Christal
Rice Cooper
*Article 2,035 Words
W/Excerpts
*All Poetry excerpts are
given copyright permission by Larry Jaffe
Larry Jaffe: A Poet At War
Liberating Each Victim As Each Page Is Read
“There is this perfectly beautiful document
created in 1948, which stated the 30 human rights that every being on this
planet is entitled to.
This was the integrity of man and I decided that I was going
to go "to war" to protect them. This is the war I choose to fight.”
--Larry Jaffe
Human
Rights Poet Larry Jaffe, 67, had his first experience with poetry by reading
Chaucer, which he described as so terrible that he stayed away from poetry
until he was in college, dating his girlfriend at the time, Joyce.
“Joyce at the time was a great literary influence. I don’t think she realized then or knows how
much she changed my life. Up to that
point poetry was beyond my comprehension, I hated it. But I heard the muse and she was calling my
name. For some reason the brevity of
words and expanse of concept just hit the right note for me. I liked the entire concept and started
thinking in 17 syllable bursts. I loved
writing haiku. For someone as undisciplined as I was, haiku was revelation. To this day I feel and hear poetry with my
fingers. It’s the rhythm I guess!”
Larry dropped out of college and, in
1970, worked for the underground press and antiestablishment rock magazine Zygote,
published by Len Sutton, and located in a subletting office owned by friend and
mentor Pete Hunter.
It
was at Zygote that he learned the tricks of the trade of all aspects
of writing: ads, writing, circulation,
and layout.
“We were writing with our
hearts. There was a feeling of euphoria mixed with invincibility. Then we were
drugged. Somehow, that feeling of the Woodstock Generation pervaded for a
while, but truly we were drugged back into yesteryear just to relive our
dreams. We lived on the largesse of the
record companies, lunches and then PR conferences for dinner. And I still wrote
poetry.”
In
fact, the highlight of his job was not attending the press conferences,
interviewing musicians or writing about music at his office, but writing poetry,
which he did while on the subway.
“I remember riding the subway after attending
a press conference. At the press
conference they would give us a couple of albums in big manila envelopes. By the time I would get back to the Zygote offices, poetry was scrawled all
over the envelope.”
He
moved to the west coast to San Diego and L.A. where he worked for a variety of
alternative magazines, getting married in the process and having children. He still wrote poetry but knew that it was
not a career path he could pursue until his children were grown.
“Taking care of my kids was the
most important thing and writing poetry wasn’t.”
In
the 1990s his kids were adults and on their own, and he took his poetry writing
to the next level by joining poetry groups, attending and giving poetry
readings, and sending his poems out for publication.
“Basho taught me to write with
simplicity. Leonard Cohen taught me to write with my heart. Langston Hughes
taught me to stand up for what I care about.
Life as a poet is not so easy I’m afraid. I mean you don’t jump into it
to be a millionaire I suppose but I still have aspirations.”
Soon
after his switch from journalism to poetry, Larry noticed most of the monuments
he saw were not dedicated to peace, but to war.
This led him on his first step toward human rights activism, to dedicate
his poetry career to promote peace, and to create Poets4Peace (no longer in existence).
“There are times when
you have to fight for what is right. I
do not believe you can just turn your cheek when something needs to be
done. So underneath the concept of war
and peace is this thing called human rights and dignity and when you violate
that, you are violating the Holy Grail so to speak. If human rights were
totally in, we would not be discussing war and peace. This is the bottom-line to life on this
planet.”
War Zone
The
Statue of Liberty wears a
dress
of tattered barbed war
her
wounds are dressed
with
plastic explosives.
if
they can not have liberty
no
one can.
--It
is very difficult to love your enemy
and
simultaneously prepare for war.
Does
precious balance teeter
when
3000 lives die on each side?
Is
there a minimum death quota
by
which we all feel avenged?
I
don’t know which hurts more
the
dissolution of the illusion of peace
or
the pretense of being a pacifist.
Excerpt
from One
Child Sold: Human Trafficking and Rights
Page
61
One of Larry’s greatest lifetime
experiences occurred in the year 2000, when he worked with Rattapallax
Publisher Ram Devineni (http://www.rattapallax.com) in
the coordination of international readings for the UNESCO (United Nations
Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) Dialogue among Civilizations
through Poetry Project.
“We put together some 200
poetry readings in over 150 cities worldwide. I don’t think I slept for days as
I was coordinating the readings in Europe, Asia and North America. But what a
rush as the reading coordinators started checking in with me and letting me
know how their readings went. One communication in particular just made my day
and it was from Belgrade. One of the things we “preached” in the readings was
how uplifting and healing poetry can be. My new friend Igor, wrote to me saying
“You are right. This stuff really heals!”
In
September of 2001 he was the Poet in Residence at the Autry Museum of Western
Heritage now known as the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, California.
“Each month we aligned our readings with what
was going on in the museum, i.e. special exhibits. I was at the Autry during 9/11 and we had a
special reading dedicated to the first responders. Several Los Angeles firemen
gallantly read Auden’s poem September 1, 1939 which had become the anthem for
these most solemn of days.”
In
May of 2006, he was invited to the Czech Republic to do month long readings
throughout the area. While there, he
visited Theresienstadt (Terezin) Concentration Camp, where 97,000 Czech Jews,
including 15,000 children, were murdered.
Only 132 children came out alive from that camp.
“I had seen quite a bit in my
lifetime, being that was a bit too much. I can still feel it in my fingers and
in my soul. It hit me hard.”
This experience led him to write the first
poems of his poetry collection One Child Sold: Human Trafficking and Rights.
He
wrote
“The Children of Terezin” with
the famous quote by T.W. Adorno vibrating in his mind: “There can be no poetry after Auschwitz.”
The Children of Terezin
When I
visited Camp Terezin
the
children called to me
they
left ethereal homes
dropped
blankets
and
held out their tiny hands
for me
to lift them up
and
hold them close.
I
hugged every one of them
as they
told me
of
Terezin and how
their
fairy-tales kept them
alive
until story time was over.
I
hugged every one of them
as they
told me how
they
painted pictures
with
their fingers
dipped
in their mothers’ blood.
I
hugged every one of them
as they
sang songs
and
told me nursery rhymes
I
hugged every one of them
as they
told me about
the
playground of graves
how
they hopscotch
over
tombstones
and
ring around a rosey
was
truth
ashes ashes
all fall down
only
when they fell down
they
never got up.
I
hugged everyone one of them
even
the lost soul
who
crossed himself
like a
gentile
when he
cried.
I
hugged every one of them
because
the children of Terezin
no
longer wait for their mothers
to call
them home
Today
they have been set free
Excerpt
from One
Child Sold Human Trafficking and Rights
Page
43-44
“Terezin, despite its horror,
was very liberating for me. I could see and feel the inhumanity and oppression.
I could hear the children singing. I will never forget this and even as I
answer your question, the emotion surges through me. I wanted to free the
memories, unburden the ghosts and thus those poems had to be there.”
In 2006, he met his mentor Mary Shuttleworth who
leads
the Youth For Human
Rights.
“She is a great
motivator and she fully introduced me to how, by teaching children and everyone
these (30) human rights, mankind would be freer.”
Later
that same year, he met his other mentor Dottie Laster founder of Laster Global
Consulting. Laster is one of the very
few professionals trained by the Department of Justice to train law enforcement
and others on the issues of Human Trafficking.
“I had no emphasis on sex trafficking until I
met Dottie and decided to support her. She has
inspired me too fight for human rights and to fight trafficking.”
Human Rights Begin
Where,
after all, do Universal Rights begin? In
small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on
any maps of the world. Yet they are the
world of the individual person; farm or officer where he works. Such are the places where every mean, woman,
and child seeks justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without
discrimination. Unless these rights have
meaning here; they have little meaning anywhere.
Mrs.
Eleanor Roosevelt.
Human rights begin
with your heart
miraculously
transforming
hate to love.
They begin
with your mind
inexplicably converting
fear to courage.
Human rights begin
with your fingers
astonishingly turning
violence into caresses.
They begin
with your family
evolving
ignorance into
intelligence
They begin
in your neighborhood
ultimately challenging
prejudice with
tolerance.
Human rights begin
wherever you are.
Excerpt from One
Child Sold: Human Trafficking and Rights
Page 17
In 2007, Jaffe was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at
the 2007 Saint Hill International Art Festival for his contributions in
fighting human sex trafficking and preserving human rights for all.
Former Executive Producer Sheila Gaiman
presented the award: “Each year an artist is chosen who uses
their art to help their town, country, or the world. Larry is the first artist selected to be
working for the safety of the entire planet and we very much want to encourage
this and are very proud of his work.”
Three years later, on
February 22, 2010, One Child Sold: Human Trafficking and Rights was published by
Salmon Press.
Most
of the poems of One Child Sold are dedicated to the horrors of human sex trafficking
with the number one goal to liberate each victim as each poem is read.
The
cover was designed by designer Gracia Bennish, who shared Jaffe’s number one
goal: “We wanted a picture that would
create much emotional impact. I think she accomplished that.”
Wearing Tragedy
Her face is painted the
color of heartbreak.
She wears the tragedy of
mothers of dead children.
She dresses in the color
of mothers of the lost.
Milk spills from her
full breasts.
She is
nondenominational.
Excerpt from One
Child Sold: Human Trafficking and Rights
Page 36
Since then Larry’s poetry on human rights has been published
by numerous magazines, including Quill & Parchment, which
featured Larry Jaffe as their featured poet for the February 2015 issue. Surprisingly, Jaffe did not write poems on
sex trafficking and its victims, but on love.
“How can I write about human
rights without writing about love? Loving humanity is of utmost importance,
despite the foibles, the evils, etc. Man is basically good. You have to see
past all that stuff and see the soul, the spirit, the being. Then all you can
have is love.”
Jaffe
and his wife Shelley have a blended family: son Devon and daughter-in-law
Heather; two daughters, Amber and Willow; two stepdaughters Amanda and Megan; and
three grandsons Rocky, Giovanni, and Nicco.
They
split their time between his home state of New York and Clearwater, Florida
where the couple share their own studio at the Clearwater Center For The Arts.
www.CWCenterForTheArts.org 
Photograph
Description And Copyright Info
Photo
1, 2, 4,
Larry
Jaffe
Copyright
granted by Larry Jaffe
Photo
3
Chaucer
1300s
Public
Domain
Photo
5
1970
jacket cover of the magazine Zygote.
Fair
Use Under the United States Copyright Law
Photo
6
Passengers
aboard the NYC Subway on Lexington Avenue on December 2, 1970.
Attributed
to Environmental Protection Agency.
Public
Domain
Photo
8
Larry
holding his daughter Amber
Copyright
granted by Larry Jaffe
Photo
9
Statue
of Basho
Public
Domain
Photo
10
Leonard
Cohen in Geneva
2008
CC
by SA 2.0
Photo
11
Langston
Hughes in 1936
Attributed
to Carl Van Vechten
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Domain
Photo
12
Poets4Peace
web logo
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Photo
13
Human
rights web logo
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14
Ram
Devineni
Web
photo
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15
UNESCO
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16
Joyce
Carol Oats participating in the UNESCO Dialogue Among Civilizations through
Poetry Project readings.
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17
Yusef
Komunyakaa participating in the UNESCO Dialogue Among Civilizations through
Poetry Project readings.
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Photo
18
Web
logo for the Autry National Center
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19
W.H.
Auden in 1939
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20
Larry
Jaffe giving a poetry reading in the Czech Republic in May of 2006
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granted by Larry Jaffe
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21
The
Terezin Concentration Camp
Attributed
to Larry Jaffe
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granted by Larry Jaffe
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22
T.W.
Adorno
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Domain
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23
Memorial
to 115,000 lives lost at the Terezin Concentration Camp
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Domain
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24
The
Terezin Concentration Camp
Attributed
to Larry Jaffe
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granted by Larry Jaffe
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25
Web
logo for Youth for Human Rights International
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Web
photograph of Mary Shuttleworth
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logo for Laster Global Consulting
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Web
photo Dottie Laster
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Eleanor
Roosevelt speaking before the United Nations
July
of 1947
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Domain
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Saint
Hill International Art Festival web logo
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Photo
31
Larry
Jaffe’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Attributed
to Larry Jaffe
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granted by Larry Jaffe
Photo
32.
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photo of Sheila Gaiman
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Photo
33.
Web
logo for Salmon Poetry
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34.
Jacket
cover of Child Sold: Human Trafficking
And Rights.
Attributed
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Web
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Web
photo of Gracia Bennish
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Web
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Shelley
and Larry Jaffe
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Larry’s
son Devon, Larry’s father, and Larry
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Amber
Jaffe
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Willow
Jaffe
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