We remember where we are the moment the world changes, it freezes time: my mother was ironing when she heard the news about the assassination of JFK and my father was driving in downtown Toronto.
Working at ticket sales for the National Ballet the day of the September 2001 attacks, I arrived in the office at around ten in the morning and learned the news. We spent the rest of the day with the radio on, and checking overwhelmed websites to see still images. People called up to order tickets at times, with a sort of verbal shrug, a sort of "What am I going to do about it?" I had no TV, but went to a friend's house that night to see the reports, and those images that remain with us all. Reality had set in slowly, through different mediums: to be told about it when I arrived and hear it on the radio made me concerned and mildly alarmed. To see still images of the exploding buildings on the internet was more upsetting, and then to turn on the TV that night and see footage of people leaping from buildings was most shocking. Finally, the oldest form catches up, lacking speed but making up for it in coherence: print is there the following day, only about as upsetting as the radio, and even vaguely comforting for the added framework and narrative. As a medium, print always proves there was a next day.
In the days following the attacks we worked and kept the radio on, and paused along with the announcer if he stopped speaking because it meant he was perhaps being handed some new information. It was a lifeline, and even if we weren't paying attention, we took reassurance from the stream of concerned voices because is seemed things were being done. Once, when the announcer paused, someone in the office even said, "Don't stop." I heard a man who was clearly angry, asking where were all the terrorist experts, the intelligence men, etc. Though I could sympathize with him, I couldn't help but feel that previous to the attack, this same man might have been just as vocal in complaining about the slightest delay in his flight, even if "security reasons" was the justification. North Americans are used to a kind of instant gratification, used to having no delay between desire and gratification, even though it's the delay that enhances pleasure. Our petulance is not an admirable quality, and part of the astonishing cleverness of the attack was that it turned our everyday lifestyle and wealth against us. A woman in Calgary was so disturbed she has a bag packed and a route planned to get to a relative outside the city, should anything happen there.
After the attacks I asked myself, what good can poems or novels do in a world where people fly populated planes into populated buildings? My views the value of writing wavered because certain kinds of actions are thousands of times louder than quiet, carefully crafted effort and I briefly made a direct, unfair comparison. Suddenly I was making the mistake of demanding that writing and art have a direct, immediately measurable effect on the world. Would it not be a better use of time to be more active politically? But we cannot measure what sympathies might be engaged when hundreds of people read the same work, or how in subtle ways it changes them. Compassion makes us human, and art encourages compassion. Of course, art is a luxury, the product of a peaceful, reasonably tolerant society. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there's no time for it when foraging for food and building shelter, but once we settle into a world with leisure time, anything that both teaches through narrative and encourages compassion becomes valuable.
In Britain's The Guardian, Ian McEwan argued that through empathy and understanding (sometimes achieved through art) we find morality:
If the hijackers had been able to imagine themselves into the
thoughts and feelings of the passengers, they would have been
unable to proceed... Imagining what it is like to be someone
other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the
essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.
The reality is that society and art depend on each other. Society provides basic needs and funds special projects. At the very least, allowing people to pursue things in free time without requiring they spend every waking hour on survival. In return, some people provide creative contributions. There's always a veritable river of bad art, and even good art can't easily have a measurable, provable emotional value, so critics who see art as irrelevant are always there too. But I believe society exists for people, not the other way around.
Another mistake I made as my belief wavered was to forget that there are quiet heroes, so overshadowed on the day of the attacks: those parents that loathe the job but love the family, and go to stand on the subway platform every morning even though they feel they die a little, each day. These are people who make a tremendous difference in the world. They are not exciting enough for Hollywood to turn into films most of the time, but they are still sometimes sung about (Fanfare for the Common Man, by Copland, comes to mind). They are responsible for a great deal of good in the world, for the anti-headlines we never see: millions of people didn't murder anyone today. And the fact that their individual actions are not as striking or as loud in volume is hardly a fair or logical comparison.
In reading the E.M. Forster essay What I Believe, I noticed he makes several attempts to describe the kind of people he admires, a description that fits with the quiet hero I'm speaking about:
The people I admire most are those who are sensitive and want
to create something or discover something, and do not see life
in terms of power... They... produce literature and art, or they
do disinterested scientific research, or they may be what is
called 'ordinary people' who are creative in their private lives,
bring up their children decently, for instance, or help their
neighbours.
I think I'd been waiting most of my life to see that opinion in print somewhere. Hierarchy is so completely accepted in our society that it often exists without discussion, but I'm never more impressed with a person than when they are considerate to those below them while operating from a position of power. I believe that those who are truly strong don't need to show it. Or in other words, there is nothing stronger than gentleness. Forster describes democracy as "less hateful" than other forms of government for allowing variety and criticism, as well as freedom of expression, to a degree. While he acknowledges that force plays a role in the world, he reassures us that the "evidence of history" is that people have always insisted on being creative "under the shadow of the sword."
What about Force, though? While we are trying to be sensitive
and advanced and affectionate and tolerant, an unpleasant
question pops up: does not all society rest upon force? It is,
alas! the ultimate reality on this earth, but it does not always
get to the front. Some people call its absences "decadence"; I
call them "civilization" and find in such interludes the chief
justification for the human experiment.
In the week following the attacks, my faith in writing was restored. In part it was because I read the E.M. Forster essay, but also because I had a drink with an old friend who said simply that the arts become more important, not less important, in a world where people kill each other.
It becomes our job as individuals to reject the frightened views that politicians would have us adopt, using the excuse that security is now more important than education, social services or the arts. Yes, North Americans have been reminded we're fragile and finite but if we throw away creativity and educated debate the most important battle is lost. If we protect ourselves by becoming hostile, then what we wanted to protect is gone anyway. We must continue to believe in shuffling forward through education, criticism and creativity, even if the system is slow and imperfect.
Three thousand people died on September 11 2001. And estimates are that thirty-four thousand die every day around the world, from malnutrition, lack of health care or other preventable causes, a statistic that could change if wealthier countries shared the abundance, and third world debt were forgiven. The first instinct when attacked is to respond with an attack of your own, to build walls, to carry on. But the best and most secure world, free of hatred, would evolve if the wealthiest shared their wealth and prosperity with a new sense of international justice. As Michael Moore suggests, the best home security system is for that dude down the street to have a few thousand dollars in the bank. We need to educate ourselves to do more than fear and consume.
American writer and critic Bell Hooks doesn't mince words: "Our nation fell into the trap of pathological narcissism in the wake of wars that brought economic bounty while undermining the vision of freedom and justice essential to sustaining democracy." I also agree with Hooks when she says a time is coming when we'll all have to manage with a lot less. It becomes increasingly clear wealthier countries will have to adjust to new standards for environmental reasons, if not the greater sense of international justice some of us hope for. I'd only add that people with some idea this is on the horizon would be helped immeasurably in dealing with it. Ironically enough, that will certainly include many previously dismissed or marginalized groups: the far-sighted, the spiritual, the artists and those who gave them more than a cursory acknowledgement.
Alex Boyd is co-editor of Northern Poetry Review, and the author of Making Bones Walk.
Canadians have an odd relationship to the U.S. We define ourselves against them, first of all. Many of us in urban centres find guns appalling, our history is closer to compromise than conflict, possibly born out of the need to accommodate both French and English, and the same need has introduced a greater love -- at least in theory -- of diversity, and a recognition diversity is a strength, not a weakness. There is a distinct Canadian identity that Canadians...continue reading
Your second collection of poems, The Cold Panes of Surfaces, is out now. Your first book, Bonfires, won the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award in 2004. Did winning a national award for your first book bolster your artistic confidence while working on your second, or did you find it daunting, as though you had more to live up to than other poets working on a second collection?
I think it certainly gave me a boost of confidence and the permission I needed to do what I wanted to do artistically with the second book. I didn't feel any outside pressure because of winning the CAA award, or feel that I had any expectations to live up to. Winning the award was terrific, and it was good publicity, but it was also an education on how fleeting such praise can be, and how it leaves your writing life virtually...continue reading