Remembering, Socrates style

Suheir Hammad is a poet that I first heard about through HBO's Def Poetry Jam. She’s absolutely brilliant. Today I thought I’d share some video featuring one of my favorite poems of all time.

There’s …. adult language... in it. Viewer discretion is advised.

Suheir Hammad – First Writing Since

(Here’s a text version.)

It’s that time again. Time to mark what happened on this day seven years ago on this date, when passenger planes exploded in Washington and New York and Pennsylvania. When towers collapsed and fighters scrambled and the nation’s media held its breath. When hope and compassion found renewed, gritty meaning for nurses and firefighters and… all of us. When nearly 3,000 civilian lives were taken by evil.

...and more than 30 times as many civilian lives were taken in Iraq and Afghanistan during the two wars that followed.

You know me. The way I remember what happened in my country won’t have the same kind of militarism you might see elsewhere. Why does love of country have to so narrowly revolve around weapons and bloodshed? Isn’t there a lot more to love about who we are?

Let’s remember by flexing our ability to empathize with those that, despite the supposed “clash of cultures,” are actually a lot like us. Let’s remember from the perspective of those that get the short end of the stick. Let’s remember by asking the sorts of probing questions that challenge dominant assumptions and strengthen democratic energy and would make Socrates proud. We journalists are good at that.

Affirm life.

More great poems/videos:

Suheir Hammad - What I Will

Suheir Hammad - Mike Check

More to think about:

New Yorker – Talk of the Town – September 24, 2001

(Includes Susan Sontag’s briefly famous/notorious essay)

~Geoffrey Dobbins

UCABJ, Vice President