D.A. Gray's Blog

'Poets tend not to effect change directly. But what poets do is to point out the errors in our allusions, to sound the warning signs that we are heading toward the cliff. If we were represented by one figure in literature – perhaps it should be Cassandra, gifted with the gift of prophecy, cursed to watch the tragedy unfold regardless.
.....
This is one reason poets find their lives in danger under authoritarian regimes – they are a danger to the illusion. In the US, where the illusion of exceptionalism infects citizens at all levels – no sort of oppression is needed. The work of ignoring truths that are not convenient, that are outside our ‘snug unawareness,’ is done for the authoritarians at the lowest level of society. '

http://www.dagray.net/blog/thoughts-o...

http://www.dagray.net/blog/faith-doub...

'Doubt in this way becomes an antidote against believing rumor. Doubt keeps us from falling prey to authoritarians that hide behind the church. Doubt keeps us from following a person rather than following Christ. Doubt encourages us to study, no matter where our starting point is. Doubt encourages us to engage in contemplative prayer – that form of prayer where we stop submitting our wish list and simply listen. Doubt prepares us to grow spiritually from drinking milk to solid spiritual food.

And hopefully doubt saves us from being crushed when the people we’ve looked up to let us down, or are no longer here.'

http://www.dagray.net/blog

Thoughts on last night, the 3rd Punic War, neighbors and a Bruce Cockburn song ...

http://www.dagray.net/blog/seventeen-...

"as a kid growing away from the handed down 'wisdom' of the community where white supremacy was both overt and subtle, and even in the words of those who passed for progressive - I don't think I could express it, not knowing how to stand up to the people who were the first to teach right from wrong, how to make expressing anger a bridge rather than a fire under a bridge."

http://www.dagray.net/blog/meditation...

The full text up on my website:

" In writing this it hit me that I haven’t really been talking about war poetry or war or overseas. I think back to the cadences, many of which changed in my life in the military, and the othering that they do – the fact that what makes a person efficient in one specific realm takes on an unintended life of its own.
We have only to look at social media or our 24 hour news cycle to see what happens when language reduces people to a single story or stereotype. What makes person efficient in that war zone is playing with fire at home.
Misused this language separates the returning person from the village."

http://www.dagray.net/blog/a-foot-in-...

The reward is often hearing a story that reaches a depth or a power not often heard in a writing class. Or sometimes seeing something click with a student when you share a favorite poem that fits the theme for the week.

The uncertainty is wondering if the poems you pick will fall flat or if you will run out of approaches in helping the class understand it. I can't assume the students took a prerequisite class or assign them to go 'look it up.' Whatever we're going to understand we're going to understand right there right then.

http://www.dagray.net/blog/april-06th...

Please check out the interview with The Aiming Circle, about Contested Terrain, about the before-during-after of war poetry, and about the craft itself.

http://www.aimingcircle.com/2018/02/5...

While there please check out the list of great voices speaking truth to power and truth to a sometimes distant public about our 21st Century wars.

http://www.dagray.net/events/the-land...

A treasure trove of strong stories known as Lit UP.

http://www.dagray.net/blog/january-12...

'Time to stop being scared of difference.'