Dissident Poems for a Dissonant New Year

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Years may be an artificial construct, but solstices are real enough. The idea of a new year must have come from a simple observation, although one that must have taken many years for our ancestors to confirm: that at the coldest of seasons, when the world seems doomed to ever-increasing darkness, it begins to be born again. Slowly, and imperceptibly at first, but it begins.

I’ll turn the mic over now to some poets I admire. As I was pulling these New Year’s poems together, I realized that many of my go-to poets – the contemporary ones, at least – are also political dissidents and rebels. That can’t be an accident. It’s not that I chose them on that basis. Some of the writers, painters, and musicians I most admire aren’t activists at all. Some have very different politics than mine.

Maybe dissonance – the recognition that the world we’ve made is out of tune – leads to dissidence.

W. S. Merwin was an opponent of the Vietnam War who was a Buddhist in his personal life and appeared to largely renounce consumer culture. That, to me, makes him a political and cultural dissident. True, he eventually became Poet Laureate of the United States, which is as establishment as a poet can get. But I suppose that goes to show that he, like all of us, contained multitudes.

“To the New Year” addresses itself to the rebirth of light and, at least for me, ends with the rebirth of hope:

our hopes such as they are

invisible before us

untouched and still possible

After spending his youth as a member of the Red Guards, China’s Bei Dao turned against authoritarianism and became part of the Tiananmen movement. For that, and for co-founding an influential avant-garde journal, he was exiled from his home country for years, (He has since returned.) Bei Dao’s “New Year,” for me, affirms the possibility in every moment, even as we attempt the impossible.

“Avant-garde” was not just a style for Bei Dao, any more than it was for Vaclav Havel or some of the great Russian writers and artists of the 20th century. There were no professorships or gallery sales in their futures. Often, their dedication was repaid with exile, prison, or death.

That’s the thing about people who are truly devoted to their work: they’re willing to pay any price to pursue it. I once asked Chris Hedges why so many people like this person seem so serene, even as they confront their own potential death. He thought for a moment and then said, “Because they’ve chosen.”

Meaning, I believe, that they’ve chosen their ideals over everything else in life. The anxiety of indecision has disappeared. What will come, will come. At that moment, hopefully, W. S. Merwin’s best-known poem may make even more sense than it already does. “Thanks” offers gratitude in a world that, like the world just before the solstice, seems to be darkening without end.

Why would anybody do that? Why would we say things like this, in words that seem so apt for this death-filled moment?

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

What is there to be grateful for, after a year in which we helped bomb Yemen, spent vast amounts of money on war, and beat our own protestors in the streets of our cities?

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

Why say something like this when we live under the rule of oligarchs and the corrupt?

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

Who can be grateful for living on a planet our species is intent on killing? Why say thank you for anything at a time when, as Merwin concludes, the world is as dark as it is? For me, the answer is simple. Because each new year reminds of us of the winter solstice. Because each moment offers a possibility that is infinite: a solstice of the spirit, leading to a renewal of community for all and purpose for each.

We can make that happen in 2021. All we need to do is choose. May we all choose wisely, and completely, in the year that has arrived.

Happy New Year,

Richard

Picture credit: Eric Jones / Winter solstice dawn over Llanrug (via Creative Commons)