Poetry as Palliative Amidst Gun Control Debates

At the Los Angeles Times, Adriana E. Ramírez asks: "What role can poetry play in our discussion of gun violence?" Her question emerges alongside the publication of Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon, 2017) an anthology that pairs poetry about gun violence with everyday citizens' introspective words about the crisis. Beginning with a quote from Kyle Dacuyan of PEN America, to former U.S. Poet Laureate Richard Blanco's appearance, Ramírez observes the crowd's response at a March 9 AWP offsite event in Tampa, heralding the publication of the anthology, and organized with the intention of bringing some solace to Florida's mourners. "Despite gun violence being a national conversation, this was a Floridian event, one taking place in a state still reeling from both February's Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and 2016's Pulse Nightclub shooting." From there: 

References to mass shootings and police abuse were not dealt with as hypotheticals. The audience, as well as the organizers and poets on stage, had been personally affected by gun violence. Everybody felled by a bullet had a name, along with a history and a friend in the room.

Soon after Barack Obama inaugural poet Richard Blanco stood to read from his poem "One Pulse — One Poem," a woman two rows in front of me began to weep. She'd made the less than two hour drive from Orlando for the event, as a part of the organization Moms Demand Action - FL.

Here, a poet spoke to a mother: "Use warm words to describe / the cold bodies of our husbands, lovers and wives, / our sisters, brothers and friends. Draw a metaphor / so we can picture the choir of their invisible spirits / rising with the smoke toward disco lights, imagine / ourselves dancing with them until the very end."

This is a role poetry can play during our national debate — to invoke the beauty and value of each life lost. Individual stories and faces can be overlooked in discussion over policy — the victims of a shooting become a number (17 for Stoneman Douglas, 58 for Las Vegas, 28 for Sandy Hook, 13 for Columbine) instead of individuals with families, loved ones, communities. Of course, when those stories are brought up by politicians, they can seem cynical or removed from a person's humanity. The difficulty of accepting the actual persons lost to gun violence has led to theories of "crisis actors," signaling that it is more palatable to accept a conspiracy rather than the death of a living, breathing person — especially when that person is a child.

The poetry reading, like the anthology, followed each poem with a response from an activist. After Blanco's, Ladd Everitt, Director of One Pulse for America, writes, "One day, I hope we can build awe-inspiring memorials to all the beautiful souls we have lost to gun violence and remember them with smiles and laughter. I just wish that day felt closer."

After the response, the room took a minute to put itself back together. The mother was still crying — maybe over her son or daughter, or maybe over a stranger's. The moment felt pure, uncynical. Perhaps this is another role that poetry plays as we attempt to unravel systemic gun violence: poetry is a source for raw, sincere emotion.

Read on at Los Angeles Times.