The internationally recognized poet, James Ragan, continued his perpetual quest to break down borders here at the University. "We have pulled in as a culture, shutting out the rest of the world," he says. "We still need the world."
His most recent collection of poetry, "Too Long a Solitude," stands as a journey towards this revelation. From the opening poem he draws us into this experience, hoping "to learn to love again what first I dreamed, / free as wonder, soft as touch, / and of all things simple / to care again for them as much."
It becomes apparent his art is not one of political agenda; rather it's one of attempting to communicate a need for global unification. It starts by appreciating the simplicities that have been forgotten or diluted.
His words are vital to our generation, a generation which is saturated with the degradation of language in part due to the technological advances of our society. With the inclusion of the Internet and television into our daily lives, we are bombarded by images of truth without context.
Poetry is a means to fight this slanted truth by bringing about a world of context with which to understand the temper of our times. Ragan's poetry (and all poetry for that matter) fights against the mass media's language of misinformation. But he does so with a sincere conviction that can be felt not only in his poetry, but also in how he has chosen to lead his life.
"Live poetry," he says. It is a phrase which he holds close to his heart -- and one that is commonplace for those who know him. In his lifetime he has read all over the world, including for six heads of state, and performed as one of three Americans along with Robert Bly and Bob Dylan, before an audience of over eight thousand at the First International Poetry Festival in Moscow, 1985.
As a visiting writer and guest professor at the University this semester, Ragan seeks to help other writers expand their vision to a more global one as well. And when he isn't pushing his students to chase after the astonishing insight or lecturing about the voices of generations past, he is pushing himself to fight the oppression and suffering of people from all walks of life.
Recently, Ragan traveled back to L.A. to read a poem on behalf of Neda Agha Soltan, the young woman killed at the 2009 Iranian election protests in the city of Tehran. James Ragan's poem, dedicated to Neda begins:
"Now
That the day's dead are numbered,
Now that I work the bellows to fire up my will,
And the all-scarred children river out to remember
In succession that what they survive, a lie has killed,
Now that your father weeps on the long mast of a pillow
While at dawn, the Basiji jogs, sleek as a lynx,
And the ragged claw in the Mullah's swallow
Pulls back the gun's bowed sling, no one will think..."
If nothing else, through this poem the reader may come to understand Ragan's desire to communicate to the world about the world. Communication is key here. Poetry may be the path to overcoming what the late media sage Marshall McLuhan calls the "tunnel vision of media." It is a way to bring about heightened awareness of the world and the people who populate it. After all, there is so much going on these days it can be easy to miss what histories are being written today.
By helping others expand the world around them, so that it may encompass events that go beyond themselves to places and moments and people whom they have never even met, the world itself expands and becomes much more of a community. When the fellow man and woman are given the sense of dignity each and every one of them deserves, the world may begin to heal.
The world certainly needs to be healed, with all that has gone on and is going on in this current decade of turbulence. But perhaps our distinguished visiting poet and professor, Mr. Ragan, can say it best: "We are a very young country. We need to be reminded we are in our adolescence and sometimes we behave badly. But when we mature as a country, we are still the grand experiment."
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You should read your poetry in the Union at 9 o'clock on Thursdays with us.