Here are some stories you can follow:
http://www.uwyo.edu/news/showrelease.asp?id=30881
http://wyominghumanitiescouncil.org/blog/
http://wyomingarts.blogspot.com/2009/04/uws-craig-arnold-missing-in-japan.html
My friend poet Craig Arnold has gone missing on a volcanic island in Japan. If you can, please consider writing Craig's congress-people in Wyoming, as well as your own congress-people, and the Japanese consul in your city or area.
Full information follows, with contact information.
If you're on Facebook, consider joining this group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=74254019683
...
The poet Craig Arnold is currently in Japan with the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission's U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship and has been missing since April 26th (evening Monday April 27th Japanese time).
he is the author of two volumes of poetry: Shells, chosen by W.S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Young Poets in 1999, and of Made Flesh (Ausable, 2008). His poetry has been anthologized in several volumes of the Best American Poetry Series, and his poems, articles, and translations from the Spanish have appeared in such publications as The New Republic, Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, Yale Review, and many more. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Alfred Hodder Fellowship in Humanities from Princeton University, an Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Dr. Arnold did his B.A. at Yale University and received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah. He is presently an Assistant Professor at the University of Wyoming.
THE DETAILS:
Monday April 27th (Japanese time) he arrived with the 2:50 pm municipal ferry from Yakusima on the island of Kuchino-erabu and checked in to the local "Watanabe" inn, the only one on the island. He was with 2 Japanese tourists who had reservations. He did not have one. (They must have helped him check in.) He had traveled to the island to visit the volcano, as he has been working on a book on the subject of volcanoes for some time.
His plan was to stay only one night and leave the next day. (Craig has visited many volcanoes around the world in recent years as is very experienced with visiting them.)
He immediately left his 3 bags at the inn and departed around 3 pm on foot to the next village, taking only his walking sticks. He was wearing black or dark colors: long pants, a dark hat, a nylon jacket. His Japanese iPhone was on his person but has not been reachable due to inconsistent reception on the island. The exclusive provider of IPhone service, Softbank, has been contacted by the police in an attempt to utilize the built-in GPS capabilities of the phone.
At the village, someone with a car drove him to the entrance to the path leading up the mountain to the volcano. There are 4 paths to the volcano which are obvious and in good condition. He was taken to the entrance of a path next to a dam where evidence collected by the police suggests he ascended. His footprints have been found. The police have not found evidence of a return trip along that path. The area is densely forested until reaching the summit area, caldera, of the volcano where there is little vegetation.
The police stated that the path to that area is clear but that finding the path on the descent could pose problems so it is likely that he may not have found his way back to the path he entered by.
When Craig did not return to the inn by 8 pm, the inn staff searched for him by car, driving to the village. Unsuccessful, they returned to the inn and called the local fire brigade at 9 pm who responded immediately and searched until midnight.
Day 2 (Tues, April 28 JT) 5 police officers (under the direction of Mr. Kazuhara) arrived from Yakusima that morning with new assets: cars, search dogs, police persons, a helicopter. 40 total persons now working on this: 30 local fire reserve persons and 10 police persons and officials. They searched the trail he took but did not complete an exhaustive search of all 4 trails. One individual climbed all the way to the top. The area was circled several times by the helicopter and they also flew around the coastline. I contacted them directly at the end of the 2nd search day: 6:30pm. (5:30 am this morning, Wed April 29th U.S. time). They were debriefing and planning for day 3, with a plan to concentrate on the possible alternative paths down from the volcano that he may have taken by mistake and the surrounding area.
Day 3, the official required last day of the search, begins tonight. They are only required by law to search for 3 days. Extension procedures must be arranged with Mr. Kawahigashi and may require payment. Other than the helicopter, no higher level assets have been deployed at this time. Since the focus is on a "boots-on-the-ground" search and rescue (the forest makes visibility from the air limited) more people should be deployed immediately to assist.
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Craig's Japanese blog: http://volcanopilgrim.wordpress.com/
Entry on Poetry Foundation website: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2009/04/craig-arnold-needs-our-help-urgent/
New York Times: http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/missing-poet/
Media Bistro/Galleycat: http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/authors/poet_craig_arnold_disappears_in_japan_115369.asp
Poets & Writers: http://www.pw.org/content/american_poet_on_fellowship_missing_in_japan
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ENVIRONMENTAL BACKGROUND OF THE ISLAND:
Kuchino-erabusima (various transliterations possible shima, jima):
Volcanic island 14.5 square km. Spring weather conditions, temp drops at night but not to freezing. Has not rained since Craig went missing. Fresh water available.
Reachable by municipal ferry from Yakushima
Police based in Yakushima
Hospital on Yakushima
Airport on Yakushima connects to Kagoshima, major city.
Map:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/erabu/sight.htm
PEOPLE IMMEDIATELY INVOLVED:
The following people only speak Japanese with a thick regional accent:
The search and rescue operation is being led by
Town Officer: Mr. Kawahigashi
office tel: 81-(0)997-49-2100
(last spoke with him 7:05 am NYC time) They were preparing to debrief from
Day 2 of the search and prepare their plan for Day 3.
Day 3 begins tonight, Wednesday April 29. (= morning Thurs, April 30 Japanese time)
The Yakusima police officer on the case: Officer Kuzuhara: 81-(0)997-462110
he is on the neighboring island Yakusima, not the island where Craig is lost.
THEY ARE ONLY REQUIRED BY LAW TO SEARCH FOR 3 DAYS. THERE IS A NATIONAL HOLIDAY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW. WE MUST APPLY ALL AVAILABLE PRESSURE TO MAKE THEM CONTINUE THE SEARCH AND TO CONVINCE THE U.S. CONSULATE TO ACTIVATE THE AVAILABLE AMERICAN ASSETS (OKINAWA) TO ASSIST WITH THE SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATION ON THE GROUND.
The process is currently stalled at the Fukuoka Consulate level with
Mark Baron working under Margot Carrington
(Fukuoka Consulate office tel: 81-92-751-9331)
The Tokyo Embassy # is 81-(0)3-3224-5000 and the interim Charge d’Affairs is James P. Zumwalt
CONTACT INFO
Senator Michael B. Enzi - (R - WY)
379A RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3424
http://enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInformation.EmailSenatorEnzi
Sen. John Barrasso, (R - WY)
307 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6441
http://barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.ContactForm
Rep. Cynthia Lummis
Washington DC Office
1004 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2311
Toll Free: (888) 879-3599
Fax: (202) 225-3057
Cheyenne Office
2120 Capitol Ave.
Cheyenne, WY 82001
Phone: (307) 772-2595
Fax: (307) 772-2597
http://lummis.house.gov/?sectionid=65§iontree=3,65
Some general points that probably seem obvious but people forget. As someone who used to be the guy who answered these kinds of calls and letters, what I am telling you will help you get your message heard by the Senators and Congresswoman Lummis.
1) Ask for specific action. "Please contact the Japanese ambassador and insist that they continue the search."
2) Emphasize Craig's resume as professor and prize-winning poet. Those messages will resonate with the ambassador's staff.
3) ASK TO BE INFORMED OF WHAT ACTION THE SENATOR or CONGRESSWOMAN HAS TAKEN. Give them your mailing address.
4) If you are a constituent (and if you live in or vote in Wyoming you are a constituent of all three of these folks) MAKE SURE YOU SAY SO.
5) If you use the web form to email the Senator's office, make sure you use a subject line with the phrase "University of Wyoming Professor Craig Arnold". It will make clear to the staff that your inquiry is a request to help a constituent.
AND:
Send the same message to the Embassy of Japan in the United States.
Ambassador Ichiro FUJISAKI
2520 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20008
202-238-6700 (Main)
If you live in a MAJOR CITY, there are 16 consulates that you can consider contacting.
http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/jicc/consulat.htm
Finally, work quickly. DO NOT SEND MAIL. Because of heightened security, mail is subjected to several screenings before it even gets to the Capitol complex. EMAIL or CALL. Be polite, firm and specific and I guarantee you your voice will be heard.
Critics can do one of at least two things. The first is simply to insist that something is good, or bad, and rely on the force of personality or reputation to convince people. The second is to write, with focus and clarity, about how the piece of art works, what choices the artist has made, and how that might affect a reader. Only then can the reader grow to meet work that is unfamiliar, that he or she does not yet have the capacity to love.
Today, in American poetry, very few critics take it upon themselves to examine the choices poets make in poems, and what effect those choices might have upon a reader. As a consequence, very few people love contemporary American poetry. Many more might, if critics attempted to truly engage with the materials of poetry—words and how they work—and to connect poetry with an audience based on an engagement with these materials.
Who is that unmasked man?
Turns out to be Adam Lerner, Executive Director of The Laboratory of Art and Ideas, named on Monday as the new Executive Director for the Museum of Contemporary Art - Denver, which will now become home to The Lab.
The Denver Post did a nice job covering the story, though there are some who would rather take the opposite view (I guess we know now why Paglia's column is entitled "Art Attack").
Can't wait to see what's next...
You can see and hear Alexander reading the poem on any number of YouTube posts (one, two), and you could, yesterday, have read the poem in a New York Times transcript, though without its line breaks. Now, it's not just a performance, not just something overheard, something witnessed. Now it's a text: something to be read.
And now, I think, we can talk more effectively about the art of the poem, rather than people's impressions of what happened...
By which I mean, I'm in a better position today to answer my mother, who called me yesterday to say she thought the poem "sucked." I started to offer an explanation, a "reader's guide," if you will, but didn't get very far.
My mother wanted Robert Frost again. Apparently she didn't know that the poem Frost wrote for Kennedy's inaugural really "sucked." He just didn't get to read it. The wind was so steady, he couldn't read the paper, so he recited a much shorter poem, "The Gift Outright," from memory.
I admire, and even enjoy, "The Gift Outright." It resonates with many half-tones from the American tradition of landscape writing—echoing particularly Emerson's "Hamatreya"— and conquest. For a short poem, it does a lot of work.
But my mother doesn't appreciate the fact that, even in 1961 Frost's poems were not exactly state-of-the-art. They weren't completely out of step—Allen Tate and John Crowe Ransom had enjoyed a few decades of ascendancy—but neither did they use the most uniquely American materials. Frost, we remember, effectively launched his career as a poet in England, writing verse that sounds its kinship with the British tradition, while the break from that tradition and into an American language, most visibly advanced by Walt Whitman, was continuing all around him in the work of Pound, Eliot, H.D., and scores of other poets. And in 1961, the formalism that had resurged in the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s was beginning to break down as Adrienne Rich and Robert Lowell and others like them, trained as formalists, began to step away from those verse-forms and toward a more plain-spoken or speach-based approach to poetry.
Robert Lowell's "For the Union Dead," written and recited in May 1960 (published in The Atlantic in November 1960), is a good example of a public, occasional poem that also reflects that shift toward a poetics based in common, American speech.
Frost's work is not completely out of step with that American speech tradition either. I think his greatest achievement, from a technical standpoint, is that he recognized the iambic rhythm in the regional speech of his New England, and he managed to capture that regional rhythm in a traditional metrical form. I think it's fair to say that in some ways he Americanized blank verse or iambic pentameter, in his own way, though it's the connection of that verse form to the British tradition that seems to outlast his American achievement.
Alexander's "Praise Song for the Day," by contrast, seems to me to be a smart and muscular work of American speech that smartly echoes not only the themes of Barack Obama's campaign and vision, but as well particular speech traditions from which she and Obama draw, speech traditions that have been important in American literature, American poetry, and American law—all while articulating the delicacy and danger of our present moment as well as the power of the hope Obama has worked to renew.
The theme of speech develops early in "Praise Song for the Day":
Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other's
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.
Speech is a means of connection. Paused speech is a missed connection, and perhaps an avoidance. Here we are in the city of our imagination, and we see and acknowledge one another, or we don't. When we don't, we find ourselves lost, and we look to our past and history to guide us:
All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.
When we don't talk, we're trying to decide what to say, how, with our words, we might make our way through the thorns of mutual relation, through the noise.
The next passage of the poem tells us what will happen if we can make this speech come out: we will repair, we will make music, we will be carried, we will see what's coming, and we will begin to learn, and to connect.
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.
"We encounter each other in words," she continues, finally making the case most plainly... This is why the poem, why the speech, why normal speech is so important: "We encounter each other in words." Words are our meeting place. Words are our meeting halls, our congresses.
This doesn't echo the tone, but the sentiment of Walt Whitman's democratic vision in "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Here, it's worth quoting a sizable passage from that poem:
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb'd, blush'd, resented, lied, stole, grudg'd,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me.
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting,
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call'd by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping,
Play'd the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
Whitman responds, in 1856 and again in 1860 as he revises the poem, to the increasing atomization not only of urban life but of national political life. On the eve of the Civil War, the sense of fragmentation was growing. Whitman's poem says that we share even that sense of fragmentation, we have that in common, and even that can draw us together.
The poem itself is a great speech-act that seeks to argue, as Alexander does, that the street or the ferry-boat, these public spaces or public conveyances, are our public assemblies, and that much constitutional work happens when we encounter one another. Whitman's poem makes the case Alexander's does, and Alexander's poem makes the case Whitman's does: "We encounter each other in words."
These words can be "spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, / words to consider, reconsider."
We have rhetorical, tonal choices. What does Alexander choose? Words that are both smooth—dulcet, musical, easy, plain—and spiny—allusive, haunting, evocative. She is, by virtue of being on the inaugural dais declaiming, but her delivery is very measured; if not the volume of the whisper, this has the care of a whisper. So, we consider, and we reconsider. Alexander seems to say words have effects, choose well.
Words are our ways, so "We cross dirt roads and highways," we make our moves. Through language we can make the transit from the "will of some one" to "others," we can come to "see what's on the other side" and "to find a place where we are safe" and "walk into that which we cannot yet see."
What better expression both of American determination—we keep working toward a better place, a better life, and we keep working on the faith that our determination will yield the promise—and the uncertainty of the present moment?
What comes next in the poem is one of the most important points in the entire work:
Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.
This is a complex passage.
First, "Say it plain." A reference, I believe, to a central tenet of the African-American oral and oratorical tradition. Speak truth to power. Say it clearly. Directly. Some of you may have read the anthology of African-American speeches, Say It Plain: A Century of Great African American Speeches
"Say it plain: that many have died for this day." This is not only a reference to our veterans who have died, but a reference to all who have died in the struggle for freedom, including the martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement, countless killed in slavery. It's a trope of public speaking in America that goes back at least to Edward Everett's early speeches (maybe Daniel Webster's too) in the 1820s.
It is also, as the following lines make clear, a reference to all who have come before, all who have built the nation of which we are now a part: "Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, / who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges..."
This listing passage, which my mother criticized as "too mundane," is supposed, I believe, to be a passage of great uplift. It's the place where common acts are sanctified by the poem's attention, where they are recognized as constitutional acts. It is also the place in the poem where Alexander most reveals her debt to Whitman, who pioneered this kind of listing or cataloguing as both a poetic and a political act. The poet is a census-taker: as the poet sees and recognizes, the poet brings those people into the republic of the poem. The poet is taking stock in as plain language as she can muster: let life be the source of music. So to move from "Say it plain" to "Sing the names" is an easy, necessary, and inevitable step. Language itself, the plainest speech is sacred, is poetry.
The poem closes with two movements. First, Alexander summarizes the push of the previous passage: "Praise song for struggle." Praise the work that got us here. Praise the prudence not to waste. Praise the love that animates all this. Second, finally, she turns to look forward, to embrace the possibility the day has renewed:
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,
praise song for walking forward in the light.
Any sentence could be begun, any way of meeting in language. We are on the cusp, on the brink. We move forward. We move.
***
Some commentary on Alexander's poem:
It was oddly heartening, then, to see how completely Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem, "Praise Song for the Day," failed to live up to the standard of public, official verse in which the Romans excelled.
