Sam Hamill: Poetry, Politics, and Zen

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Sam Hamill knows!

Vox Populi's avatarVox Populi

If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward April, then we would know.

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Nothing will change until we demolish the “we-they” mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal.

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The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we want something done about it.

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Poetry transcends the nation-state. Poetry transcends government. It brings the traditional concept of power to its knees. I have always believed poetry to be an eternal conversation in which the ancient poets remain contemporary, a conversation inviting us into other languages and cultures even as poetry transcends language and culture, returning us again and again to primal rhythms and sounds.

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My ethics, my sense of morality…

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12 thoughts on “Sam Hamill: Poetry, Politics, and Zen”

  4. “The most important element of any poem is the part that is left unsaid. So the poetry frames the experience that lies beyond naming.” This reminds me of the empty hub of the many spoked wheel and the emptiness of the cooking pot of the Tao Te Ching. The empty, or no-thing, is the most useful part of the thing. Thank you for sharing.

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  5. “Us and them
    And after all we’re only ordinary men
    Me and you
    God only knows
    It’s not what we would choose to do
    Forward he cried from the rear
    And the front rank died
    And the general sat
    And the lines on the map
    Moved from side to side…”

    — Pink Floyd

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