Warrior Poet Prose

by Dennis Fritzinger

In Marge Piercy’s utopia in Woman On The Edge of Time, she posits small communities where, when decisions are made, there’s a member who puts on a mask —Oak mask, Trout mask, Owl mask— and speaks for the speechless. suggests that’s what poets do, that’s one of poetry’s functions.

Poets, by being able to speak for nature, have a guiding mission within the environmental movement. But too often as poets we have been undercut by long-winded explainers who say they have the most credible information. But what of having someone around to actually help us understand how studying ecology leads to studying poetry?

Well, I say it’s time for poets to stand up! & get organized—reclaim their rightful place in the earth by putting the Earth First! (or any other) community as bards, seers, and interpreters of the wild.

Poets have earned the right to be called activists. Moreover, poetry is a right brain activity that circumvents blockades put up by the left, “rational” brain, the household of what Bly calls “The Old Position”.

Prior to Descartes, according to Bly, Western literature reflected a people whose sensibility was not divided, a people who did not separate themselves from nature or from those elements in their own individual natures that they could not explain rationally, such as intuition, superstition, and spirituality. He cited the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf as an example, showing that when the poet describes the monster Grendel, he does so without having to explain its existence and without doubting that his audience will believe in such a creature; the Beowulf poet had complete “faith in nighttime events.” This proximity to the darker side of the human psyche, this lack of separation from nature, was destroyed, said Bly, when Descartes declared in 1619, “I think, therefore I am.”
 
After Descartes, Western literature would forever divide the autonomous self from nature. As Bly described it in his preface to News of the Universe: What I’ve called the Old Position puts human reason, and so human beings, in the superior position. . . . Consciousness is human, and involves reason. A serious gap exists between us and the rest of nature. Nature is to be watched, pitied, and taken care of if it behaves. In such language the body is exiled, the soul evaporated, the mind given executive power. Bly’s Reference to “The Old Position”

If you want to gauge the importance of poets to the Earth First! movement, check out Ecowarriors (Rik Scarce), The Real Work (Gary Snyder), Simple in Means, Rich in Ends (Bill Devall).

If you want to gauge the importance of poets to the environmental movement as a whole, check out Tongues in Trees (Kim Taplin), Imagining the Earth (John Elder), News of the Universe (Robert Bly), and the intro to The Forgotten Language (Christopher Merrill).

I think poetry can make a contribution to the Earth First! “narrative”—perhaps an even bigger contribution than the poets themselves realize. Or as John Seed, says:

“What we find in one of the processes in the Council of All Beings is a deep mourning, where we start to grieve the loss of things that are being lost from the Earth, our favorite little piece of nature that’s now covered by a freeway or whatever it is, and people begin to weep and howl and wail about what’s being lost.

We’re so afraid that we’re going to be crushed by these feelings, we’ve been led to believe that we’ll be crushed by them, but certainly in this context of a supportive group of people who are encouraging each other to do things, the opposite is always the case. “
 
 

Congratulations to the first dead poet to get “longtime member of warriorpoet society” mentioned in their obituary. May many more of us eco-poets one day mention our brand of warriorpoet association in our own obituary!

On reflecting on his passing Editor Dennis Fritzinger said:
 
“I only knew Craig through his poetry. We never met. I think I published [Earth First! Journal] every poem he sent me, which amounts to 8 in all. From Craig’s poems I thought he was some young guy, but in his photo I see I was mistaken. Of course, we’re all getting older. Lucky to still be walking the planet, I say.”

From Legacy.com

Craig Oare Craig Oare came to the close of his life at the age of 66, on October 9, 2014, surrounded by the primal beauty of his much-loved Olympic National Forest. Craig was an accomplished Olympia poet and author of six chapbooks. He was a longtime member of Olympia Poetry Network and Warrior Poets Society.

He loved to spend time downtown at Traditions, where he could often be found drinking coffee, discussing politics, life, or baseball with friends, and working on poems. During the more than thirty years he resided in Olympia, Craig worked as a caregiver, school bus driver, and, his favorite, a bookseller at Orca Books.

Prior to moving to Olympia, Craig also enjoyed working at Raintree Nursery in Morton. The firstborn child of Dale and Irma Oare, Craig entered the world on November 8, 1947 in Iowa. He grew up in southern California, and earned his B.A. in history at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

To his family and many friends, Craig was a sparkling presence in our lives, a gently yet strongly determined force for good in the world, a deep thinker, and a master of puns. He is survived in loving memory by his dad and second mom, Dale and Sherry Oare of South Dakota, and his sister and brother-in-law, Bonnie and Marc Jones of Olympia. There will be a memorial gathering on Saturday, November 8, 2014 at 4:00 p.m., in the sanctuary of Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 2300 East End Street NW, Olympia.

Friends are invited to speak, read, play music, or simply sit and listen, in honor of Craig. Memories and messages may be posted to Craig’s guest book at: www.legacy.com. Craig left his wish that in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Amnesty International.

Here’s how Craig described himself on the back cover of one of his chapbooks:
 
“Craig Oare apparently spent much of the decade from 1968-78 in Berkeley, although he has no memory of having ever seen the place. He was smuggled across the border by the great-grandson of Johnny Appleseed, and they spent several years together planting trees on the slopes of Mt. St. Helens. He woke up one morning covered with volcanic ash in the parking lot of the Olympia Food Co-op, and lived in the freebox there until Christmas of ’97, when he was traded to Orca Books for a crate of Mad magazines.”

Learn About Craig’s last day here.

Two recordings of Craig’s poems are posted below.
To view the full presentation of these poems go here.