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***Ralph Culver’s “Threnody by the President for Victims of COVID-19, Beginning with a Line from Milosz” is #191 in the never-ending series called BACKSTORY OF THE POEM where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific poem and how the poet wrote that specific poem. All BACKSTORY OF THE POEM links are at the end of this piece.
Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? For some time now I’ve belonged to a writing group where, on a month-to-month basis, you make a commitment to write something daily and share it with the group. Your contribution doesn’t have to be lengthy or polished, but you’re expected to submit at the very least a few words every day.
On March 14, 2019, I was stuck—nothing was coming into my head to write about. When that happens, I will often turn to the words of others for inspiration and motivation. That day I grabbed off the shelf one of my anthologies of Eastern European poetry and started paging around, and came upon a favorite poem of mine: Czeslaw Milosz’s superb “Dedication,” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49458/dedication-56d22b9082a83) which he composed in Warsaw in 1945, as Stephen O’Connor (http://www.stephenoconnor.net/) wrote in an essay on Milosz, “after more than six years of Nazi occupation, after the bloody suppression of the Warsaw uprising, the subsequent deportation of the city’s more than one million inhabitants, the destruction of all its remaining buildings, and its liberation by the Soviet army….”
The poem begins with the line “You whom I could not save,” and much of the poem’s impact derives from the fact that Milosz, who suffered in helplessness as a witness to these events, makes a powerful affirmation of the requirement of the poet-of-witness to sing what they have seen. The poem continues: “What is poetry which does not save / Nations or people? / A connivance with official lies, / A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment, / Readings for sophomore girls.”
As I reread “Dedication” that day I was struck by my own ineffectiveness as a poetic witness to the events of the day, especially the perversion of government that had begun with Donald Trump’s inauguration and that had gathered momentum and force during his administration; I stole the first line of Milosz’s poem and wrote down twenty lines, essentially, of an apologia for my own failure of courage to do what Milosz had said was required of a poet. I titled it “Poem Beginning with a Line from Milosz.” I revised the poem several times over the next few days, expanding it into three stanzas by March 18, 2019 and giving it a shape very close to the current version, but I wasn’t happy with it—the poem in fact seemed somehow ineffectual in precisely the way I didn’t want it to be, like a self-accusation of my own failure to accomplish what I’d set out to do. Frustrated, I grumpily put the poem aside.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? Part three of the poem, because it was there that I understood Trump would show no repentance for his narcissistic mercilessness. He really has willfully and, in some respects, gladly and casually accepted his own damnation.
Published online at “The New Verse News” on Sunday, May 17, 2020.
“Threnody by the President for Victims of COVID-19, Beginning with a Line from Milosz”
1
You whom I could not save,
can we make our peace?
There were so many of you.
And one body
after all
is very like another.
One life is like another,
in spite of
what you want to believe.
The dead in any language
are still the dead.
It’s clear that I was confused,
lost in the cool, deep grave of my skull
as the heat of the day
made corpses in the street
sit up and roll away from the sun.
Addled and jaded, peremptory,
determined to dissociate
your fate from my own—
that was my first test
and my first failing.
2
You whom I did not save,
can you forgive me?
Of course, if it were up to you,
I have convinced myself
you would have made
the same choice.
It occurs to me,
not for the first time,
that our days here
are spent entangled in fables,
making our excuses, one
after another—
that I have become
so proficient,
so adept,
at evading the truth
that I would pronounce myself blameless
for every death,
including my own.
3
You who would not be saved,
that army of one who bears my name,
I give you thanks
for ignoring the pleas of the others
and accepting
your own damnation
in exchange for what now passes for my life.
His most recent collection, "So Be It" (WolfGang Press), was published in 2018. His first full-length collection of poems, "A Passible Man," is forthcoming from MadHat Press in the spring of 2020. Culver is a popular lecturer and reader of his work, and has given many poetry readings in public spaces over the years. He is owner and principal of Letter-perfect Writing and Editorial Services, working with commercial businesses and nonprofits throughout North America on their writing needs.
BACKSTORY OF THE POEM LINKS
001 December 29, 2017
Margo Berdeshevksy’s “12-24”
002 January 08, 2018
Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “82 Miles From the Beach, We Order The Lobster At Clear Lake Café”
003 January 12, 2018
Barbara Crooker’s “Orange”
004 January 22, 2018
Sonia Saikaley’s “Modern Matsushima”
005 January 29, 2018
Ellen Foos’s “Side Yard”
006 February 03, 2018
Susan Sundwall’s “The Ringmaster”
007 February 09, 2018
Leslea Newman’s “That Night”
008 February 17, 2018
Alexis Rhone Fancher “June Fairchild Isn’t Dead”
009 February 24, 2018
Charles Clifford Brooks III “The Gift of the Year With Granny”
010 March 03, 2018
Scott Thomas Outlar’s “The Natural Reflection of Your Palms”
011 March 10, 2018
Anya Francesca Jenkins’s “After Diane Beatty’s Photograph “History Abandoned”
012 March 17, 2018
Angela Narciso Torres’s “What I Learned This Week”
013 March 24, 2018
Jan Steckel’s “Holiday On ICE”
014 March 31, 2018
Ibrahim Honjo’s “Colors”
015 April 14, 2018
Marilyn Kallett’s “Ode to Disappointment”
016 April 27, 2018
Beth Copeland’s “Reliquary”
017 May 12, 2018
Marlon L Fick’s “The Swallows of Barcelona”
018 May 25, 2018
Juliet Cook’s “ARTERIAL DISCOMBOBULATION”
019 June 09, 2018
Alexis Rhone Fancher’s “Stiletto Killer. . . A Surmise”
020 June 16, 2018
Charles Rammelkamp’s “At Last I Can Start Suffering”
021 July 05, 2018
Marla Shaw O’Neill’s “Wind Chimes”
022 July 13, 2018
Julia Gordon-Bramer’s “Studying Ariel”
023 July 20, 2018
Bill Yarrow’s “Jesus Zombie”
024 July 27, 2018
Telaina Eriksen’s “Brag 2016”
025 August 01, 2018
Seth Berg’s “It is only Yourself that Bends – so Wake up!”
026 August 07, 2018
David Herrle’s “Devil In the Details”
027 August 13, 2018
Gloria Mindock’s “Carmen Polo, Lady Necklaces, 2017”
028 August 21, 2018
Connie Post’s “Two Deaths”
029 August 30, 2018
Mary Harwell Sayler’s “Faces in a Crowd”
030 September 16, 2018
Larry Jaffe’s “The Risking Point”
031 September 24, 2018
Mark Lee Webb’s “After We Drove”
032 October 04, 2018
Melissa Studdard’s “Astral”
033 October 13, 2018
Robert Craven’s “I Have A Bass Guitar Called Vanessa”
034 October 17, 2018
David Sullivan’s “Paper Mache Peaches of Heaven”
035 October 23, 2018
Timothy Gager’s “Sobriety”
036 October 30, 2018
Gary Glauber’s “The Second Breakfast”
037 November 04, 2018
Heather Forbes-McKeon’s “Melania’s Deaf Tone Jacket”
038 November 11, 2018
Andrena Zawinski’s “Women of the Fields”
039 November 00, 2018
Gordon Hilger’s “Poe”
040 November 16, 2018
Rita Quillen’s “My Children Question Me About Poetry” and “Deathbed Dreams”
041 November 20, 2018
Jonathan Kevin Rice’s “Dog Sitting”
042 November 22, 2018
Haroldo Barbosa Filho’s “Mountain”
043 November 27, 2018
Megan Merchant’s “Grief Flowers”
044 November 30, 2018
Jonathan P Taylor’s “This poem is too neat”
045 December 03, 2018
Ian Haight’s “Sungmyo for our Dead Father-in-Law”
046 December 06, 2018
Nancy Dafoe’s “Poem in the Throat”
047 December 11, 2018
Jeffrey Pearson’s “Memorial Day”
048 December 14, 2018
Frank Paino’s “Laika”
049 December 15, 2018
Jennifer Martelli’s “Anniversary”
O50 December 19, 2018
Joseph Ross’s “For Gilberto Ramos, 15, Who Died in the Texas Desert, June 2014”
051 December 23, 2018
“The Persistence of Music”
by Anatoly Molotkov
052 December 27, 2018
“Under Surveillance”
by Michael Farry
053 December 28, 2018
“Grand Finale”
by Renuka Raghavan
054 December 29, 2018
“Aftermath”
by Gene Barry
055 January 2, 2019
“&”
by Larissa Shmailo
056 January 7, 2019
“The Seamstress:
by Len Kuntz
057 January 10, 2019
"Natural History"
by Camille T Dungy
058 January 11, 2019
“BLOCKADE”
by Brian Burmeister
059 January 12, 2019
“Lost”
by Clint Margrave
060 January 14, 2019
“Menopause”
by Pat Durmon
061 January 19, 2019
“Neptune’s Choir”
by Linda Imbler
062 January 22, 2019
“Views From the Driveway”
by Amy Barone
063 January 25, 2019
“The heron leaves her haunts in the marsh”
by Gail Wronsky
064 January 30, 2019
“Shiprock”
by Terry Lucas
065 February 02, 2019
“Summer 1970, The University of Virginia Opens to Women in the Fall”
by Alarie Tennille
066 February 05, 2019
“At School They Learn Nouns”
by Patrick Bizzaro
067 February 06, 2019
“I Must Not Breathe”
by Angela Jackson-Brown
068 February 11, 2019
“Lunch on City Island, Early June”
by Christine Potter
069 February 12, 2019
“Singing”
by Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum
070 February 14, 2019
“Daily Commute”
by Christopher P. Locke
071 February 18, 2019
“How Silent The Trees”
by Wyn Cooper
072 February 20, 2019
“A New Psalm of Montreal”
by Sheenagh Pugh
073 February 23, 2019
“Make Me A Butterfly”
by Amy Barbera
074 February 26, 2019
“Anthem”
by Sandy Coomer
075 March 4, 2019
“Shape of a Violin”
by Kelly Powell
076 March 5, 2019
“Inward Oracle”
by J.P. Dancing Bear
077 March 7, 2019
“I Broke My Bust Of Jesus”
by Susan Sundwall
078 March 9, 2019
“My Mother at 19”
by John Guzlowski
079 March 10, 2019
“Paddling”
by Chera Hammons Miller
080 March 12, 2019
“Of Water and Echo”
by Gillian Cummings
081 082 083 March 14, 2019
“Little Political Sense” “Crossing Kansas with Jim
Morrison” “The Land of Sky and Blue Waters”
by Dr. Lindsey Martin-Bowen
084 March 15, 2019
“A Tune To Remember”
by Anna Evans
085 March 19, 2019
“At the End of Time (Wish You Were Here)
by Jeannine Hall Gailey
086 March 20, 2019
“Garden of Gethsemane”
by Marletta Hemphill
087 March 21, 2019
“Letters From a War”
by Chelsea Dingman
088 March 26, 2019
“HAT”
by Bob Heman
089 March 27, 2019
“Clay for the Potter”
by Belinda Bourgeois
#090 March 30, 2019
“The Pose”
by John Hicks
#091 April 2, 2019
“Last Night at the Wursthaus”
by Doug Holder
#092 April 4, 2019
“Original Sin”
by Diane Lockward
#093 April 5, 2019
“A Father Calls to his child on liveleak”
by Stephen Byrne
#094 April 8, 2019
“XX”
by Marc Zegans
#095 April 12, 2019
“Landscape and Still Life”
by Marjorie Maddox
#096 April 16, 2019
“Strawberries Have Been Growing Here for Hundreds of
Years”
by Mary Ellen Lough
#097 April 17, 2019
“The New Science of Slippery Surfaces”
by Donna Spruijt-Metz
#098 April 19, 2019
“Tennessee Epithalamium”
by Alyse Knorr
#099 April 20, 2019
“Mermaid, 1969”
by Tameca L. Coleman
#100 April 21, 2019
“How Do You Know?”
by Stephanie
#101 April 23, 2019
“Rare Book and Reader”
by Ned Balbo
#102 April 26, 2019
“THUNDER”
by Jefferson Carter
#103 May 01, 2019
“The sight of a million angels”
by Jenneth Graser
#104 May 09, 2019
“How to tell my dog I’m dying”
by Richard Fox
#105 May 17, 2019
“Promises Had Been Made”
by Sarah Sarai
#106 June 01, 2019
“i sold your car today”
by Pamela Twining
#107 June 02, 2019
“Abandoned Stable”
by Nancy Susanna Breen
#108 June 05, 2019
“Cupcake”
by Julene Tripp Weaver
#109 June 6, 2019
“Bobby’s Story”
by Jimmy Pappas
#110 June 10, 2019
“When You Ask Me to Tell You About My Father”
by Pauletta Hansel
#111 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Cemetery Mailbox”
by Jennifer Horne
#112 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Relics”
by Kate Peper
#113 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Q”
by Jennifer Johnson
#114 Backstory of the Poem’s
“Brushing My Hair”
by Tammika Dorsey Jones
#115 Backstory of the Poem
“Because the Birds Will Survive, Too”
by Katherine Riegel
#116 Backstory of the Poem
“DIVORCE”
“DIVORCE”
by Joan Barasovska
#117 Backstory of the Poem
“NEW YEAR”S EVE 2016”
by Michael Meyerhofer
#118 Backstory of the Poem
“Dear the estranged,”
by Gina Tron
#119 Backstory of the Poem
“In Remembrance of Them”
by Janet Renee Cryer
#120 Backstory of the Poem
“Horse Fly Grade Card, Doesn’t Play Well With Others”
by David L. Harrison
#121 Backstory of the Poem
“My Mother’s Cookbook”
by Rachael Ikins
#122 Backstory of the Poem
“Cousins I Never Met”
by Maureen Kadish Sherbondy
#123 Backstory of the Poem
“To Those Who Were Our First Gods”
by Nickole Brown
#124 Backstory of the Poem
“Looking For Sunsets (In the Early Morning)”
“Looking For Sunsets (In the Early Morning)”
by Paul Levinson
#125 Backstory of the Poem
“Tracy”
by Tiff Holland
#126 Backstory of the Poem
“Legs”
by Cindy Hochman
“Legs”
by Cindy Hochman
#127 Backstory of the Poem
“Anathema”
“Anathema”
by Natasha Saje
#128 Backstory of the Poem
“How to Explain Fertility When an Acquaintance Asks Casually”
by Allison Blevins
#129 Backstory of the Poem
“The Art of Meditation In Tennessee”
by Linda Parsons
#130 Backstory of the Poem
“Schooling High, In Beslan”
by Satabdi Saha
#131 Backstory of the Poem
““Baby Jacob survives the Oso Landslide, 2014”
by Amie Zimmerman
#132 Backstory of the Poem
“Our Age of Anxiety”
by Henry Israeli
#133 Backstory of the Poem
“Earth Cries; Heaven Smiles”
by Ken Allan Dronsfield
#134 Backstory of the Poem
“Eons”
by Janine Canan
#135 Backstory of the Poem
“Sworn”
by Catherine Zickgraf
#136 Backstory of the Poem
“Bushwick Blue”
by Susana H. Case
#137 Backstory of the Poem
“Then She Was Forever”
by Paula Persoleo
#138 Backstory of the Poem
“Enough”
by Kris Bigalk
#139 Backstory of the Poem
“From Ghosts of the Upper Floor”
by Tony Trigilio
#140 Backstory of the Poem
“Cloud Audience”
by Wanita Zumbrunnen
#141 Backstory of the Poem
“Condition Center”
by Matthew Freeman
#142 Backstory of the Poem
“Adventuresome Woman”
by Cheryl Suchors
#143 Backstory of the Poem
“The Way Back”
“The Way Back”
by Robert Walicki
#144 Backstory of the Poem
“If I Had Three Lives”
by Sarah Russell
#145 Backstory of the Poem
“Reservoir”
by Andrea Rexilius
#146 Backstory of the Poem
“The Night Before Our Dog Died”
by Melissa Fite Johnson
#147 Backstory of the Poem
“Pileated”
by David Anthony Sam
#148 Backstory of the Poem
“A Kitchen Argument”
by Matthew Gwathmey
#149 Backstory of the Poem
“Insulation”
by Bruce Kauffman
#150 Backstory of the Poem
“I Will Tell You Where I’ve Been”
by Justin Hamm
#151 Backstory of the Poem
“Comfort”
by Michael A Griffith
#152 Backstory of the Poem
“VAN GOGH TO HIS MISTRESS”
by Margo Taft Stever
“VAN GOGH TO HIS MISTRESS”
by Margo Taft Stever
#153 Backstory of the Poem
“1. Girl”
by Margaret Manuel
#154 Backstory of the Poem
“Trading Places”
by Maria Chisolm
#155 Backstory of the Poem
“The Reoccurring Woman”
by Debra May
#156 Backstory of the Poem
“Word Falling”
by Sheryl St. Germain
#157 Backstory of the Poem
“Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup of 7,000 Jews Detained in an
Arena”
by Liz Marlow
#158 Backstory of the Poem
“Why Otters Hold Hands”
by William Walsh
#159 Backstory of the Poem
“The Invisible World”
by Rocco de Giacoma
#160 Backstory of the Poem
“Last Call”
“Last Call”
by Ralph Culver
#161 Backstory of the Poem
“ALIVE”
by David Dephy
#162 Backstory of the Poem
“Mare Nostrum”
“Mare Nostrum”
by Janice D Soderling
#163 Backstory of the Poem
“Winnipeg Noir”
by Carmelo Militano
#164 Backstory of the Poem
“Needlepoint Roses”
“Needlepoint Roses”
by Jason O’Toole
#165 Backstory of the Poem
“Singing, Studying on Whiteness, This Penelope Strings”
by Jeanne Larsen
#166 Backstory of the Poem
“How To Befriend Uncertainty”
“How To Befriend Uncertainty”
by Prartho Sereno
#167 Backstory of the Poem
“Shostakovich: Five Pieces”
“Shostakovich: Five Pieces”
by Pamela Uschuk
#168 Backstory of the Poem
“Bouquet for Amy Clampitt”
“Bouquet for Amy Clampitt”
by Peter Kline
#169 Backstory of the Poem
“Heartbroken”
“Heartbroken”
by Catherine Arra
#170 Backstory of the Poem
“Silence – a lost art”
by Megha Sood
#171 Backstory of the Poem/ May 09, 2020
“Horribly Dull”
by Mark DeCharmes
#172 Backstory of the Poem/ May 12, 2020
“Celebrating His Ninety-Second Birthday the Year his Wife Died”
by Michael Mark
#173 Backstory of the Poem/ May 14, 2020
“Night Clouds in the Black Hills”
by Cameron Morse
#174 Backstory of the Poem/ May 18, 2020
“I’ve Been In Heaven For Long”
by Evanesced Dethroned Angel
#175 Backstory of the Poem/ May 20, 2020
“Tutti-Frutti”
by Barbara Crooker
#176 and #177 Backstory of the Poem/ May 25, 2020
“My Small World” and
“My Mistake”
by Tina Barry
#178 Backstory of the Poem/ June 05, 2020
“Against Numbers”
by Andrea Potos
#179 Backstory of the Poem/ June 15, 2020
“Wish”
by Julie Weiss
#180 Backstory of the Poem/ June 20, 2020
“The Tree That Stood Beside Me”
by Carly My Loper
#181 Backstory of the Poem/ June 23, 2020
“Electric Mail”
by Julie E. Bloemeke
#182 Backstory of the Poem
June 24, 2020
“Her First Ten Days”
by Julieta Corpus
#183 Backstory of the Poem
June 26, 2020
“Outside My House Is A Guava Tree”
by Dr. Ampat Varghese Koshy
#184 Backstory of the Poem
July 2, 2020
“Torpor”
by Victor Enns
#185 Backstory of the Poem
July 5, 2020
“A Way of Life”
by Dan Provost
#186 Backstory of the Poem
July 6, 2020
“The Alabama Wiregrassers”
by Charles Ghigna
#186 Backstory of the Poem
July 6, 2020
“The Alabama Wiregrassers”
by Charles Ghigna
#187 Backstory of the Poem
July 7, 2020
“The Seer”
by Kathleen Winter
#188 Backstory of the Poem
July 11, 2020
“Stuck At Home”
by Valerie Frost
#189 Backstory of the Poem
July 13, 2020
“Between the Earth and Sky”
by Eleanor Kedney
#190 Backstory of the Poem
July 14, 2020
““ΜΕΡΕΣ ΥΠΟΜΟΝΗΣ/ Days
of patience”
by Eftichia Kapardell’
#191 Backstory of the Poem
July 15, 2020
“Threnody by the President for Victims of COVID-19, Beginning with a Line from Milosz”
by Ralph Culver
