"Wichita Vortex Sutra" is an anti-war poem written by Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), in 1966. For the first time, she appears in his collection of poems called "Planet News", and is also published in collections of poems from 1947-1995 [1] and 1947-1980 [2] . On the anniversary of the fortieth anniversary of the poem, Rolf Potts, in The Nation , describes it as "an elegy in the name of the power of language, in an age of competing information." [3]
Creation History
"Wichita Vortex Sutra" came about as a voice recording that Ginsberg made with a Uher cassette recorder while traveling around the Midwest . [3] He composed a poem on the go, writing down everything that came to his mind. Ginsberg later stated that “these lines from Wichita” are located in accordance with the organic vector of space-time, which coincides with the order in which phrases appear and are pronounced. “During pauses that lasted a minute or two, between each line, I formulated new ones in my mind and wrote down ... I sat in the back of the bus, talking to myself, and my only listener was a tape recorder. Every time I said something interesting, I clicked on the record button. ” [four]
Ginsberg compares images of the Kansas landscape with fragments from media reports about the Vietnam War , and contrasts the bloodthirstiness of the war with the conservatism of the hinterland. He fears that Wichita , where Carrie Station once supported the sobriety movement, “will start a whirlwind of hatred that will defeat the Mekong Delta .” [4] In Buddhism , the term " sutra " refers mostly to canonical writings, many of which are considered to be records of the oral instructions of Buddha Gautama .
"Wichita Vortex Sutra" tells of the power of words, it expresses the poet's desire to end the war using the mantra . [4] Responding to these lines: “Rusk says that without Cruelty / There won’t be Peace ... Viet Cong. Losses, three-five-zero-zero ... screams the headline of the news ... Soft flesh, like a girl from Kansas / Torn by an explosion ... shot - / pulsating meat. / While this American nation is at war, / contradiction and lies for the good of the world / spread along all the waves of the ether, " [4] Potts writes:
"Desperate for the idea that the importance of the power of poetry was dissolved in an ocean of propaganda and contradiction, Ginsberg appeals to the icons of spirituality - Christ, Allah, Yahweh, William Blake, various Indian saints - to help him correct the language for a higher purpose ... to express the astounding claim that war can be stopped by the power of poetry - that was Ginsberg’s obvious mission to correct the American language ” [3]
James F. Mersmann, in his book The Vietnam Whirlwind: Poets and Poetry Against War, writes:
“The main virtue of Wichita is that it makes the reader experience the destructive power of propaganda and violence through the use of speech. Her technique draws the reader’s attention and reproduces speech, capable of daily blurring feelings, which leads to a painful realization that the language is not used to communicate the truth, but to manipulate the listener. ” [4]
In Culture
Philip Glass wrote the music for Ginsberg's poem. She entered the albums "Hydrogen Jukebox" and "Solo on the Piano" [5] , a similar thing happened with Sally Whitwell's album: "A Flurry of Madness: Philip Glass's Solo Piano Music", which received the ARIA Music Award. The phrases from "Wichita" ("torn by a shell explosion ... caught in a barbed wire, hydrostatic shock") are also used in the song "Three-five-zero-zero", presented in the rock musical Hair. [6] Artemis Records released an audio version of the poem on CD in 2004. [7]
In January 2010, the poem was presented on stage by Ira Glass, to the live accompaniment of Philip Glass, at the Apple store in New York. Ira Glass - Leading the National Public Radio of America , is a cousin of Philip Glass. [eight]
Notes
- ↑ Ginsberg, Allen. Collected poems, 1947-1995. - 1st Harper Perennial Modern Classics. - New York: HarperPerennial, 2007 .-- ISBN 0061139750 .
- ↑ Ginsberg, Allen. Collected poems, 1947-1980. - 1st Perennial Library. - New York: Perennial Library, 1988 .-- ISBN 0060914947 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 Potts, Rolf; November 14, 2006; The Last Anti War Poem , thenation.com, retrieved Feb 27, 2014
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 On "Wichita Vortex Sutra" , english.illinois.edu, retrieved Dec 10, 2009
- ↑ Philip Glass: Music: Wichita Vortex Sutra Archived on January 27, 2010. , philipglass.com, retrieved Dec 10, 2009
- ↑ Miller p. 92
- ↑ Wichita Vortex Sutra CD on Amazon.com
- ↑ PHILIP GLASS @ APPLE SOHO , quietcolor.com, January 25, 2010, accessed October 12, 2010
Links
- Miller, Scott. Let the Sun Shine In: The Genius of Hair (Heinemann, 2003) ISBN 0-325-00556-7
- Arras.net
- Wings.buffalo.edu