for the 1999 graduates of Springfield
College in Illinois
BORDER="0" NATURALSIZEFLAG="0">Editor's note: John Knoepfle of Auburn, poet and retired
Sangamon State University creative writing professor, received
an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree this year from SCI
and, as is customary, delivered the commencement address. He has
written more than 20 books of poetry, including Poems from
the Sangamon (1985) and the chinkapin oak (1995), and
has a longstanding interest in the Native American peoples who
once lived in what is now Illinois. Commencement exercises were
May 19, during Memorial Day weekend. Knoepfle's address follows.
Salutations. To make this address I am going to take my privilege
as writer and present to you a set of poems with commentary dedicated
to the Springfield College in Illinois class of 1999.
I
At Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington they have a
prayer room on the floor above the entrance to the Student Union,
a small place with a bench or two to meditate or pray. There's
an open Bible just under a brilliant stained glass window and
spiral notebooks where students can write their thoughts. It makes
a man feel old just reading them. The students are so young.
But the reason the prayer room is there in the Student Union
is because during World War II a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan
had become a navy chaplain, and he was on a troop transport in
the North Atlantic that was torpedoed. The poem tells the story.
prayer room poem
commemorated here
those who died in the torpedoing
of the uss dorchester
february 3 1943
george fox
john washington
alexander goode
charles poling
died praying together
refusing the overcrowded lifeboats
their jackets given to others
four chaplains
a minister
a minister
a rabbi
a priest
so remarkable a text
all that they could be
they were
The poem is about four men who shared something -- and shared
everything. They were people that we mourned for with admiration.
In their dying they became larger than life. In the midst of the
most destructive war in history they bound themselves together
in charity and concord.
II
This poem about a sign honors another man of peace -- my brother-in-law
Matt Sugarman, who died Sunday three weeks ago after a long illness.
Born in Brooklyn with a background in business administration
and experience in managing an elevator factory, Matt seemed an
unlikely candidate for the post of California park ranger. But
by following his heart and having serendipitous good luck, that's
what he became -- to the benefit of all us.
Matt was chief ranger at Marshall Gold Discovery State Park
in California - Sutter's Mill, the place where the gold rush began.
He called it "the most important historical site west of
the Mississippi." But he would not call the l50th year anniversary
of the Gold Rush a celebration. It should be commemorated, he
said, not celebrated. Too many terrible things happened during
the Gold Rush -- the persecution of Chinese immigrants, the ethnic
cleansing of native Americans and the destruction of the natural
environment itself. Matt believed that these hard truths should
faced with honesty. "The point is," he said once, "we
as a society have to recognize our participation in what was a
genocide."
In an extraordinary article he wrote about facing death, he
said in conclusion: "I am a Jew. Next year I'll be in Jerusalem."
In this poem, the "city on the hill" is Jerusalem.
Matt this is your sign
left hand palm forward
over the heart
a high plains sign
a sign for no ill intentions
a sign for coming in peace
a sign for the open heart
brother to brother
a sign for you Matt
brother to brother
the city is on the hill
look up Matt the sign
the sign is everywhere
III
I traveled to Ireland in 1996 and 1998. County Claire, mentioned
in this poem, is in the West of Ireland, and the Cliffs of Moher
are 800-foot drops at the edge of the Atlantic -- the furthest
western land mass this side of the coast of North America. I assume
the song I am describing here grew from the memory of the famine
that struck Ireland in the summer of 1847 and took a million people
with hunger and attendant diseases. I visited Skibbereen in the
south of County Cork and saw the famine pit in the cemetery there
-- a grassy field that my sons could have played soccer on. There
were 10,000 buried there and I assume some of them were four generations
ago uncles and aunts and cousins of mine.
the claire festival of traditional singing
their songs had melodies
not to be written down
too lost in between notes
like the winds of moher
each singer turned from the mike
searching the key
then turned back and each became
only a voice the men
hands held stiff in their pockets
the women arms at their sides
and then she went up on stage
and told us her song
came from a woman
grieving her twelfth child lost
and we heard a voice
taking a voice
ancient as the language itself the dead silence of the room
it was in that still time
we saw famine enter the room
and we watched his hair turn gray
It seems to me that what is human in us can outlast famine
and Holocaust even as we are coming this day to the end of a century
which was the most brutal in the history of the world -- the wars
alone have taken the lives of 148 million people. And it occurs
to me that you, the class of 1999, are graduating into a new century.
And it may be in some small way each one of you can mitigate the
terrible things that happened in this century -- transform them
in some way as the singer does in this poem.
Famine is male here because the powers that bungled the care
for the Irish were masculine. I should add that the government
of Holland was also dominated by men at the time, and the potato
failed there as well as in Ireland But no one starved to death
in Holland because the governors were men of understanding and
compassion They listened to their intellect or as St. John Fisher
has the phrase "to our Lady Reason."
IV
Belfast has been the capital of Northern Ireland since 1921
and a place of strife and bloodshed between Protestant Loyalists
and Catholic Nationalists for 400 years. Falls Road is a working-class
Nationalist neighborhood, plagued by generations of unemployment
and a flash point for violence because it is near working-class
Loyalist neighborhoods. Elizabeth Groves who runs a community
center at Falls Road, and May Blood, a labor union leader from
a Loyalist background, dared to imagine and work for peace in
their beleaguered city. They crossed the divide between their
two neighborhoods and risked violent retribution in order to talk
to each other and assert their common humanity. Women played a
major role in the Good Friday Peace Accords. Without their leadership
the accords probably would not have been signed. Today these women
continue to work for peace, which they say must include both economic
justice and civil rights.
This poem is based on Elizabeth Groves' account of a meeting
in Belfast where she sat across the table from a mm who had killed
friends of hers. She told him that she was afraid of him. That
was how she was able to begin. In this poem I make childbirth
a metaphor for peacemaking And I also try to show the leap of
imagination and courage it takes to come to terms with your own
history and that of your enemy.
Interestingly enough, when the members of the Falls Road Community
Center were trying to decide if they should take part in the peace
process, they were visited by a delegation from South Africa.
The South Africans, who had spent years fighting apartheid and
suffering from its violence, urged the community center to accept
the risks involved in peacemaking and take part in the negotiations.
belfast on the falls road
and where is the incentive
now in this time of amnesty
forgiving time to forgive
pinned to a conference
painful as childbirth
from a scarred womb
or hands that should have been peaceful
nailed here to this oak table
and that man opposite
and that man smiling now you
knew him of old
from the very edge of your life
this one who killed your friends
how could anyone endure
the concord of his handshake
sitting here in fear
hands white-knuckled under the table
saying I am afraid
afraid of the teeth in your mouth
bringing your dowry of shame
from such a depth of reproach
seeking a calm place
estuary of what can be possible
V
A day later people from an Ulster television station came to
interview members of our tour group. And we all did the best we
could I was the last to speak, and the moderator wanted to know
if I had roots in Ireland And I said, "Yes, I think they
are in the famine pit in Skibbereen." Then I thought awhile
and said "I think that famines are political and that here
in Northern Ireland there has been a famine of the soul for hundreds
of years." Then I was able to give them this prayer against
famine which may have been broadcast in Ulster later.
prayer against famine
maker of the wheel
that turns the stars
place the shadow of your shadow
between us and everything evil
have mercy on the dead
and on the living
and on those who will be born
in your good time
protect us when we are tempted
when we want to make ourselves
the center of your world
when we would deny others
a place in the circle of your love
cleanse our eyes oh god
and pour your light into them
so that we may see your creation
in everyone on this earth
It's difficult to write prayers because the temptation is to
write in a kind of strange language that I call "church English."
I might note that the Kaddish prayers for Matt Sugarman are in
a language so forthright and handsome that it makes you feel unworthy
to even say them.
VI
This poem is called "Prayer at Commencement," your
commencement. I think I should preface it with a statement by
Thomas Merton quoted by Jane Redmont in her book When in Doubt
Sing: Prayer in Daily Life.
"Don't set limits to the mercy of God. Don't believe that
because you are not pleasing to yourself, you are not pleasing
to God. God doesn't ask for results. God asks for love."
prayer at commencement
pray for everyone
so that we can redeem
all the bleak, bright hours
when we did not
pray for ourselves
Remember that "commencement" means "to begin"
or "to begin again."
VII
This last poem is called "poem for everyone." It
is turning up in all kinds of improbable places on office walls
and refrigerator doors, and I know for a fact that it has saved
a marriage or two.
poem for everyone
love is like a bowl
so when you break it
glue it together
if it won't hold water
fill it with apples
And on this note, Class of 1999, I wish you well as you commence
the rest of your lives. May you be bound together in charity and
concord And in the words of the Peoria and Miami and Tamaroa people,
who hunted in this valley: "May you be happy in a happy place."
Sleepy Weasel, Vol. 5, 1999-2000
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