The Nomad Flute
You that sang to me once sing to me now
let me hear your long lifted note
survive with me
the star is fading
I can think farther than that but I forget
do you hear me
do you still hear me
does your air
remember you
oh breath of morning
night song morning song
I have with me
all that I do not know
I have lost none of it
but I know better now
than to ask you
where you learned that music
where any of it came from
once there were lions in China
I will listen until the flute stops
and the light is old again
****
Earlier this year when The Shadow of Sirius earned the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, W.S. Merwin became one of only three poets to win the award twice.
In late May I had the tremendous privilege of joining W.S. Merwin at Columbia University, as he and other writers at the height of their powers—historians, novelists, playwrights, and journalists—gathered to accept this year’s Pulitzer Prizes. Merwin was typically graceful and gracious in receiving his award, even while cameras from “Bill Moyers Journal” watched his every movement.
Yet while the award-winners were honored, there was a sobering feeling in the air, with the future of journalism and newspapers a dominant topic of conversation. Like so many in the publishing industry these days, despite such invigorating, meaningful moments, I wonder about the future of publishing—if and how readers will engage with news and literature. As the audience at Columbia listened to the few speeches and conversations at the Pulitzer ceremonies, I started to wonder about the future of the Pulitzer Prizes themselves. How much longer will people gather to celebrate such achievements in writing when we are witnessing the closure of papers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, or the threatened closure of the Boston Globe—to name just two?
I last attended the Pulitzer ceremonies in 2005, in the company of Ted Kooser, who received the award for his book Delights & Shadows. During that visit, I watched as Bilal Hussein and several other AP photographers enthusiastically collected their award for International reporting. Not too long thereafter, Hussein was imprisoned in Abu Ghraib by the US military and held for over a year without being formally charged, apparently for doing his job too well. (It may be worth noting that this event itself escaped media attention.) Every book, every article and every poem is layered with and supported by additional narratives of dedication and risk—behind-the-scenes labors that lead to its writing and publication.
This year perhaps no story was more telling than that of Paul Giblin who received the award for best local reporting, with his investigative coverage of Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio in The East Valley Tribune. Giblin and his co-recipient Ryan Gabrielson spent six months researching and writing their expose and questioning Arpaio’s abuse of his office. Giblin and Gabrielson gathered their information with the help of many others who believe that such work is crucial to a functioning democracy. [www.eastvalleytribune.com/page/reasonable_doubt]. After talking with Giblin about his work, someone in the Copper Canyon group asked “What’s next for you?” expecting him to tell us about another momentous piece of reporting. Giblin’s response: “Find a job.” It turns out that to survive in this economy, his paper had to cut one-third of its staff, so even a Pulitzer-winning writer can be left without a place to ply his trade.
Which brings me back to poetry.
When I first read the manuscript for The Shadow of Sirius, I was struck by a number of strong responses, but most notably the feeling of simple joy to be alive in a world that provides us with singular poets like W.S. Merwin, poets who work in silent isolation. That Shadow of Sirius was honored in a tradition alongside journalists who doggedly follow a story and photographers who risk their lives to give us images from the frontlines make the award all the more poignant. And yet, none of these writers write toward the goal of an award, recalling Merwin’s poem “From the Start”:
Who did I think was listening
when I wrote down the words
in pencil at the beginning
words for singing
to music I did not know
and people I did not know
would read them and stand to sing them
already knowing them
while they sing they have no names
We need poets like W.S. Merwin and journalists like Paul Giblin. In the coming months I hope to highlight and acknowledge such people in this space.
Michael Wiegers
