poetry & peace (1)

The identified spirit, man and woman identified, move toward further identifications. In a time of long war, surrounded by the images of war, we imagine peace. Among the resistances, we imagine poetry. And what city makes the welcome, in what soil do these roots flourish?

For our concern is with sources.

The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness. If we look for the definitions of peace, we will find, in history, that they are very few. The treaties never define the peace they bargain for: their premise is only the lack of war. The languages sometimes offer a choice of words: in the choice is illumination. In one long-standing language there are two meanings for peace. These two provide a present alternative. One meaning of peace is offered as "rest, security." This is comparable to our "security, adjustment, peace of mind. The other definition of peace is this: peace is completeness.

It seems to me that this belief in peace as completeness belongs to the same universe as the hope for the individual as full-valued.

In what condition does poetry live? In all conditions, sometimes with honor, sometimes underground. That history is in our poems.


Muriel Rukeyser, from The Life of Poetry (Ashfield, Mass.: Paris Press, 1996), p. 209.