad missed only three days of work his entire life.

I'm a thinker. I'm from Mr Austin's class in sixth grade.

He was a golden-hearted gym teacher who taught math.

I was sitting at my desk and I thought, "I can reason and think of higher truths.

I got it all. The whole ball of wax."

I was gonna be an engineer, but I got involved in Zen.

Read the Alan Watts book, the yellow one.

There was a bully in eighth grade.

I started studying martial arts.

Bye-bye, bully.

I'm from a Christian family that let everybody do what they were supposed to do.

In life, we have to make choices.

I'm with Trump.

He's a good coach to get the job done.

Public schools are indoctrinating, not teaching critical thinking.

The new generation is being dumbed down.

The conservative movement is being realized.

I'm from the place where the whole human race is driven by passion.

We're all selfish.

The liberal generation always has a nipple in their mouth, a lollipop.

They don't get it, that they have total responsibility for their lives,

Social society on a national level, the world.

I'm from the future and it is hell.

Helena de Groot: What I'm wondering [is], when you're getting these poems from people who have a truth that they're eager to get out to you, and they have that sort of charging tone — how did you ever get beyond that? Like, did you ever get people to talk just about what worries them, what they're afraid of, what delights them? Anything that shows heart instead of . . .

Bob Holman: I think that charging tone is actually very unusual. Most of them, like I say … this was a macho guy who was out to really persuade, you know, to let us know. And to me, the poem does not make analytical sense. It's contradictory and just from line to line — which is what he wanted, you know. And I think there's a way in which poetry is a form where you can do that. You know, to me. And this extraordinary last line, "I'm from the future and it is hell" — where does that come from out of this poem? And yet to me, in this voice, that makes perfect sense for a guy who's looking, to me, down a paranoid telescope from the wrong end, and … But it's still so full of of this energy that it has to just burst out. Having a poem contain that, you know, that's pretty good. But a lot of the poems are from any part of this political spectrum, show an inner life that's worried, concerned, and wants to find a place to connect across the divide, that wants to participate in being, you know, one of all the voices. You know, how do we get over that fear? So they toss these words out about their own life. And to me, that's where it is. We all start in the same place. What were the events? What happened in those grade-school classes? He's trying to get at it here with this. The gym teacher with the heart of gold, you know.

Helena de Groot: Yeah, the gym teacher who teaches math.

Bob Holman: Right.

Helena de Groot: Which kind of already makes me feel a little sad for the state of education. And wherever he's from.

Bob Holman: There he is, thinking, critical thinking in the sixth grade, realizing that his thoughts rise above this. And the next thing you know, he's getting involved with Zen and following Alan Watts.

Helena de Groot: And then from Alan Watts somehow to Trump.

Steve Zeitlin: I mean, to give you another example — you know, we obviously ,in our liberal thinking, are as far away from creationism as you might imagine. But we interviewed one person who, when you hear him talk about it, you realize that where he is coming from. And he starts out:

"I am from Saint Paul's Episcopal mission, the little house of worship a mile down the road from my childhood home, made from rough lumber board and batten, painted white with a simple cross above the altar. My mother was married in that church. When I came along with my four brothers, my family was too busy to attend. As a young boy, I would walk there myself. I would stand and kneel in the pews and be very comforted by the prayers. I felt very good about myself in the pews, very grown up. Later, in 11th grade, I was disturbed that biology was suggesting that the Bible was not really true. I went along with that, but it made me uncomfortable. In college, I would wander through the library shelves and look for books that had not been assigned by my liberal teachers.

I began to look for holes in the theory of evolution, and I learned there was evidence of intelligent design in the universe. It seems to me that there was a time not long ago when there was nothing, and then there was everything. Some say that was 6,000 years ago, some say it was 10,000. Either way, it's a lot less than 13 billion. I'm a maverick. Liberal thinkers think I'm crazy. My wife thinks I'm gullible. And maybe I am, I admit. But scriptures indicate a recent creation and a God-inspired creation gives the world meaning to me. If you think the cosmos is just a series of accidents, what ultimate meaning does it have? Creationism paints a more beautiful and encouraging picture."

So, it just, you know . . . When you read that, you realize, "OK, I disagree with everything, but I understand where this person is coming from." And I feel like that's the point. And in some ways, that the point of the project is to make people a little uncomfortable thinking, yes, there's people that can say very beautiful things that I don't agree with, but said on a more elevated plane, and not as an argument. You know, it's an area where we can relate to it, and maybe understand each other a little better.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. What I love so much in this poem is when he says, you know, "My wife says I'm gullible and maybe she has a point." "Maybe I am." It's great, I didn't expect that at all. And it is kind of vulnerable, right? You just be like, "I mean, I might be really wrong here, but, you know, that's how I see it." Which seems like a layer that this macho guy maybe doesn't have.

Bob Holman: Exactly. When he's, you know, he's got the other energy. He's really trying to persuade.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Bob Holman: You know, just as conservative, I'm sure. But this voice, this conservative voice, is about the interior and about spirituality. So, again, it's the details of the life. It's sitting down in the pews like this guy was doing . . .

Helena de Groot: And then feeling like a grown up, which I thought was kind of beautiful, you know?

Bob Holman: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: I never really thought about that aspect of it, but it must be nice [to be] in your Sunday best, and you have maybe a suit of some type. And, you know when you're a kid, I can imagine that you were like . . .

Steve Zeitlin: This is another one that we like that sort of speaks to the project as a whole.

Speaker: Do you wanna read it? Because I, you know, I wanna have both of your voices in here.

Steve Zeitlin:

This is from James Peña called "Goodwill."

I am from a Formica top dinette table

around which the family argued

the March on Washington,

extremism in the defense of liberty,

women's lib,

academic freedom,

Vietnam,

Stonewall.

I am from a Republican dinette table.

Father at the head,

brother on this side,

and dad. Grandfather asking for details.

Mother begging us to remember to eat,

where I learned to defend my portside

inclination among those I loved.

It was thrilling.

It was an education.

It was sweet.

We never ate dessert in anger.

That table, out of fashion now,

after my parents died,

it went to Goodwill, I think.

Helena de Groot: Wow, that ending. OK. But that ending, so you did that, then?

Steve Zeitlin: No, we didn't. This came in over the transom.

Helena de Groot: Wow.

Steve Zeitlin: Yeah. And also, you know, we are inviting people to send in poems and you know, they can be as liberal or as conservative or as you want, but really we're trying to make sure they're personal. So, you know, so it's not a diatribe, but it's where you're from, politically.

Helena de Groot: And how do you get them there, like, especially over the internet? Like how do you tell them so that they really hear you, that what you want is personal?

Steve Zeitlin: Because we've asked that they use the term "where I'm from" as the first line, and [that] they use it at least one other time in the poem. So that grounds it in this kind of wonderful prompt that gets it to be rooted in the details of where they're from.

Helena de Groot: It's so smart.

Steve Zeitlin: And also it immediately gives you empathy with where they're from. You know, the guy who said he starts out, "I was from stacking hay in the wagon," you know. And when you then hear what his politics are, you think, "Hey, this is the guy who was stacking hay in the wagon." There's, you know, there is something wonderful about him and the way he's thinking about it.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. I wanna talk about empathy. Because you've mentioned that word a few times, and it seems like the stated point of the project. But I often have a sense that empathy is something that only people on the left do, and that it just feels like we are always trying to understand, "And who are these Trump voters, and why are they suffering, and what makes them so angry?" And I feel like empathy often doesn't work the other way around. It's like people only realize that abortion rights are kind of important when they themselves need an abortion, you know. [They] only think that LGBTQIA people are allowed to live when they happen to have a kid that is a part of that community, and then not all the time, you know? So I'm just wondering . . . I know you said this project is kind of supposed to make you uncomfortable, but I feel very uncomfortable, actually, with this project. A part of me was like, "I don't think I wanna have more empathy than I already have for people who have none for us."

Bob Holman: Yeah, well, I think if you go into it thinking they have no empathy, then . . . You're not a good candidate for it.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. No, I couldn't do it for sure.

Bob Holman: And we certainly received that. "Why do you want to give voice to the, you know, to these people who are, you know, they're never gonna change." It's just idealism. You know, it's just a utopic idea, whether poetry can hold this much.

Steve Zeitlin: And whether we can raise it to the point where you can understand it, which is maybe a level above our daily, angry lives. But also, you know, you realize that people have empathy in all kinds of ways. I mean, a lot of the people we spoke to, very conservative ministers and stuff, they, you know, "We feed the hungry at our church," "We're giving alms to the poor," and 'We let anybody in our church," "You can be gay and you can still come into our church." But if you ask me about LGBTQ rights, "I'm totally against it." So empathy takes many forms, I mean, you know. There's a part of me that feels the way you do, and there's a part of me that sort of says, "Maybe there's a way of getting behind it." And to me, there's something beautiful, you know, utopic, and maybe worthwhile in trying to talk to people that you don't agree with, and trying to find common cause with them. And I think there's also the idea that when they see all these poems, maybe they'll change as well.

Bob Holman: Change is one thing. And just having a conversation is something else. And that's all I'm really hoping for out of this project. Is that just as the crew that we took down to Galax, Virginia, really had to open up to be able to talk to people — they had to open up to talk to us, too. And we found ways to communicate, and found poems that were communicating from the heart. And that's about, you know . . . If we can get that far over the great divide, you know, maybe there won't be an armed revolution if Trump loses again, you know. (LAUGHS)

Steve Zeitlin: I mean, we're in the utopian business of trying to see how poetry can save the world. You know, we're living at a moment now where we're dealing with this unbelievably horrific conflict in the Middle East. And, you know, Bob and I both, given our predilections for how poetry can save the world, we're realizing that we were at a point where almost anything that anybody said was generating an unbelievable amount of hate mail from the other side. Just, you know, an unbelievable amount of hatred and oftentimes not red and blue, you know, all kinds. Just a whole other set of divides. And the project that we've been evolving in was, you know, how can we do something positive. And we were working with a woman named Kathleen Mandeville, who's an Episcopal minister, and doing a call for laments, you know, just laments that expressed grief, because we find [that] it's a way of reaching people, you know. When things are so horrible in so many ways and so many different directions, the grief is all we have in common, you know. And maybe it's only our grief that can bring us together. And we use this beautiful line from a Persian poem, which is "Grief is a river that has no shore." And we're using it to kind of get people to send in laments. And Across the Great Divide would never work, we can't ask people to say where you're coming from in terms of Israel and Gaza. That's totally wrong. But calling for laments may be a way in which poetry elevates that in some fashion. And maybe it's a way of doing some good. And maybe if you reach beyond the level of everyday life to a level where you're poeticizing yourselves, and your quintessential selves, you know, maybe that's an area that we can share and find some common ground. And, you know, what else can we do? You know, what choice do we have, except to try to use whatever skills we have, which are not very practical. (LAUGHS) To make a better world. And, you know, yes, you're right. I'm as outraged in my liberal beliefs as you are. But somehow I feel like this is a worthwhile thing to do and a worthwhile project. And I'm happy to be thinking about this with Bob, because it's been a partnership in trying to figure out how we can use poetry to save the world. And so far, we are not having a lot of success. (LAUGHS)

Bob Holman: Well, you know, it did take us nine years to make the 15-minute film Khonsay. That, from the Boro Indian language, means to pick up something because it is scarce and rare and hold it dear, one definition of love. Because this is a poem that's in 50 different languages, and nine years of work resulted in — I thought we were working towards a 100-line poem, and Steve insisted that we stop it at nine. So we've only been into this one, four or five . . . I don't know where it's gonna go.

Helena de Groot: Right. Yeah. I like the idea of a lament, though. And I think it's very interesting that, for two utopian-ists such as yourselves, that for the tragedy that's on everyone's mind right now, between Israel and Palestine . . . It's interesting that for two utopian-ists as yourselves, that you're like, "No, a lament is the form." Can you tell me what has come out of that?

Bob Holman: Yeah. You know, the feelings are deep. And in a way, it's so sad that all you can do is lament. And that lament is a voice straight from you to the poem, you know. I don't pray, but I do poem. (LAUGHS) And that's where that's where you can go now. Yeah. And that's what we're talking to.

Steve Zeitlin: And a poem is a prayer in some fashion.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Steve Zeitlin: Just as a prayer is a poem.

Helena de Groot: Yeah. And it makes me think of it like that. I think this is from the United States of Poetry, that one of the people you talked to was Naomi Shihab Nye.

Steve Zeitlin: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Right? Fabulous Palestinian-American poet. And that, you know, the PBS series is from 1996. And you're like, "Wow, that was, you know, already there." She's talking about, like looking at the news and how terrible it is and like how, you know, great the pain.

Naomi Shihab Nye:

Today the headlines clot in my blood.

A little Palestinian dangles a truck on the front page. 

Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root 

is too big for us. What flag can we wave?

I wave the flag of stone and seed,

table mat stitched in blue.

I call my father, we talk around the news. 

It is too much for him,

neither of his two languages can reach it.

I drive into the country to find sheep, cows, 

to plead with the air:

Who calls anyone civilized?

Where can the crying heart graze?

Helena de Groot: Yeah. I'm just wondering, like, how do you renew your love for poetry in the world as it is today? How do you keep renewing it for yourself? Have you ever lost your way from poetry? Have you ever had to find it again?

Steve Zeitlin: Well, I mean, one of the lines that I've from one of my poems is, you know, "Writing is the healing hand of God." You know, and for me, writing is the most healing thing for me that I can do, you know. A And I feel like this idea of getting people to write poems, is not the idea that we're gonna so much create great poems, but to me, it's a way that people express their distinctiveness in a world that's constantly merging them together, and they express their peace in their poems and their truth in their poems and their individuality. And I feel like when you write poems, you're etching those words into eternity. I feel like even if the world ends, those poems continue to exist out in the ether somewhere. I can read you one of the laments, that we were touched by, and it helped . . . City Lore is partnering on the project with a woman named Kathleen Mandeville, the minister who put out a call for poems, and a writer named Elizabeth Cunningham sent in this lament, and she called it "Lament: An Attempt."

You whose name is known and unknown,

where are you, why have you left us here at the mercy

and mercilessness of one another?

You whose name we claim to know we have forgotten.

We are one,

we are the other.

You are with us across all closed borders.

You are the one we call ally, enemy.

You are the one dying in our arms.

You are the one holding our brokenness.

You whose name we cry out in every tongue break us open,

not apart, quiet our clamor.

Do not leave our hearts forsaken,

heart of our hearts.

You know, it's beautiful and it's sort of expressing the just immense tragedy of it beyond, you know, who's right and who's wrong.

Helena de Groot: Yeah.

Bob Holman: Yeah.

(BREAK)

Helena de Groot: I'm really moved by both of you, you know, the fact that you just keeping on trying, you know.

Bob Holman: Well, I'll tell you one thing is that after 30 years, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Slam has moved over now into the Bowery Poetry Club, when it was looking like the club — and it still might close, you know, at some point here — but now this thing that I started over there has come back into . . . and I was there last night. And let me tell you, the poems weren't that good. No, I can't say it. No, but the energy in the room, my gosh, it was really unbelievable. But I think that will do it. To go to a poetry reading of youth now, wherever that is. So try that out. You know? Although these days. a younger poet could be somebody who's seven years old (LAUGHS) You know, [when] I was coming up, with the Yale Younger Poets series, you had to be under 40. Now Amanda Gorman is talking at the inauguration! 22, you know? I love that. Yeah. I love these changes, you know, and the way the many voices, the "carols," as Walt Whitman said, are being heard.

Steve Zeitlin: One of the most fun things about The Great Divide was that we interviewed a number of kids about their views of politics.

Helena de Groot: Oh wow. I wanna hear that.

Steve Zeitlin: I sent you that one. I don't know which of them.

Helena de Groot: Yeah . . . Mia. Yeah.

Steve Zeitlin: But there's actually some other ones too. Let me see. Yeah. OK, so here's this . . . This one is from "Anonymous Alligator," age ten. It's called "The Smaller the Frog."

"I am from music and frogs. I am from my fiddle and my cat Luna. When I was five, we were in the kitchen and my brother was playing guitar. I said, I wanna play the fiddle. I wanna have fun too."

This was collected at the Galax Fiddler's Convention from this ten-year-old girl.

"I come from camping on the rug with a cardboard box for a truck. We pack our things and then unload them. This blanket is my tent. This ball is my food. When we get bored, we say we're astronauts now. We get into the winter clothes box and blast into space. Someone always gets lost in space and we always find them. I wish people would be more mindful. People don't think enough and usually it comes back to bite them later. I wish people would realize they need to treat others as they want to be treated. A bunch of people forget that adults think politics is more than it really is. I like frogs. The smaller the frog is, the more I like it."

(LAUGHTER) Now there you go.

Helena de Groot: Oh, my God, this is so life-giving.

Steve Zeitlin: Yeah.

Helena de Groot: I love that. Oh, God. Can we just have a ten-year-old be president? Can we just do that.

Steve Zeitlin: That's a good idea.

Helena de Groot: Wow. Thank you so much. I mean, I'm so glad I got to talk to you about this and that we got to make it complicated, you know. I'm sorry I cried.

Steve Zeitlin: You're perfect.

Bob Holman: Oh, yeah. You're a perfect audience. That's what we want your listeners to do.

Helena de Groot: (LAUGHS) Yeah.

Helena de Groot: Steve Zeitlin and Bob Holman are the poets behind the ongoing project titled All the Voices: Across the Great Divide. You can send your own "Where I'm From" poem or "Lament" to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Steve and Bob would be delighted to read them. Steve Zeitlin is the founder and director of the New York-based folklore organization City Lore. He co-authored award-winning books on America's folk culture, including City Play, Because God Loves Stories, Giving a Voice to Sorrow, and Hidden New York. And he collected The Poetry of Everyday Life and JEWels. Steve Zeitlin is the recipient of a Benjamin Botkin Award from the American Folklore Society for Lifetime Achievement in Public Folklore, and an Archie Green Fellowship from the Library of Congress.

Bob Holman is a spoken word poet and activist, and founder of the Bowery Poetry Club and Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Holman produced the PBS series The United States of Poetry and wrote numerous collections of poetry, including Picasso in Barcelona and The Collect Call of the Wild. He co-edited Crossing State Lines, The United States of Poetry, and Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Holman's honors include the Elizabeth Cray Poetry Award from Poets House, the New York Public Library, Minerva Award, a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Legend Award. Speaking of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, they have a Slam poetry night each Monday at 7pm. That's at the New York-based Bowery Poetry Club, and I'm sure Bob would be thrilled to have you. To find out more on Bob Holman or Steve Zeitlin, check out the Poetry Foundation website. The music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. I'm Helena De Groot, and this was Poetry Off the Shelf. Thank you for listening.