Today’s episode is guest hosted by Myka Kielbon.

TRANSCRIPT

I’m Myka Kielbon, and this is The Slowdown.

When I started working on this show, Jennifer, the outgoing producer, pointed out a folder in our file storage named HOPE, JOY, ETC. It was a place for poems that are hopeful, joyful, and the like. And while there are many poems in the world that belong in that folder, there are also so many good poems – important poems, beautiful poems – that deal with the darker subjects. That deal with death and disaster and despair. Things can get a bit doom and gloom around here if we don’t lean into the light.

If you’re listening to this episode first thing in the morning or as you go to sleep, looking for something easeful, I should apologize. Today’s poem is not that. It is a grim litany. But I think by naming our harsh reality, it holds out hope for a different world.

It will be read to you in just one voice, my voice, but the title calls it a dialogue. I want you to consider, while you’re listening, whom the dialogue might be between.

Dialogue on Violence
by Jayne Cortez

Violence    Violence    Violence
The violence that’s living in us is so deep
This human violence
This structural violence
This behavioral violence
This sexual violence
This official and unofficial violence
This police violence
This clergy violence
This family violence
This economic violence
This global violence
This military violence
This psychological violence
This personal violence
This gang violence
And rape
The pure form of violence
The birth of violence
Is the violence of birth
Leave it there       leave it there
The violence within is deep so deep
Don’t tell anybody       don’t tell anybody

It’s that direct       indirect
Productive    reproductive
Amateur    anonymous
Insidious     political
Pent-up    legitimate
Invisible      judicial      collective
Imperialist     automatic
Drunk    static     viral
Electoral     capitalist    atomic
Cult kind of violence
That violence will sink your soul

Will sink your soul
& it’s violence and forced prostitution
Violence & sexual services
Violence & hypocrisy
& violence & bourgeois democracy
Violence & technology
& violence & vocabulary 
Violence & privilege
& violence & power

depression    repression    suppression    oppression
depression    repression    suppression    oppression
depression    repression    suppression    oppression

             leave it there     leave it there

It’s the victim & the victimizer
The victim & the victimizer
The sacrifice & the one who sacrifices
The sacrifice & the one who sacrifices
Don’t tell anybody
Don’t tell anybody

interrogation    interrogation
intolerance        intolerance
deprivation        deprivation
complicity           complicity
torture                  torture
domination         domination        domination

Pain
Leave no traces
Avoid the pain      leave no traces
Pain grief & fear & blood & Pain
Leave no traces
The violence inside of us is deep     so deep
Give it up if you don’t really want it
Give it up if you don’t really want it
It’s violence & love
And violence & ideology
And violence & discrimination
And violence & religion
And violence & art & violence & hate
And violence & ignorance
And violence & racism
And violence & monopoly
And violence & poverty
And violence & hunger
And violence & resentment
And that vomiting reactionary violence
Corporate violence
Industrial violence
Urban violence      rural violence
Ethnic violence
Pharmaceutical violence
The violence of AIDS      drugs & terrorism
Put a muzzle on violence
That rough violence      that brittle violence
That blinded violence      that cold violence
That wet violence            that cold violence
That hidden violence     that funny violence
That blunt violence
That obsolete violence      that absolute violence
That provocative violence      that preventative violence
That ripe violence    that irrelevant violence
That protective violence    that safe violence
That nasty violence      that clean violence
That bleak violence      that empty violence
That competitive violence      that modern violence
That traditional violence that violence for the sake of violence
That necessary & unnecessary violence      let the violence be known
Give it up if you don’t really want it
Give it up if you don’t really want it

“Dialogue on Violence” by Jayne Cortez from FIRESPITTER, © 2005 the estate of Jayne Cortez. Used by permission of Nightboat Books.