Episode 54: Poetry Is A Destructive Force (Awimbawe Chop Suey)

Brigit Pegeen Kelly reads for Wallace Stevens' poem "Poetry Is A Destructive Force" and we then discuss.

Poetry Is a Destructive Force

That's what misery is,
Nothing to have at heart.
It is to have or nothing.

It is a thing to have,
A lion, an ox in his breast,
To feel it breathing there.

Corazón, stout dog,
Young ox, bow-legged bear,
He tastes its blood, not spit.

He is like a man
In the body of a violent beast.
Its muscles are his own . . .

The lion sleeps in the sun.
Its nose is on its paws.
It can kill a man.

TOPICS COVERED: Acceptance, Aggression, Animal nature, Appetite, Blood as essence, Civilization's facade, Consumption, Destructive instincts, Dominance and submission, Ego and identity, Ethical paradoxes, Experiential essence, Fear and survival, Flesh consumption, Human-animal dichotomy, Hunger (physical and metaphorical), Inner violence, Innocence as facade, Instinctual heritage, Joy in presence, Killing for pleasure, Love and connection, Man as predator, Meat industry cruelty, Misery's depth, Moral contradictions, Nature of happiness, Nietzsche's philosophy, Pain and suffering, Pleasure principle, Poetry's power, Predatory behavior, Primal fears, Romantic love, Sacrifice and consumption, Sexuality, Social constructs, Suffering's universality, Survival instincts, Violence inherent in life, Vulnerability of being, Wagner and Beethoven (cultural references), Words vs. experience, Yorgos Lanthimos's "Poor Things"

Sources and influences: BBC's "The Moral Maze," Frank O'Hara's "Lunch Poems," Nietzsche's writings on transformation and values, Yorgos Lanthimos's film "Poor Things". Music = Fela's Zombie, Tokens' Lion Sleeps Tonight, and System Of A Down's Chop Suey.