I hope to still have at least one more piece ready here this month, but I’ll admit that I waylaid some time yesterday watching the Academy Award “Oscars” while restringing and doing some deferred maintenance on a couple of guitars.

Awards shows — which are of course promotional events regardless of their area of the arts and the event’s prestige or pedigree — seem to be going through a rough patch of late. The Nobel literature prize even got removed for a year, so I’d judge that less prestigious awards stand in greater peril. The question of their value, or even if they have become counterproductive, has become commonplace. The use of these events for airing political and social issue positions is one sore point for some.

Let me not waste too much of your time, but to summarize my belief on that last issue: the whole purpose of art is to share human experiences in a way that nothing else does. How things are run, how we experience that, it just can’t be separated from art, and once that is allowed, the questions about what should change and what should be maintained can’t be fenced off as off-limits. This risks of course that wrong and half-wrong and outright misrepresentation is going to be propagated in shiny works of art. An even more subtle risk is that what will be presented must be simplified in some way, even within arts’ ability to present strange non-binary states. Resulting work can be painful or dreary even for points of view we already agree with — and outright hurtful or disgusting for things we find false. The criticisms are true, but this can’t be avoided if we are to have figurative/narrative art at all.

Film is extravagantly more expensive to produce than poetry, and by reputation successful people in the movies most visible roles are well-paid for their contribution to that capital-intensive industry. Garden-variety actors, directors, and writers outside of commercial film, who may not share this wealth, rarely get to speak about their beliefs on international live TV shows. Does this make it bad when the wealthier artists speak, or should we have no actors, writers, directors speak at all?

As a change, I enjoyed the trimmed back show, with many fewer in the main room and with little attempt to make it a spectacular variety show. Different compared to the traditional Oscars, but also not revolutionary. It made the show very like most smaller awards shows, the kind us regular poets or writers might attend. I felt there was a substantial emphasis placed on current social discussions, particularly diversity, representation, racism, violence. I’m no expert, but I suspect that may well be, to use the old Hollywood term, “box office poison.” So, if the ratings turn out to be bad, I will not be shocked. Given that I agree with many of the viewpoints expressed or embodied, should I consider that then brave?

Here at my keyboard today, I started to write a further reflection on those elements. Then I decided to drop it. Then I decided to include it again. Then dropped it. I doubt there is any demand for my extended thoughts on these matters.

But it is still #NationalPoetryMonth. Two of the award recipients made poetry a substantial portion of their acceptance speeches. Did anyone else note that?

Chloe Zhao began her speech for Best Director by saying that her father would banter with her when she was a child by reciting parts of the Three Character Classic*  back and forth to each other from memory. She then recited that poetic work’s opening two lines in Chinese and then in English translation. Let me print those two lines here, and also the two that follow, which add additional illumination I think:

“People at birth
Are entirely good
Their natures are similar
But their habits make the difference”

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William Carlos Williams concision and white chickens meet Confucian respect for elders. Maybe I need to reassess Dick and Jane?

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The second bit of poetry was both even more subtle and yet striking too in its poetic compression. Although Best Actress winner Frances McDormand opened with a tiny, informal comic aside, I think she intended her entire acceptance speech to be this:

“I have no words, my voice is in my sword!’

The sword is our work.

And I like work.”

I was stunned. First of all, the concision overwhelmed me, but I believe I caught some intense meaning in these 19 syllables making 19 words. The opening line is MacDuff’s from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. That character utters it as he seeks to revenge the killing of his family. In McDormand’s context, I think the Blakean sword here is not a harvester of souls, but the un-resting illumination of our best work.

Your sword is your work. There is joy in that.

No new audio piece today, but since another Oscar appears in it, and it tells of the plague of humanity being seen as nails, and guns the only tool, I’ll give you former movie critic** Carl Sandburg’s “Long Guns”  with a guest appearance by the spirit of Howlin’ Wolf as MacDuff. Player gadget below for some of you, and this highlighted hyperlink will play it if you don’t see that.

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*Despite developing an attraction for classical Chinese poetry, I didn’t know that work. Zhao’s experience wasn’t unique. I read that it’s long been used as an introductory text for young children. I can only flash back to the Fun with Dick and Jane  readers of my grade school years, which I’m not sure bring as much instructional density.

**No fib. For 8 years he was the film critic for the Chicago Daily News. He wrote hundreds of reviews, interviewed Hollywood figures, and seemed to have a pretty good grasp of a developing art. Someone has collected his film reviews, and here’s Roger Ebert’s review, and another account, and a short discussion on Sandburg and his view of films.