I like lists because they keep me on track.They also chart the story of a life through its changing cycle of concerns — which is, indeed, the province of poetry.
My life is ruled by lists — not the top-ten type — but the scrawled kind I find stashed post-season in winter coats or crumpled at the bottom of my bottomless bag. Lists like: vodka, milk, apples, cookies, bananas, eggs, soap. There is poetry in this. Not because I am a poet but because, like you, I am busy and, in the ensemble, these lists reveal the habits of a life — a life of drinking vodka and eating bananas, of washing one’s hands. They also chart the story of a life through its changing cycle of concerns — which is, indeed, the province of poetry.
I like lists because they keep me on track. I prefer lists written on paper, because they make my tasks manifest, more concrete. With a hand-written list I never worry that I haven’t scrolled down far enough on the screen to see it completely. It’s true, at times, I can’t read my own scribbling. More than once I’ve had to ask a cashier, “Can you read what this says? But there’s a bit of humanity in that, whereas for all their supposed efficiency, screens can be a little cold.
I also like the “list poem,” a form that embraces the inherent poetry contained in catalogue, as well as the notion that poetry can be useful. While my life is ruled by lists, it is also governed by poems. Because I love words. I love words so much that a list like: transgender, vulnerable, diversity, science-based, evidence-based, fetus, entitlement immediately attracts my attention. These are “banned” words that, last month, the Trump administration purportedly ordered the Centers for Disease Control to avoid using in future documentation.
Poets on social media moved quickly to copy and paste those terms far and wide. Nothing provokes a writer like banning words or books. I, myself, hastily submitted to The CDC Poetry Project’s call for poems containing them. For people whose primary tool is language, limited access only makes us want more. Call it affection for the First Amendment. Call it survival instinct.
The Italian writer and thinker Umberto Eco, (1932-2016), suggested that “We like lists because we don’t want to die.” I laughed out loud when I read this — such blunt, brutal truth tinged with humor. We humans do like having things to do, tasks to mark done. For all its aspiration, even the “bucket list” is predicated on the fact that we will pass. There’s darkness in that, especially when we face the fact that we will never scale Mount Everest. But like the works of Umberto Eco, we spend our lives dancing between dark and light.
Dark and light. Truth and lies.
I read last week that the Trump administration did not, in fact, hand down that list of banned words, but that the CDC imposed it internally. Fake news? No, but incorrect reporting shot rapid-fire across the internet. Turns out the CDC asked its employees to avoid using transgender and evidence-based, etc. in budget proposals destined for Congress, because it perceives the current administration as hostile to science. The CDC is afraid of triggering the Trump administration with these words and, in turn, losing more funding. Self-censorship as survival tactic. Anyone who has ever submitted a budget or a grant application knows how important phrasing can be.
What strikes me is how easily so many people could imagine such a list being handed down by this White House. Not for a moment did I think, “That can’t be true,” like when I heard that Donald Trump once made a pass at RuPaul (turns out that was satire). My immediate response was, “We might have seen this coming” (about the words, I mean).
Poet Kevin Young has a book — just out — called "Bunk," in which he chronicles the history of fakery — from P.T. Barnum to the likes of Lance Armstrong. Reading a review brought to mind how the term fake news keeps getting thrown around these days. Merriam-Webster defines fake for English Language Leaners as: FAKE (adj.): not true or real: meant to look real or genuine but not real or genuine. The key word here is meant, which connotes intention. I always stress intention when teaching poetry, as in: a list is a list, unless the poet deems that list a poem. Then, it’s a list poem. Intention counts. In poetry, as in life.
The initial articles about banned words were likely not intentionally incorrect — someone jumped the gun and others jumped the wagon. A poor and increasingly prevalent excuse, for sure, but some stories are difficult to nail down. It’s why newspapers have a corrections section. It’s why they fact-check and edit. But incorrect is not the same as fake. To conflate mistake with fake is to obfuscate. And one must ask why. It’s glib, at best. I would hate for someone learning English to confuse those two words. It’s what could happen, if we really do end up a post-literate society — a term I recently heard — that relies totally on television for its news and entertainment.
Still, if one believes that a news story is intentionally incorrect, merely dismissing it as fake is a failure of language. Fake doesn’t cut it. It’s too loose and obtuse to drive such an important point home. Fake is how kids describe an unconvincing image rendered in CGI. Professional transgressions like lying should be called out in the strongest, most exacting terms. Alternatives are weak. And if we are talking bias, that’s an even more nuanced conversation. Bias and lying are still different beasts.
Like many celebrities, Muhammad Ali was known for boasting, but he also wrote poems like:
me
we
The Internet falsely calls this “the shortest poem ever written in English.” Fake news? No. Just inaccurate. Minimalist poets like Aram Saroyan have filled entire books with two-word poems. Still, it’s a wonderful example of how mere proximity of words provokes thought: Two words as a bridge. The tiniest of lists. List as ladder. Empathy.
The philosopher Nietzsche said, “poets lie too much” — which also made me laugh. Poets can be liars, but they are not politicians or reporters and are held to a different standard. A poem, even when it lies, strives to disclose a truth. The worst crime a poet can commit (in writing) is to kill the truth with sentimental verse, full of feigned feeling. For poets, fake happens when undisciplined emotion gets in the way. Even poets don’t want unchecked passion to rule the day. We all need some order. The world is a strange and hectic place these days. It may be a good time to put poetry on our lists.
— Tina Cane is Rhode Island's poet laureate. Her website is tinacane.ink.
More poetry
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Read: This column during 2018 for reflections on poetry and education written by a range of fellow Rhode Islanders.