Learning to Read

I was in a particularly receptive mood when I discovered the poetry of Erich Fried (1921-88). I was on the verge of leaving the world of the university when I came across his body of work.

During my stint in a sleepy university town in Switzerland, I had discovered my own cadre of revolutionary young people -- many of them political refugees whose lives had been threatened merely for words they had written or spoken. While absorbing the tragic horrors of my friends' experiences, I turned my attention to this poet who had survived the Holocaust as a refugee in London.

Fried's focus on the horrors of war and exposing injustice echoed the lives of my young Kurdish and Croatian friends.

When I left that world, I thought I would slip back into a society where I had been taught that politics don't matter.

All of that changed after my arrival. The full force of the injustice of US society hit me hard.I found myself clinging to Fried's poetry and its message that, in fact, our words and our workings do matter.

Whosoever
has never violated the laws of this society and does not violate
and never wants to violate
he is sick.

His is the only poetry that I have read since returning, despite having only narrowly avoided completing a degree in German literature.

Most importantly, what Fried was able to articulate for me was that poetry did matter, but in a limited way. Nothing could replace becoming a political actor in struggle and, in fact, he savaged his contemporaries who remained apolitical. He wrote insightfully:

Whosoever
from a poem
awaits salvation
should rather
learn
to read poems

Whosoever
from a single poem
expects no salvation
should rather
learn
to read poems.

For Fried, poetry is what allowed him to cope with his condition: that of a man trapped in comfort amidst overwhelming injustice and living daily with the memories of horror.

I see in my daily work many like him seeking this kind of salvation from the horror of being simultaneously the oppressed and the oppressor ñ especially war veterans. Those who have suffered horrible injustice and committed horrible injustice, either directly or indirectly through their governments, often need to find a way to work to create justice. For Fried, that kind of work, unless it is marked by violence, is always positive and healing. Creating poetry, on the other hand, can be unbearable.

It is said
a poet
is one who
puts words together

That's not true
A poet
is one
who is sometimes
halfway
put together by words

When he's lucky

When he's unlucky
the words
rip him apart.

I am still trying to answer the question of what makes someone move into the realm of trying to make change, but Fried is part of my answer, part of my own salvation.

All translations are the author's own.