Michael Gilbert's Article from Nonprofit Online News:
"Art, Trauma, and Social Change"
Excerpts from the article below. Link to
the complete article:
http://news.gilbert.org/features/featureReader$6007
Andy Himes' first goal for the Voices in Wartime
film was simply to help people understand the
experience of war. We tend to distance ourselves from
the consequences. If you have seen the film or read the
book, you know his team accomplished this. The
perspectives included are extraordinarily varied,
including journalist, soldiers, historians, and others.
The only voices I would have wanted to hear more of are
those of the people who have no formal role in war at
all, other than to suffer and die as their communities
are embroiled in conflict.
Andy also wanted to explore the origins of war, which
come from an emotional source that is as personal as the
experience of conflict. We are drawn into war based on
our fears. And the foundation of every war is a sense of
victimization. As much as the experience of war itself,
these origins are made visible through the poetry of
individual voices.
Filmmaking was a powerful experience for Andy: "It
was fun. It was painful. It was intense." The film had a
top notch team working on it, including Rick King as
director and Jonathan King as producer. There were the
inevitable artistic and political differences with his
partners, which were heightened by a desire to make a
timeless film that avoided traditional polemic. The team
wanted poetry, not preaching.
I asked Andy a question that I ask of everyone I've
interviewed in the last few years: How do you know if
you are succeeding? With art and storytelling, this is
not an easy question to answer. I share his belief that
"cracking open the human heart is a powerful tool for
change". Denial of the emotional reality of our own
experiences and the experiences of others may help us
get through the day, but that denial is also what allows
us to accept or even perpetrate oppression and violence.
The Voices in Wartime website is rich and definitely
worth exploring. They offer discussion and action guides
to go with the film and the book. There is a new 20
minute documentary called Beyond Wartime, focusing on
healing, that Andy directed himself. The website has a
growing collection of images, poetry, and essays
submitted by site members. They are specifically
inviting young people to contribute to a conversation
called Imagine a Culture of Peace. I particularly like
the way their online community allows people to compile
their own anthologies of words and images.
They have partnered with organizations ranging from
The World Affairs Council to local school districts to
deliver it to various communities. The current
curriculum includes the film, with a discussion and
action guide, poetry, also with a discussion and action
guide, and material on The Great War and US land wars in
Asia. The reception they've received from teachers is
evidently extraordinary.
Link to the complete article:
http://news.gilbert.org/features/featureReader$6007
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Poem of the Month
Now, Orphan
by Adianne M. Marcus
Still, standing over that marked plot,
while the terrible war
in whichever country you wish to name rages on
and on, while children are left orphans through no
design
of their own, routed from their homes like sheep that
have huddled too long, the shearing continues. You have
no clothes that will fit what grief requires. Black is
not
a country of origin, only a destination.
The dead litter your life. Orphans of
circumstance,
diseases with pronounceable names, you tally the months:
May, June , August, as names are recounted, the
holocaust
of death won’t stop, it is marching up to your front
door, knocking,
only you won’t answer that hollow sound.. Not yet. It
isn’t time,
you announce in a voice steady as your hands. Then you
look down, see
these are the hands of your mother, the brown spots
connecting
you to her life, as if by drawing lines between them,
you could
read her name, which is no longer in the book of life.
Each morning the newspapers continue their
body count. The faces
of the dead begin to resemble all the people you have
known. Their
jackets are jackets you gave them, and the children have
dresses
you bought in some out of the way store that was having
a close out sale.
There is no letting up. No letting go. You think of what
that poet said,
after the first death there is no other. But he was
wrong. There is.
Read this poem online.
DVD of the Film Available!
To Order the DVD, go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/dvd.htm
Voices in Wartime is a feature-length documentary that delves into
the experience of war through powerful images and the words of poets –
unknown and world-famous. Poets around the world, from the United States
and Colombia to Britain and Nigeria to Iraq and India, share their
poetry and experiences of war. Soldiers, journalists, historians and
experts on combat interviewed in Voices in Wartime add diverse
perspectives on war’s effects on soldiers, civilians and society.
See a Trailer of the Film: Go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/trailer.htm
Learn More about the Film: Go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/movie.htm
Featured poems from Voices in Wartime are now
available in MP3 and Windows Media audio formats on the web site. Visit
the
Poems in the Film page to download and hear the audio clips.
Go to
http://voicesinwartime.org/poems.htm
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