"Let us remember ... that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."
- Christian Wiman, poet, essayist
and editor of
Poetry Magazine-:- -:- -:- -:- -:- -:-
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The San Francisco Public Library presents
At this special event Devorah Major and Ana Elsner join forces in the staging of a unique poetry duet. The two poets take turns bringing their poems to life in this juxtaposition of two distinctive personalities. Poet and writer Ana Elsner is a repeat-feature at the San Francisco Public Library. She designs and produces programs that appeal to a wide audience in an ongoing effort to raise the popularity of poetry. Devorah Major is a poet, novelist, essayist and performance artist, who served as San Francisco's third Poet Laureate from 2002-2006.
See and hear two strong women poets delivering powerful poetry in this dynamic dialogue conceived and choreographed by Ana Elsner.There has never been a just one, never an honorable one on the part of the instigators of war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change. The handful in power, as usual, will shout for the war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously object at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder.
A few fair men will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
And now the whole nation, pulpit and all, will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open.
Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is being attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
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Where is the wisdom
we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge
we have lost in information?
- Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965), poet, dramatist and literary critic
Lesen ohne Liebe, Wissen ohne Ehrfurcht, Bildung ohne Herz, das sind die schlimmsten Sünden gegen den Geist.
- Hermann Hesse, deutsch-schweizerischer Lyriker, Essayist, Erzähler und Kritiker (1877-1962)
Reading without love, knowledge without tribute, education without heart, those are the worst sins against the mind.
- Hermann Hesse, German-Swiss poet, essayist, novelist and critic
(Translation by Ana Elsner)
Published in many languages, Hesse is best known for his works:
Siddhartha, an allegorical novel about the search for enlightenment, first published in 1922,
Steppenwolf, a demonstration of the duality of human nature, pub. 1928,
and The Glass Bead Game (Das Glasperlenspiel), a futuristic novel, describing how people construct, deconstruct, signify, encode and program their perception of reality, pub. 1943.
"The above quote of Hesse reminds me of his novel Unter dem Rad, where the protaganist's spirit is crushed by the rigid educational system of the day.
Hesse's short stories called Märchen deal with the artist's struggle to create great art. They are told in painstakingly beautiful detail and sometimes with humor and irony.
Hesse is one of the greatest psychological novelists since Dostoyevsky. He was a manic-depressive who was not afraid to delve into the depths of his soul. One can clearly see the influence that Jungian psychology had on his work.
In his novel Narcissus and Goldmund, the two protagonists embody the two necessary components of the creative spirit: logic/abstract thought balanced with intuition/emotion. Narcissus, the ascetic monk, is of the Father world coming to terms with the processes of individuation through his intellect. Goldmund, the woodcarving icon artist, is of the Mother world feeling his way through life in the quest for discovering his true Self. This novel is literally steeped in Jungian archetypes and dream symbols on just about every page.
Applying the Riso-Hudson enneagram personality theory, Narcissus represents the five (the Thinker) and Goldmund the four (the Artist) on the scale of personality types. It is no surprise that Hesse, himself, was a four with a five wing."
Vincent Russo, Composer, Orchestrator and Conductor
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