Giving Voice to Your Anger:
During lunch with my friend Marianne, a veteran progressive activist, she posed this question (and I paraphrase)
“Our anger motivates us to act. So how do we give voice to our anger? We can build a large platform from which we can yell at a lot of people. Or we can speak from a position of understanding and love and lead by example. We can show, gently but firmly, that there is another way. Because no one wants to change when you’re yelling at them.”
Man, that hit me hard. I wrote my first book because I was angry about how the book business sees its future (or doesn’t). My second book comes from a deep frustration with the narrow-minded, self-flaggelation of the American Jewish community.
I could on like this. There’s always something to be angry about and anger is a powerful reason to get out of bed. But do I want to be heard or do I want to be heard less dramatically and have it matter?
I’ve been thinking hard about that since our lunch. Yesterday, I heard this poem on The Writer’s Almanac. It’s by Jim Harrison.
Despond
At midnight in his living room a man
is angry at a fly that is bothering him.
How can this be?
A man is angry at things
that never happened
and never will happen.
He’s angry at the woman he’ll never meet
because she refuses to meet him
because, not existing herself,
she has no idea that he exists.
He’s frying potatoes that don’t exist
at sunset. The frying pan is a black sun
and out the window in the gathering dark
the ocean looks so heavy that it might fall
through the earth and join another ocean.
At dawn he wakes. There’s a fly in the room
but perhaps it’s a miniature bird. Magnified,
the sound is the basso rumbling of the universe
the peculiar music galaxies make when they fray
against each other. He sleeps again, his hand
on his dog’s heart which says don’t be angry.
She senses the steps of the last dance saved for us
How does your anger serve you? How does it harm you?
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6 Replies to “Giving Voice to Your Anger:”
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I loved that poem when it came up.
As a psychotherapist I often ponder the use/value/ and abuse of anger. I just bought Robert Greene’s new book: 33 strategies of WAR. (During Bush 1’s regime, Green wrote about Power, during Clinton’s it was Seduction. Not random that this one is War, I think. I got to your blog via Highclassblogs.
I loved that poem when it came up.
As a psychotherapist I often ponder the use/value/ and abuse of anger. I just bought Robert Greene’s new book: 33 strategies of WAR. (During Bush 1’s regime, Green wrote about Power, during Clinton’s it was Seduction. Not random that this one is War, I think. I got to your blog via Highclassblogs.
man, I needed to read that… thanks!
man, I needed to read that… thanks!
Neat post. I’ve always enjoyed Harrison’s poetry. And I think yours (and your friend’s) message needs to get out there. I find I’m occasionally channeling anger into my blogging (as groan-inducing as that may sound) but in a positive way, as in something I posted just last night called “Against Truthiness.” In fiction, angered turned to reasonable, focused energy can be so freaking powerful (see Roth, etc.)… and it does reach more people that way.
Neat post. I’ve always enjoyed Harrison’s poetry. And I think yours (and your friend’s) message needs to get out there. I find I’m occasionally channeling anger into my blogging (as groan-inducing as that may sound) but in a positive way, as in something I posted just last night called “Against Truthiness.” In fiction, angered turned to reasonable, focused energy can be so freaking powerful (see Roth, etc.)… and it does reach more people that way.