{"id":1936,"date":"2016-08-19T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T04:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:47:39","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:47:39","slug":"life-is-shortthough-i-keep-this-from-my-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/08\/19\/life-is-shortthough-i-keep-this-from-my-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Life is short,\tthough I keep this from my children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maggie Smith\u2019s poem \u201cGood Bones\u201d<\/a> went viral around the world in the days and weeks after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub.\u00a0 I am not certain why; neither is she<\/a>.\u00a0 And yet, it seemed to me like all that could be said in the face of so much hatred and heartache.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood Bones\u201d by <\/strong>Maggie Smith<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
\nLife is short, and I\u2019ve shortened mine
\nin a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
\na thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
\nI\u2019ll keep from my children. The world is at least
\nfifty percent terrible, and that\u2019s a conservative
\nestimate, though I keep this from my children.
\nFor every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
\nFor every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
\nsunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
\nis at least half terrible, and for every kind
\nstranger, there is one who would break you,
\nthough I keep this from my children. I am trying
\nto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
\nwalking you through a real shithole, chirps on
\nabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,
\nright? You could make this place beautiful.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does poetry matter in the face of violence or suffering? Can words arranged on a page or spoken alter the facts of war or terror, racism, poverty?<\/p>\n

W. H. Auden, famously, said, \u201cpoetry makes nothing happen.\u201d And yet he wrote those words in a poem, one that honors fellow poet W. B. Yeats. He goes on to say of poetry: \u201cit survives, \/ A way of happening, a mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few would say<\/a> that the value of poetry inheres in making something happen in the world.\u00a0 As Auden said elsewhere, \u201cIf the criterion of art were its power to incite action, Goebbels would be one of the greatest artists of all time.\u201d\u00a0 And yet, poetry surely does something<\/em>. It can make us see and feel in ways we otherwise wouldn\u2019t; it makes vivid what we might otherwise ignore.<\/p>\n

This week I want to offer three poems that I believe speak to the power of poetry to startle and reveal. Perhaps they also speak to our renewed need for poetry in a world of too much despair.\u00a0 Each of the three went \u201cviral,\u201d in response, respectively, to the refugee crisis, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the Pulse nightclub shooting. Volleyed around the globe, they survive; they are a way of happening.\u00a0 They are a mouth that has opened.<\/p>\n

Thank you to Fr. Staudenmaier for inviting me to share them.<\/p>\n

Mary-Catherine<\/p>\n


\nMary-Catherine Harrison, Ph.D.
\n<\/strong>Associate Professor of English, University of Detroit Mercy
\nCo-Director, University Honors Program
\nExecutive Director, Rx for Reading Detroit<\/a>
\nmc.harrison@udmercy.edu<\/a>
\n(313) 993-1081<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maggie Smith\u2019s poem \u201cGood Bones\u201d went viral around the world in the days and weeks after the shooting at the Pulse nightclub.\u00a0 I am not certain why; neither is she.\u00a0 And yet, it seemed to me like all that could … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1937,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions\/1937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}