The Promised Land Project: National Poetry Month: Addressing the Problem of the Human Condition

Turning Vision into Action....at least hypothetically

Strike up the music of the band
We're blazing a trail for the promised land
Heaven on earth is within you.

Through the writing of stories, poetry, essays, and a novel, I’ve creatively contended with the consumer culture and the problem of the ideal in the modern era. This preoccupation in time would lead to a vision of cultural transformation and where I believe our democratic society needs to go to truly progress beyond the modern era. Conceding my limited credibility, this blog provides a synthesis of recognized visionaries, poets, and writers with the objective of making a credible argument. Ultimately, it is a certain feeling the project strives to inspire and sustain on a certain level, making more vital use of poetry and the arts; consequently whether one agrees or not is less important than whether one senses it and feels it over time.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

National Poetry Month: Addressing the Problem of the Human Condition

The condition of men is the result of their disunion. – Tolstoy

We began the month recognizing the alienating effects that modern poetry can have on the average citizen, lending itself to a sense of the exclusionary. The irony is that poetry, and the arts in general, has a deep history as a means to bring people together. As our society comes to terms with its divisions and entrenched narrow interests, I argue we can again look to poetry to help enable unity.

Poetry has addressed the problems of the human condition in the past and can be useful in the present. The allegory -- a poetic device -- of Adam and Eve, generally attributed to Moses, provides a narrative to describe the dispiriting effects of the fall into self-consciousness. Thus the allegory provides a narrative to describe the evolution of consciousness toward the self apart from others and nature.

As we celebrate Easter on this date, we should recognize that the story of Christ accepting the cross, whatever theological interpreations it may have, provides a powerful poetic interpretation: a symbol of love, faith, and sacrifice. In response to the fall into the self, described in the paragraph above, the life of Jesus becomes a symbol to "deny the self", as described in the Biblical Book of Luke (9:23), toward the moral disposition of acting for the greater good.

Yet the symbol of the cross is controversial, causing the effect of differing reactions to that symbol, because it is generally viewed as a symbol of religion. But this is where poetry can step in, differentiating between religion and mythos, and making use of symbol, metaphor, and narrative to induce an evolution of consciousness.

Our socialization into the individual consciousness of the modern era, compounded by a consumer culture that incites the pride and passions of the self, may leave us in an unsustainable imbalance of consciousness toward the individual self at the expense of the greater good, leaving us drifting toward spiritual crisis. Moving from the margins of society to the forefront, however, poetry may be in a position to meet this crisis. But as it appears to me, to intone Walt Whitman, it would have to move from paper and types to bodies and souls.