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Hoot
September 10, 2007
Politics is heating up everywhere – locally and across the nation. Whose voices speak the loudest? Count the most? Poetry about war, peace, poverty and other human issues that are hugely impacted by the current political leadership is a long tradition. Poets Against the War banded together during the first term of George W. Bush and locally the wonderful anthology The Other Side of Sorrow: Poets Speak Out about Conflict, War, and Peace was published by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire in 2006. When we are most confused or disillusioned or even just tired of political situations over which we seem to have little control, listening to some different voices is one way to cope. Then, perhaps, we can be reenergized to raise our own voices – and our pens in the voting booths. Neil English, well-known poet and performer, read this poetic response to the news at the October Poetry Hoot Open Mic. A simple poem, it reminds us that there are voices that control, but there are also voices that tell the other side of a story. It is our choice which to listen to – and in what ways we might raise our own voices.
-- Lesley Kimball
September 10, 2007
Today we learned
that which we already knew,
that we must stay the same old course,
that more destruction and death will surely follow.
Today we heard
impassioned pleas of young women
forcibly ejected from Congressional hearing,
their voices raised high in dissent…
“Bring ‘em home! Bring ‘em home!”
We need more young women’s voices
And less of the general lying.
- Neil English
"September 10, 2007” Copyright 2007 by Neil English. Neil English, carpenter, Viet Nam veteran, and father of two grown children, lives in Epsom, NH, with his wife Leigh, a calligrapher, and their two cats. While he is best known for his straw hat, big beard and humor, he can surprise with his range of subject matter and treatment. His work has been included in the anthologies Portsmouth Unabridged and Images from Ruin