Friday, August 30, 2024

Bernstein: ‘On Election Day’

 If you’re worried about politics, you might try Charles Bernstein’s poem “On Election Day.” It begins: 

I hear democracy weep, on election day. The streets are filled with

brokered promise on election day. The miscreant’s vote the same

as saint’s, on election day. …

 

It’s a list of all that is and could be wrong about elections. It’s a gloomy list, but I felt better after reading it. It was as if I’d entered a room with a hundred worrying chairs — but all the seats were taken.

Unable to roost, I moved on.

• Sources: The poem originally was published in Prairie Schooner; University of Nebraska Press, Vol. 83, No. 3, Fall 2009, pp. 159-160. It’s online here:

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/361641/pdf

And here’s the poet, reading his poem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QouGGPxbjI

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