drew dellinger - planetize the movement

Quote of the Day: Baldwin Breaks It Down

"In this extraordinary endeavor to create the country called America, a great many crimes were committed. And I want to make it absolutely clear, or as clear as I can, that I understand perfectly well that crime is universal, and as old as mankind, and I trust, therefore, that no one will assume that I am indicting or accusing. I'm not any longer interested in the crime. Peope treat each other very badly and always have and very probably always will. I'm not talking about the crime; I'm talking about denying what one does. This is a much more sinister matter."

--James Baldwin, "The White Problem" (1964)

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Super-Cool Book: The Situation of Poetry (1955)

As an independent scholar and renegade researcher, there's nothing I love more than coming across a super-cool book I've never seen before, especially if it's old, and awesome, and I get it for 25 cents at a library book sale.

Check out these quotes from The Situation of Poetry, a 1955 work by Raissa and Jaques Maritain. (I had known something of J. Maritain as an influence on Martin Luther King Jr., and also, Thomas Berry had mentioned to me that Maritain had influenced him. I did not know that Maritain had written on poetry.)

The Situation of Poetry:

Four Essays on the Relations between Poetry, Mysticism, Magic, and Knowledge

by Jaques and Raissa Maritain

"Poetry is the fruit of a contact of the spirit with reality, which is in itself ineffable, and with the source of reality, which we believe to be God himself in that movement of love which causes him to create images of his beauty. That which is thus conceived in the mysterious retreats of being is expressed with a certain savory illogic, which is not nonsense but a superabundance of sense."

--Raissa Maritain, p. 21

And check out this great quote from a footnote on p. 29:

"The originals of the images and forms which the language of dreams, poetry, and prophecy employs are found in the Nature which surrounds us and which appears to us like a world of Dream incarnate: like a prophetic language whose hieroglyphs were beings and forms."

--G. H. von Schubert, quoted in The Situation of Poetry (1955)

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MLK on Socialism for the Rich

"Whenever the government provides opportunities and privileges for white people and rich people they call it ‘subsidies.’ When they do it for Negro and poor people they call it ‘welfare.’ The fact is that everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of ninety percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem."

--Martin Luther King Jr.

Miami, FL

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