February 27, 2002

Some of my earliest memories are of gatherings at my grandparents’ small apartment in Milwaukee where my relatives would crowd around the dining-room table and talk passionately about Israel. Many had been involved in labor Zionism in their youth, before they immigrated to the U.S. from Russia.

Poetry doesn’t have to be solemn. In a series of poems first published in 1990, U.S. poet Scott Cairns invented a comic character named Raimundo Luz, a Portuguese postmodernist “radical theologian” whose autobiographical verses Cairns pretended to be translating. In these poems, collectively called “The Translation of Raimundo Luz,” Cairns has Luz breezily discourse from various poses, so that through him Cairns can play with layerings of contemporary attitudes and voices.

If non-Americans attending the recent World Economic Forum in New York had been polled concerning their attitudes toward the foreign policies of the Bush administration, the president would not have received anywhere near the overwhelming endorsement Americans have given him since September 11. In plenary panels, and even more in small sessions and private conversations, foreign sentiment ran strongly against American policies. It was therefore unfortunate that neither the president nor a larger number of his administration saw fit to attend.

In recent months, a legion of commentators on Islam have emphasized that true Islam has nothing to do with the killing of innocent people. Despite the apparent religious motives of the September 11 suicide bombers, President Bush and others have stressed that “Islam means peace.” But other commentators have responded that Islam is a militant faith, which at times requires its adherents to make war on non-Muslims.

Nine days after the events of September 11, when President Bush laid out the grounds and directions of the U.S. response to terrorism in a speech to a joint session of Congress, he declared that this is “not . . . just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight.” Those important words were subsequently reinforced by other statements and actions of the U.S. government, as well as by other governments and international organizations, such as the United Nations.

When folk singers Suzzy and Maggie Roche began collecting prayers and putting them to music, they had no idea that a national disaster would highlight the poignancy of the songs. Suzzy Roche, whose previous CDs include Songs from an Unmarried Housewife and Mother, Greenwich Village, USA, and Holy Smokes, decided to pursue the prayer project after participating in a forum at Harvard University's Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, in which artists explored issues of race, identity and community.

Curiously, most of the memorable love stories are the ones in which the couple does not live happily ever after. Whether it is Rhett in Gone With the Wind telling Scarlett that he doesn't give a damn, or Rick in Casablanca informing Ilsa that she belongs with Victor, helping him fight the Nazis, the couple's realization that things will not work out is part of what makes the love story great. Memories will have to suffice. ("We'll always have Paris.")