Poetry, Play, and the State of the State

First some Font:
“Wound in the Sun”

My dear friend and fellow local writer, Lynn Wallace, has a new book of poetry out, and since I can’t describe the collection any better, here’s a bit about it from the back of the book: “Containing poems written over the last 30 years, “Wound in the Sun,” explores some odd corners, places visited while afflicted with the benign disease of thinking, feeling, and living in the modern age. Each poem is a sun-streaked room somewhere, or an overlooked moon of a bruised and bustling planet, or a comet apt to break apart soon but before doing so will leave a bright vaporous tail that is barely more than nothing.”

That’s a fittingly poetic way to describe this thoughtful, subtle, brilliant work of poetry.

Lynn’s felicity with language sparkles like sunshine dancing on the still surface of a secluded lake, every page shimmering to life, dancing toward illumination.

But that’s not all. So does his intelligence and his insightful observations. Out of a lifetime of honest introspection, Lynn says, “Look at this. Listen to this. See the world through my eyes for a moment.” And what a world it is!

The title of the collection—and the collection itself—calls to mind one of my favorite Latin phrases: Omnes vulnerant, ultima necat: All wound, the last kills.

Legend has it, there’s a how-to manual for the best way to read “Wound in the Sun” that isn’t in print, so I’ll share with you the heart of its instructions here. In brief, it urges that you go outside and lie on your back, doing your best not to move. Know that blood is racing through your veins, the surface of the earth on which you lie is zinging along at several miles per minute, the planet is zipping around the sun at many miles per second, the sun is whirling on this galactic carrousel. Read poems. Lie as still as you are able. Never stare directly at the sun.

There is indeed a wound in the world, in the sun, and one of the best ways to deal with it is by reading. I recommend, “Wound in the Sun.”

When he’s not writing thought-provoking poetry, Lynn serves as an English professor and Director of Developmental Studies at Gulf Coast Community College, where he teaches creative writing, literature & film, and composition while supervising various programs. He had the distinction of being awarded Professor of the Year in 2006.

Lynn will reading from and signing “Wound in the Sun” this Friday, April 24th at Joey’s Coffee in downtown from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. Please join us.


Now some Film:
“State of Play”

“State of Play” is a well-made thriller with at least two thought-provoking topics, which I’ll get to in a moment. The movie is based on a BBC miniseries I saw a few years back and liked a lot. The series is available on DVD, and watching both it and the American movie it inspired is interesting and instructive. Each has its strengths—the miniseries more time to take a novelistic approach; the movie, slick Hollywood production value and big movie stars. I like the miniseries better, but, to my surprise, the movie was an extremely faithful adaptation. And though the movie has Russell Crowe and Helen Mirren, the miniseries has Kelly Macdonald (one of my very faves) and Billy Nighy.

The story is this: A rising congressman and an investigative journalist get embroiled in a case of seemingly unrelated, brutal murders. The two are old friends and more recent frenemies (yes, there’s a woman involved). The reporter, Cal McCaffery is assigned to sniff out the story and steps into conspiracies and cover-ups that threaten to shake the nation’s power structures. Revelation upon revelation pile up, ultimately bringing to light the corrupt dealings of major corporations and the federal government, and no one is safe when billions of dollars are at stake

The fast-paced “State of Play” works well as a thriller, but where it really excels (and could have done more with) is when it looks at the dangers of Black Water-like private mercenaries for money program and the demise of newspapers, and ultimately, far more tragically, real reporting. These two things—functioning illiteracy and the corruption the love of money brings—perhaps more than anything else, are destroying our culture and way of life.

Not all, but many of the powerful puppet masters pulling the strings behind the anti-government, anti-tax, and separatist movements have profit motives. Their desire to privatize various functions of government is for profit—for them and their close friends. They claim to serve the same Fundamentalist god many of their foot soldier do, but it’s mammon and only mammon they kneel before. And of all the things that can be corrupted by being driven by the bottom line, the most dangerous by far is war. (I realize most wars are fought over money, but here I’m talking about those who fight them.) Soldiers for hire, accountable only to shareholders, is Orwellian in implication, and it’s already here—and the film claims they’re now being used domestically.

I left the theater feeling heavy and saddened by the death of journalism—obviously something I’ve been thinking about long before I saw the movie (which barely touches on it). Every week brings news of another daily shutting its doors, of the end of an era, as advertisers pull their advertising dollars from printed news, where journalism in America is dying a not-so-slow death. It’s a true tragedy, one that threatens our democracy as much as anything else. And it’s not just that professional journalism is in ICU, but more so that people are getting their news from crackpot partisan blowhards meant to bolster what they already believe and comedians who go for a laugh above all else, including the truth, but that We The People have stopped reading.

Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

We are not informed, we are not enlightened because we are not reading. As Mark Twain said, “The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the one you can’t read them.”