Hi friends, and I’m so sorry for how long it’s been since I’ve written. The truth is I’ve gotten overwhelmed by Substack, by all the notifications and the wonderful writing by folks I follow. I have turned off most of the notifications, but I rarely feel like I take full advantage of the thoughtful essays that come my way. I was going to blame social media and the social-media-like features of this platform, but then I remembered the halcyon days of college, and how I skimmed the newspaper maybe once a week and never watched the news. I read my textbooks and poetry and fantasy fiction (hey, I read The Lord of the Rings series as a kid), and I wrote, and I met friends for coffee and studying. I’ve never been a newshound, never felt that pull.
Now, over 30 years later, it’s impossible to escape the pushes and pulls of news. It’s not just that news skews negative—and evolutionarily, we’re programmed to be drawn to negative news, because it was even more important to know where the venomous snakes lived than where the best peaches could be found—but that it demands I give my attention to things that feel urgent and often tragic but over which I have no control. I know there are people for whom knowledge of “the news” (that is, the news items popular media chooses to put in front of our eyes) feels more empowering than overwhelming. I admire them for taking action—my best friend shows up with food and physical help for undocumented immigrants who’ve been flown to Chicago by government officials in Texas, and then “housed” in buses or police stations—but I’m tired of feeling guilty because that’s not the way I’m made.
For me, and perhaps for some of you, reading or hearing about the awful things happening in the world feels like having my hands and feet tied to strong, unpredictable animals. I might be pulled apart, or I might just get yanked in one or two directions, or back and forth. It will involve pain, but also uncertainty. And certain stories hit me particularly hard, and then there’s rage, and always, always, after that, despair. How can human beings do these things? Legislate so it’s possible to do them? Pay or receive money for them? Is the world even worth trying to save from climate change and ecological disaster if this is what we’ll do with it?
Jack Gilbert, in his poem “A Brief for the Defense,” would say yes. He wrote: “We must have/the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless/furnace of this world. To make injustice the only/measure of our attention is to praise the Devil…We must admit there will be music despite everything.”
We must admit there will be music despite everything. Oh, my friends. Poetry—that’s what has grounded me all these years. It has kept me here, kept me hoping, laughing, teaching, writing. In the face of sorrow and loss, in the face of “what good is humanity?” the answer always comes back to art and for me, the art of poetry. Some poems, and sometimes even just one line from a poem, strike a gong inside me that reverberates through my days, giving meaning to life.
I believe news-grief is real. And so is overwhelm. Sometimes I hesitate to add to the cacophony of voices clamoring for your attention. But I try to write not to inform, but to be with you. To be vulnerable enough to show that you’re not alone. To strike a spark off the particular details of my own experiences that might catch in you.
I feel everything you have written here, Katie. And I confess to being a news hound...always wanting more detail, to find whatever important news I might have missed. I have to force myself to put it down, shut out the noise, when I write. But it's a struggle. An ongoing on. Love to you!
I love this and feel so much the same. I, too, have been thinking lately about how art is the thing that keeps us sane, connects us, and bares our truths, all at once.