A local poet, Matthew Cohn, created a piece titled, ” Bush’s War,” published in The Malibu Times several weeks ago. His words and passion touched a reader who responded in a letter to the editor. Although the reader disagreed with the political content of the poem, in my opinion, the response intensifies the validity of Cohn’s poem as a work of art just as throughout the centuries, art has elicited responses to political themes. Artists express their wants, needs, desires, how they view the human condition, and how they view what is happening in the world. Great works of art not only touch the imagination of the reader, viewer, or listener, but evoke human feelings of joy, sadness, anger. I am impressed by the fact that a poem as passionately written by Cohn, evoked a passionate response.
However, what I find disturbing in the letter written about the poem is that the response was not about the poem itself as a work of art, nor did it simply disagree with Cohn’s political view. The letter was filled with exaggerated and erroneous facts. Does the writer understand that war has been waged by the U.S.? We are also engaged in terrorism. To incarcerate prisoners in confined spaces would hardly be considered “coddling.” They are human beings who are the same as our men and women sent to kill in distant lands. A quote from Martin Luther King may help all of us understand that violence begets violence:
“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Jeanne Cariati