Our Perishing Republic

The news being dominated by Penn St. and Aurora, I’ve been thinking how common the course of cruelty and violence is in America these days, though much of it flows unreported, in families, schools, and the workplace. Sandusky and the Aurora gunman both sought out innocent victims and imposed unspeakable but all too common abuse upon them. Meantime, men in authority dither or connive: Coach Paterno stands accused of having sacrificed Jerry’s victims on the altar of gridiron self-aggrandizement, while neither Obama nor Romney will even mention guns in their tut-tutting about the Aurora massacre, and we must suppose that the next “national tragedy” will unfold soon enough. The father of a boy killed at Columbine, with the ironic name of Mauser (a major German weapons manufacturer), told Chris Matthews last night that the American people have given up on gun control, because the NRA and its lobbyists have worn them out promoting the idea that the Constitution grants our citizens the unassailable right to own ammo and firearms, even assault rifles with 100-round magazines—“for deer hunting,” says Senator Rob Johnson (R – WI), with a twinkle in his eye. And I think of Jeffers’ “Shine, Perishing Republic”: “While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire, / And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens . . . // But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption / Never has been        compulsory. . . .”

New Book Review

I have a review of two fine chapbooks up at http://www.whlreview.com/no-7.2/reviews/GeorgeHeld.pdf

Please check it out. The same issue of WHLR has a review of my book AFTER SHAKESPEARE: SELECTED SONNETS, if you'd care to access it.

New Poem

Please check out my new poem at http://www.currencylit.com/

Are You Carryin'?

“In an average year, roughly a hundred thousand Americans are killed or wounded with guns.”

“When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood not as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.”

From “Battleground America,” by Jill Lepore, THE NEW YORKER, April 23, 2012

Update

The last three weeks have been busy for me as a poet. On April 15, I joined about two dozen other poets for the launch of TOKEN ENTRY: NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY POEMS at Manitoba’s in the East Village. I have two poems in this anthology, which also includes such poets as Grace Paley, Billy Collins, Langston Hughes, and Hart Crane:

http://www.amazon.com/Token-Entry-York-Subway-Poems/dp/0980191696

On April 28 I taught a haiku workshop at the 5^th Annual Suffolk County Community College Creative Writing Festival:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150815892143501&set=oa.10150873232851154&type=1#!/photo.php?fbid=10150815892243501&set=oa.10

The online journal RIGHT HAND POINTING chose my poem “Reënactment” as one of 12 poems for its special issue devoted to poems of no more than 30 words:

https://sites.google.com/site/51rhpissue/george-held

EYE SOCKET, an online poetry journal out of Portland, OR, features four of my poems in its May issue:

http://eyesocketjournal.blogspot.com/

Please check out my work and leave a comment at the site.

Women Retaliate against VA Abortion Statute

          Washington, Mar. 3. Women members of the Virginia legislature have introduced a bill that would require men to undergo vasectomies upon reaching puberty. This law would seek to balance the pending legislation that requires women who desire an abortion to first have an intrusive sonogram of their uterus, a procedure that includes the introduction of a sonic wand into the birth canal.

          Maryellen Cox-Chambliss, one of the two female sponsors, says her bill will be more forgiving than the male-sponsored mandatory sonogram law: “After all,” she told the press, “our bill allows men an alternative to the vasectomy, and that is to undergo digital prostate massage as part of a monthly STD exam.”

          Men inside and outside Virginia have complained loudly about the unfairness of the women’s proposal. Guy Claiborne, a twelfth generation Virginian from Lynchburg, said that while the mandatory sonogram law is consonant with the hallowed tradition of introducing various objects into “the female vagina, men require personal control over the sanctity of their bodily orifices.”

          Gov. Bob McDonnell continues to say he is ready to sign a less-intrusive form of the mandatory sonogram bill into law “as soon as the lady folk stand down and give us a break so we can continue to bring progressive change to our great Commonwealth.”

          Ms. Cox-Chambliss accused the governor of grandstanding to secure the vice-presidential nomination at the GOP convention this summer. “It’s well known that most American men want to keep women in their place. But,” she warned, “a Santorum-McDonnell candidacy, with its harsh anti-feminist stance, would push the few thousand women who remain loyal to the Republican Party into the Democratic fold.”

          Sen. Mitch McConnell, a sworn foe of President Obama’s reelection, has urged Gov. McDonnell to back off the sonogram issue and advises advocates of the vasectomy or prostatic massage legislation to exclude white men over 65.

New Poem Online

Right Hand Pointing, an online poetry journal, has posted its latest issue today, March 1st. It includes a short poem of mine called "Prelude":
https://sites.google.com/site/49rhpissue/george-held