A Handbook for Poor Poets
Larry L. Dill's
New Hope Journal
Personal Essays and Public Opinions since 1979
April 1, 2005
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In the April issue of the New Hope Journal you will find a follow-up to my Tsunami relief article, “Tsunamier than Thou.” It is called “Larry of Waynesville: Thinking Globally and Writing Locally.”
Vowing on New Years day to get further out into the world this year I originally planned (with the help of Deborah Gaddy) to stage a benefit concert for Tsunami relief here in Waynesville. When the logistics for planning such an event turned out to be beyond our means, I settled instead for taking on the conservative columnist for the local Waynesville newspaper who had written a particularly offensive article about America’s moral superiority in its Tsunami relief efforts.
My article was published in the Mountaineer in February and can be viewed on my web page along with Ted Kirby’s original article and his response to my response to his article.
What’s religion got to do with it? I think “Larry of Waynesville” (a humorous piece about the exchange between Kirby and me) and a new collection of four poems (three previously unpublished) from the 80s and 90s (all dealing with God) will answer that question. For my earlier struggles with religion see “What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?”
Also in this issue the completion of my essay, “Ward Churchill, 911 and the American Dream.” Research into the Churchill saga, together with the Muslim bashing in the Ted Kirby exchange, has brought me to a new level of understanding of the so called “clash of civilizations” rhetoric in post 9/11 America. I’ll have more to say about the subject and the growing climate of intellectual repression in this country in future issues of the Journal.
If you want to follow my trail on this, I suggest the following books: “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim—America, The Cold War, And the Roots of Terror” by Columbia University Professor, Mahmood Mamdani (Pantheon Books, 2004); the now classic “Scoundrel Time” by Lillian Hellman with an excellent introduction to the McCarthy era by Gary Wills (Little Brown, 1976); Ward Churchill’s impassioned study of American Imperialism, “ On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” (AK Press, 2003); and Noam Chomsky’s dispassionate treatment of essentially the same material in “Hegemony and Survival” (Henry Holt, 2003).
Thanks for tuning in.
Larry L. Dill
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