A Linked Poem

By The AFTA Membership, Coordinated by Robert Carroll

Linked poems are poems written by more than one person. Various forms have been used from ancient times, e.g., Japanese Renku poems, and more modern, e.g., the surrealist Exquisite Corpse poems, to the current time, e.g., hip hop street poetry. They are created with the underlying assumption that we are all connected.

The following linked poem was created by the AFTA members present at this year's annual meeting. Almost seventy of us contributed several lines, each one having read the several lines written by the previous person. Four spiral notebooks circulated at plenaries and other events into which the entries were made. Hence the poem is arranged in four strands. Each strand is opened by a few lines quoted from Alan Ginsberg, Maria Ranier Rilke, Marianne Moore, or William Carlos Williams. This linked poem will become part of a larger linked poetry project undertaken by the National Association for Poetry Therapy in which NAPT is creating a 10,000 line linked poem in the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy.

I took the liberty of doing some minor editing to give the final product some greater uniformity, however, I attempted to be faithful to the spirit and content of what was written by each contributor. When you read this poem, read it aloud. As with most of modern poetry, it is based on voice. Because this is a linked poem, consider it as a chorus of voices, the four strands of which braid our themes and concerns as we gathered in New York in the wake of September 11th. I titled it In The Wake.

In The Wake

Strand One

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets and eyes
Alan Ginsberg

Strange I should walk these New York streets,
the smells of Spring turning to Summer,

the warm, timid smiles of strangers,
umbrellas ready to be unfurled.

In this hot season, wrestling with death,
we reach for a touch.

Not a surprise, not a surprise,
911, not a surprise.

From the heart there are words of sadness,
words of hope, pears and smiles,
thunder, lightening, fire, fear, panic.

It smells like home.
It feels like home.
It tastes like home.

I stepped in New York City.
Life was safe with slight ideas.
Now the cloud sits overhead
never sure what will fall.

I walk among and cannot imagine
the New Yorkers.

To add a voice? What voice? Mine or yours?
Mine is yours. Yours is mine.
But between my voice and your voice are zillions—
Men and women alive.

Who can speak of differences?
Can I bear to see you wounded:
the bleeding of an injured world?

We meet in groups. They meet in groups.
We build community and wish for repair.
They don't see our faces and plan for war.
Are we the same?

When does your tongue reach for same,
for similar for familiar connected
for we for laughing clapping
standing ovation aging dancing seeing crying.

I want to be safe from sounds,
and yet I have hope that a pattern will emerge
from randomness.

It is so simple: agree to stop killing each other.
Every religion has a commandment not to kill.
Once we get it, we won't,
and we will make a safe space
to express who we are, what we do, and why.

Strand 2

Sometimes I feel I am pushing through solid rock,
alone.
Everything close is close to my face
And everything close to my face is stone.
Ranier Maria Rilke

There seem to be moments today when
I am hit by a stone of terror and anti-Semitism.

Yet life is so powerful—
insistent urgent stubborn—
under the biggest boulder.

See, life not only surviving, but thriving.
Hurry! Hurry! Roll away from your heart
All that would diminish you.

Now when everything is everything,
how do I fit in these?
Now when a huge wall is dreamt,
if it gets built am I inside or out?

We all must define what is in or out,
while maintaining our dissolve walls.

What shall we do about those whose parts
on both sides of the wall?

Welcome and embrace them. Remember
that understanding does not mean
arriving as a stranger,
I need to crow about my abilities.

What is it that we came to do
that makes us spend our hard earned dough
knowing we'll just have to pay our due
in becoming more and better and new?

Warm hearts, kind thoughts,
no justice . . . just us.
Amazing grace!

We are here
the ground of blood
the firmament of honor
the foundation of courage
the sacred everyday.

Strand 3

What is our innocence, what is our guilt?
All are naked, no one is safe.
Marianne Moore

No one is safe from living aging death.
I wish I could say it was so
about love, about hope, about faith.

There is no eye that cannot see.
No ear cannot hear.
No heart cannot feel.
Heal Heal Heal.

Can I be healed like a bitter taste
on my tongue, the relentless ache,
the death in life?

But my visions of peace are the soft ocean winds,
As I live, I die. As I die, I live.

Holding our sorrow together,
we have been welcomed—
prayers for peace,
our own sadness and compassion
for them as well as us?

Erase the them-ness.
Erase the us-ness.
Heal with the world.

Dear God,
Look down upon us, your children.
Speak louder, Lord.
Lead us and guide us
from the wilderness of our confusion.
Help us to listen and recognize you
and your work.

New York, New York,
the chaos is clearing through the sea of chairs.
My soul is entangled in this world
of the expanding universe.

Yesterday the brothers
came closer. Today my refugee heart
had temporary shelter.

Strand 4

It is difficult to get the news from despised
poems, yet people die miserably every day
from a lack of what is found there.
William Carlos Williams

Those we have lost are found if we will it so.
We need only invite them into our thoughts
and feelings.

So find what you will.
You needn't look far.
It is right before you
in the face of the other.
I have no face without your face,

It is. It was.
It will always be central for me.

Defiance of stress and strife:
Dig deep within your soul for the
answer. Your problems lie there.

I imagine with my heart.
I imagine from my soul.
I am hurting and wounded.
I can not promise that I will stay,
but I am trying.

Should I trust?
Can I trust that things will get better?
For who?

Life is a process of ups and downs.
Center yourself. Nurture yourself.
Trust yourself. This is only the beginning.

Shoulder to shoulder we stand together,
rubbing each other, sometimes the wrong way.
Enter one another's worlds.

We hold onto ourselves and risk being heard.
Lead with care.
Hold the differences with tenderness.
If not, we are lost as the world.

How much difference?
Who will test the limits?
When will we really learn?
I write this as I listen to identity group speakers.
I appreciate the structure of people.

Can I look in the mirror until I see myself?
What am I afraid to reveal?
To see the threads of my life come together,
each thread is to the design of the cloth.

Weaving connection
woof and warp
ancient mending still new.

Reach out long unrecognized community.
We can write to understand
And make sense of traumatic events,

and the struggle continues:
social justice
our shrinking world.

So what is this struggle?
And why do people tell me I am stuggling?
I am not. Stop placing me in this box
and telling me I'm on the margin.

So powerful—Too painful to remember
through the wounded airs.

We are all drawing breath—
lungs pumping, hearts beating,
Straining their toxins for oxygen
deep primal pain
one another joinings
a current Armageddon
meaning making as an intravenous feeding
the white snowflakes on a warm day.
It is ashes.

If I could only breathe,
would the truth be too much?

Through the theater we see
the reflections of our lives.

Actors speak and pause and crack a joke
touching the universal tear, and clearing the sky,
looking for a brighter future.

Americans seem closer to me since 911.
I'm from Central Europe.

Less violence in the world hopefulness
From connection, listening needs strengths—
hope courage compassion
families earth sky.

Sacred space honor
choose so. You wove me in.
Sirens thunder sounds
Changed uncertainty:
Loam hope grows watered.

Ground zero grows smallish as our hearts
grow closer. Grace is the first love.
Suffering follows standing together
in the dawn twilight.

There is so much work to be done.
There are so many bridges to build.
There are so many voices to hear
and hands to hold.

Robert Carroll is a Family Psychiatrist in private practice in Los Angeles. He is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA. He is also a poet and storyteller, and he has toured nationally as a member of The Los Angeles Performance Poetry Slam Team. He has been working with therapists and other health care professionals helping them to write their own narratives about their lives and the work we do.