Saturday, July 14, 2018

Introductory Remarks to ‘The Story of Our People’

The Story of Our People is a poetic drama. It presents a contemporary picture of the universe, one in which Nature is not cruel or threatening, but simply indifferent to human society. Of course life arose within this natural environment. And humans evolved as a species within a crucible of living organisms here on earth. But a detached observation of the human condition may need to accept that we are mere chance happenings within the expanse of the universe, brief chances in Nature’s expanse..

Furthermore, The Story portrays the depth of tragic moments within human history. The human story is replete with wars and civil strife and the sufferings of people within this continuing march of tragedy. Religions have been founded offering explanations and consolation. Political theories and ideologies have been proposed as remedies to the ongoing human struggle. But these attempts have too often ended in new and renewed suffering. The only rational guide toward a humane society is to encourage people to embrace social responsibility. These are the themes that The Story embraces in this short drama.

The format of the work is that of a cross genre dramatic story. The body of the work is a group of tenuously linked poems. The initial poems describe three characters, the protagonists in the drama, and their personal development. These three characters then join in the demonstrations of their time. And the demonstration turns into an uprising complete with barricades and further civil confrontation. Later two of the characters escape and retire to safety where they enjoy a period of reflection and companionship.

The poems are organized into four scenes. These scenes are introduced by narratives within a parallel drama where a grandmother relates The Story to a group of children whom she is leading to safety, once again from civil strife. Hence, the cross genre structure of the drama creates an impression of a myth or historical archetype. But the images within the poems themselves present this human storyline as a stark reality without the slightest benefit of fairy tale escape. “No myths swaddle our births…” My hope is that the form of The Story may render palatable some of the disagreeable ideas and images that emerge from the drama.

The inception of the drama was in fact a single poem, the final poem. I attempted in that poem, titled as The Slaying of a Poet, to capture the scene of Lorca’s murder during the Spanish Civil War. (Hence the dedication.) After composing that poem I began to look backward and to develop the broader story culminating in that final scene. The result is this poetic drama, which hopefully captures the philosophical and political themes I described in the previous paragraphs. But I should also add two further comments. First, the title may raise some confusion. The Story of Our People would seem to suggest that the drama is about a specific cultural group or nation. That is not my intention at all. The drama embraces all of humanity within our shared tragedy. Upon a closer reading however, one could argue that ‘our people’ refers to those chosen few who remain optimistic that a more humane and peaceful society is possible. The second comment I want to make is to correct a mistaken interpretation on the part of some of my readers to date. There are several references to Marxist texts, which the reader of this edition will find in the footnotes and commentary. In fact what I have done is to paraphrase those references and that is the operative word. There is no intent to glorify socialist revolution. But, all of these civil uprisings are undeniably part of our history. They have contributed to the story of human tragedy, yet have also quite frequently raised reasonable demands. And in the grandmother’s words “…kept hope alive.” So, no I am not a communist offering a new volume of literary subversion. Nor am I a fellow traveller. A more apt description of my lot would be that of a lonely traveller.

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