Poetry, Violence and Peace
Rich Furman, MSW,
Ph.D.
School of
Social Work
University of Nebraska-Omaha
&
Kathryn S. Collins,
MSW, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Social Work
University of Pittsburgh
May 14, 2003
Biographical notes:
Rich Furman, MSW,
Ph.D., has published nearly two hundred poems in magazines and journals throughout the
world. He has been an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Colorado State
University. As of the August 2003, he will be an assistant professor in the School of
Social Work at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. His scholarship is concerned with varied
topics including: the nature of friendship and its relationship to psychosocial health;
the uses of poetry in social work research, education and practice; international social
welfare; social work ethics; and the relationship between social work theory and practice.
Kathryn S. Collins, MSW, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh. Kathryn’s primary research and clinical interests are in the areas of children’s exposure to violence, trauma symptomatology, and community violence prevention interventions. She is exploring the barriers that limit children who are exposed to violence in their homes, schools and communities to access proper mental health care. Currently, Kathryn is the Principal Investigator on the research project, Children’s Attributions and Trauma Study (CATS), being conducted in the metropolitan Pittsburgh area. This study is contributing to her efforts of designing a comprehensive treatment modality based on reducing children’s frequency, duration, and intensity of trauma symptoms.
Introduction
War and violence
are the ultimate sickness of the human condition. As such, tools are needed to help
womankind heal from this sickness. This article presents several uses of poetry as a means
of challenging and healing from the impact of violence and war. It also addresses the use
of the poem as a means of exploring working towards peace.
In the United States, it is estimated
that more than five million children per year are exposed to violent events
(Children’s Defense Fund, 1999). In 1999, more children died from gunfire than
cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, and HIV/AIDS combined. The reality is that violence
has become embedded in the fabric of life in the United States (Ciccheti and Lynch, 1993;
Van Soest and Bryant, 1995). With so many children exposed to and influenced by violence,
it is likely that American society will continue to be characterized by violence for, at
the very least, a generation to come. Numerous social scientists have explored the impact
of violence on children, yet researchers have noted that its impact might be more
significant than previously imagined (Bell & Jenkins, 1993; Osofsky, 1995).
Adults and children are exposed
to violence through direct victimization or through witnessing violent episodes. They also hear about accounts of community and
domestic violence from parents, friends, relatives, neighbors, and the media. Children who witness violence often experience
co-victimization or secondary trauma. In
terms of the impact of violence upon human growth and development, the line of demarcation
between direct victims and those who witness or hear about violence is obscure because of
similar reactions and effects produced by each (Sharkoor and Chalmers, 1991; Figley &
Kleber, 1995). It is likely such experiences
also apply to war and the impact of war, as many children and adults are subjected to not
only the images of war from television, but also may experience trauma by being subjected
to the continual discussion of violence and war that has permeated the daily discourse of
life in this country. The impact of war on North American society has been profound.
Regardless of one’s feelings about the current conflict in Iraq, both supporters of
the war and those who oppose it would be advised to explore the impact it has had upon the
consciousness of adults and children in the United States.
Gil (1990) observed that North
American society is structurally violent. Structurally
violent societies are ones that inhibit its members form meeting their basic human needs.
These include what Abraham Maslow considered to be essential (Maslow, 1968), such as
security, material and self- actualization needs. It also includes the need for meaningful
production and creation, and spirituality. According to Gil (1990), a society that
inhibits its members’ constructive developmental tendencies will create context for
internalized or externalized violence. Certainly, in addition to alterations in the
fundamental social structures that cause such violence, communities of people need
mechanisms to meet their creative/expressive, self- actualizing, and spiritual needs.
While it is certain that poetry will never end structural violence, it can be utilized as
a means of healing, creativity, self- actualization, and community growth.
The authors by no means see poetry as
a panacea that could possibly eliminate violence and war. Clearly, violence is predicated
on fundamental social structures that must be altered for widespread violence and war to
be curbed. However, using poetry as a means of communicating human truth and healing human
pains can be a powerful ally in the struggle against violence. The goal of poetry is
“the clarification and magnification of being” (Hirshfield, 1997), and to heal
through the power of the word (Mazza, 1999). As violence inhibits human growth and
potential, poetry might be an ideal means of helping individuals and communities heal. How
this occurs will be explored shortly.
The first author began to use
poetry as a mean of social protest in the late 1980s. He traveled through Central America
in the late 1980’s at the peak of the United States’ support for governments
systematically engaging in genocide through the vehicle of the death squad. His poems from
this time served as reminders of the potentially lethal consequences of intervening in
situations without assessing the long- term consequences of our actions. The following
poem gives voice to the consequences of American support for governments that engaged in
genocide in Central America. It also explores the development of social consciousness
through the poem, which helped its author grapple with feelings of individual
responsibility for that his country was doing (Furman, 1993):
84 Days
84 Day
from hell to hell
from death
squads’ black hand neverness
to liberties
branding cattle prod
blue suits and steel
safeguard the
indelible line
between us
and them
between or separate
forms of misery
84 days form
Huehuetenago
its streets of
indigenous brightness
markets of peppers
screaming
campesinos working
Shangri-La emerald
hillsides of coffee
To Los Angeles
pools filled with
rocky dreams
air thick enough to
roller-skate on
shattered hoped
stuffed
into working sacs of
denial
84 days to walk they
said
across the frontier
of the disappeared
greening genitals
stuffed into mouths
that could not
confess fast enough
by roadside’s
rotting heat
to Tijuana’s
human coyote
rivers polluted
death
children with no
arms
drinking in the next
generation
of children with no
arms
or worse
it took you five
days
and with your
plastic freedom
six hours back
now in front of
silicon
wondering how
you will rationalize
this one.
Poetry and healing
For thousands of years, poetry
has been a valuable tool for helping people deal with the pains of existence. Before there
existed therapists and other “professional” agents of change, poets and shamans
were called upon to facilitate healing through the power of the word. Over the last fifty
years, poetry has been formally used for growth and healing through the development of
poetry therapy (Leedy, 1973; Lerner, 1978). Poetry therapy can be defined as the
systematic use of reading, writing, and performing of poetry for the purpose of human
growth, change, healing, and transformation. In poetry therapy, the poem is seen as
secondary to the person; the poem is thus a conduit for healing and transformation.
Poetry has been used
therapeutically with victims of various kinds of violence. For example, poetry has been
used in the treatment of women residing in safe houses and women’s shelters (Hynes,
1987). Poetry has been utilized to help give voice to the victims of domestic violence,
and help them move towards healing. By externalizing their pain, they begin the process
shedding the bonds of self-blame and learn to place their concerns within a social
contest. This is especially true when such works is done in the context of groups that
have experienced similar patterns of violence or victimization. Poetry can be used to help
people reauthor or restory their experience, and thus transform its impact. Through the
power of creating new metaphors for oneself, victims of violence can move from self
-conceptions defined by victimization, to ones that focus on their strengths as survivors.
Why the use of poetry in therapy
is healing is subject to debate. While studies have demonstrated its efficacy with various
client populations (Mazza, 1999), research has yet to isolate the exact mechanism for
change. However, practitioners have indicated that poetry can create change on the
affective (Rothenberg, 1987), cognitive (Goldstein, 1987) and behavioral levels (Langosch,
1987). Poetry facilitates the creative process and seems to release latent and
underutilized strengths and resiliencies that clients posses (Furman, et. al, 2003). As a
detailed discussion of poetry therapy is beyond the scope of this paper, the authors
reference the following sources as being particularly useful (Furman, et. al, 2003;
Harrower, 1972; Leedy, 1973; Mazza, 1999; NAPT, 2003).
Poetry and
community change, poetry as a tool for peace
The healing power of poetry and
poetry therapy are not only useful in work with individuals, families and small groups.
Poetry as therapy and the conscious use of poetry therapeutically can be used with
communities and large-system groups as well. In social work education in the United
States, undergraduate and some graduate programs have adopted the generalist or advanced
generalist models of social work.[1] A generalist or advanced
generalist practitioner adopts multiple roles with clients and operates on whatever level
of changes is needed. That is, a social worker trained as an advanced generalist who is
providing individual therapy would see it as their role to engage in community development
and activism on behalf of their clients, if needed. The helping role is not viewed as
atomistic, but instead adopts a systems or ecological perspective of human development
(Germain & Gitterman, 1980; Hepworth, Rooney & Larsen, 2002). Community work is
valued as being as therapeutic as individual psychotherapy. Even nation and world building
fit into this model of social work practice (Estes, 1999).We believe that the poetry
therapist and poet also have the capacity to use poetry in this manner as well. Community
practice is a viable focus for the field of poetry therapy and for poets who process
liberational approaches to the use of the written word.
Poetry has taken a central
place in protest against the war. This social protest not only has political currency, but
can help people experience themselves as empowered, which can combat the reactive
depression that many have felt during times of war. Engaging in the use of poetry as a
form of activism and healing can energize individuals and communities.
Peace work is essentially
community work. There have been several activities in communities that are using poetry in
this manner. Poetsaginastthewar.org (2003) is utilizing the Internet to give voice to
poets opposing the war in Iraq. To date, they have collected poems from over 11,000 poets
who were against the war. The organization helped poets organize readings in their
communities where poets have read their work. Many such groups have taken advantage of the
Internet as a means of promoting community and social change. Poets for Peace (2003a) has
also given voice to those who use poetry as a means of working towards non-violence. They
have published the World Peace Poem (Poets for Peace, 2003b), which is a poem written
collectively by different poets throughout the world.
A case example
The first author
of this article will present an incident that helped him gain a deepened understanding of
the power of the poem as a tool for peace, and as a means of healing from the scars of
violence. It is an example of poetry being used not merely in the insular world of the
poetry reading, but as a means of expressing the impact of war at a community gathering.
In the tradition of using the expressive arts as narrative inquiry (Neilsen, Cole &
Knowles, 2001), the narrative will be presented in the first person.
Standing on a hilltop with about
three hundred other people, I experienced the healing power of poetry shared with a
community of people. On March 16, 2003, I was asked to read poetry at a peace vigil in
Fort Collins, Colorado. Earlier that day, the president announced that the UN needed to
approve war against Iraq within a day, or the United States and two allies would move to
go to war without international sanction. I had asked another poet, Jack Martin to join me
in reading a poem. After introductions, Jack read the following poem to the crowd:
Listen,
she’s a nice kid, loves to read,
will do almost anything
to pay for more school
and more books. Not an angel--
calls her friends names, makes them
guffaw when she’s
late for class,
but she’s got a hunger.
She understands the difference
between figurative and literal. Still,
maybe she stands a chance.
Yes, death will cut her hair,
and she will use weapons
with names we know
and names we don’t.
But she’ll probably survive,
and she will know what she’s done.
You should get to know her
before she leaves.
The crowd was visibly moved. The poem
speaks of life, and a life that could be potentially altered or eliminated by war. Life in
all its imperfections, but perfect none the less. It speaks to the impact that violence
may upon those who survive. The mood of the crowd seemed to shift after the poem was read.
Prior to his reading, several speakers discussed the significance of the day, and played a
recording of the World Anthem. During Jack’s live reading, the mood of the crowd
became more focused. It appeared that many people who had previously only intellectually
recognized the likelihood of war experienced its foreboding presence viscerally.
Jack’s poem gave voice to the human consequences of violence and war. The metaphor of
this young life and its potential extinction gave the crowd something powerful to
consider.
I followed Jack’s
reading with two poems. The first poem was written during the first gulf war, and speaks
to the painful realities of a war that was often glorified and depersonalized by daily
television broadcasts. For many, violence and war now have taken on the quality of a video
game. Images from the media, alternating between overwhelming and antiseptic, can
overwhelm the emotions and leave one without any discernible emotional experience of
violence. The poem can be useful in helping break that sense of distance and safety.
Hearts stop as bombs drop
Death pounds Baghdad
Ancient chants wailing form
Mosques
And the Ultimate
That now will pray
In asphyxiated sleep.
Millions hide terrified opals
Face what once was
That now is not
In separate worlds that never
meet
We find no solace
In executioner’s smile
Or another set of lies.
Across American skies cola
coal dark
Magical minds western and
obscure
Neon lights of the wrong type
of emptiness
Inners riddled with opacity
Lives wrought in the blackest
haze
Clouds overhead lined with
metal rain.
Fill me up Charlie
Drive down to the sand
Sunset of Pacific dreams
Oil polluted pseudo paradise
shores
Above Baghdad stone age dirge
Twenty million pound sunset
glow
The same spectacle of
departing lights?
Blood freely flowing
Out expendable pumps
Causalities mothers holding
up faded
Embarrassed high school
snapshots
Enlarged for greater mourning
Time passes money hearts fold
Like cheap marked cards.
The second poem
also speaks of the helplessness I have felt as the train of war sped along its track,
seemingly out of control. In this poem, I juxtapose elements from my own life in a type of
surreal narrative, the purpose of which is to highlight the unreal quality of a war.
when he sees the baby my wife
cares for.
Only few years past early
motherhood,
my wife loves the baby.
I worry about myself, only
caring about
the $800 a month
invisibly stapled to the
kid’s forehead,
or the protection of my
silence,
and maybe the death
which will soon stick to
fingers
like guilty blisters
that I press against granite
typewriter keys.
George W. sees dead Iraqis as
votes.
Pellets from smartbombs must
make constipating cereal
for little stomachs not
accustomed to solid food.
I can never eat or sleep
before my first day in front
of a class.
Republicans believe
professors are drains
on the economy.
What use are professor poets
who don’t even teach
poetry?
What use are dead Iraqis?
We might not needs smoking
guns
but must need smoking bodies.
It amazes me how some folks
smoke cigarettes
but drink green tea and take
vitamins.
The press estimates thirty
thousand marched
in Washington against the
war.
Nearly five million watched
the playoffs.
Why does my dog shake when he
sees the baby?
Why did my retirement fund
tank?
Why are there the miniature
dead
floating on the surface of my
tea?
Conclusion
All too often, the academe encourages the atomization of various disciplines. Since one of the impacts of violence is to fracture personalities and communities, it is important that the university moves towards a sense of integration and wholeness. The arts and humanities, be it poetry, philosophy, drama or visual arts are useful mean of communicating about human phenomenon that have become the “territory” of the behavioral and social sciences. Poetry and the expressive arts can also be valuable means of resolving many of the social dilemmas that the behavioral and social sciences are committed to addressing. The authors of this article hope to have presented one example of how poetry and the arts can be used to cope with violence and war. The authors’ understand that this work is merely in a developmental stage, and much work needs to be done in developing theoretical and practice models. It is the hope of these authors that this paper will inspire others to build upon this work.
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[1] In graduate social work education, the model is referred to as the advanced generalist model.