The Experiment’s Results Are In

We’ve run an experiment, and the results are conclusive. During the pandemic, we expanded the child tax credit and changed the ways it was delivered. Understand this: We were taking the welfare payments we already gave to middle- and upper-class families each year via their tax returns, and we started giving them to poor families each month. That’s it. Welfare for those who needed it least was shared with those who needed it most.

The results were dramatic. First, this child tax credit raised more American children out of poverty at a faster rate than ever before in our country’s history. Second, while fertility rates at the beginning of the pandemic had been predicted to plummet and had started to fall, they suddenly went up. Then the Republicans (and Joe Manchin, but I repeat myself) allowed those child tax credits to expire. What happened? Between December and February of this year, four million American children fell into poverty. Fertility rates are expected to slump accordingly as well. While all this was going on, Republicans in statehouses across the nation have been working hard to restrict abortion access, and the Republicans on the Supreme Court are poised to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

So what have we learned? This all might seem very confusing if you are under the impression that Republicans have been telling the truth about what they care about. After all, if they had been trying to prevent abortions because they cared about children, they would certainly have been pleased about millions of those children having food in their bellies, right? And if Republicans, as many of us liberals suspected, only cared about fetuses until they were born, they would at least have been motivated by the increase in the number of pregnancies caused by the increase to the child tax credit. But they don’t care about fetuses. And they don’t care about kids. So what motivates the antipathy to abortion?

Some of the answer was revealed by their stated objections to the child tax credit. We were told they were worried the parents of poor children would spend the money on drugs. I can almost see why they would coke to this conclusion. After all, especially when you count alcohol as a drug, middle- and upper-class people use a lot more drugs that poor people. Also, we learned today, these very same Republican politicians who voted against extending the child tax credit have been attending cocaine-fueled orgies. I don’t particularly care which drugs adults choose to use or who they choose to have sex with, but it seems straightforward to me that these politicians made a calculation based on prohection: If we elevate more poor people into the middle- and even upper-class, they might just start acting like Republican politicians.

Despite Republican fears that the poor might get their hands on the Republican’s drugs, that didn’t happen. Know what families spent that extra money on? The data is in. They spent it on food and diapers and school supplies for their kids. Turns out, even with an extra $300, poor people couldn’t throw Republican-style cocaine orgies.

Besides the fake concern about drugs, Republicans+Manchin claimed they were worried about inflation. Only the child credits haven’t caused inflation. The pandemic hasn’t caused inflation. Supply chain issues haven’t caused inflation. Joe Biden hasn’t caused inflation. We know precisely what has caused prices to rise because the people who set the prices have told us. When surveyed, a majority of business owners admitted they have raised prices in excess of cost increases to maximize profits. Other things might have given them a pretext, bit prices are higher because the people setting prices chose to set them higher. If Republicans+Manchin were concerned about inflation, they could have spent even a tiny amount of energy addressing this price gouging. But they didn’t. Not the tinniest bit. Because that concern was a lie.

And they trotted out the national debt, something exactly none of them worried about only two years earlier when they gave enormous tax cuts to billionnaires which cost more than all the increases to the child tax credit. So that is BS, too.

So if it isn’t really about more fetuses, and it isn’t really about kids’ well-being, what is motivating Republicans at statehouses and the Supreme Court? They might tell you they have a religious objection to abortion. Fine, but if that’s the case, they are opposing abortion access on behalf of a malevolent deity who wants more children to go hungry. Four. Million. Children. In three months. Based directly on the actions of those religious zealots. I do not believe these Republicans are performing black masses and worshiping some demonic entity who wants kids to starve. So that theory of religious devotion is (pardon the pun) shot to hell. So what can it be?

By process of elimination, and by combining the results of Republican policy positions, we can see what they really want. What do both their opposition to abortion access and their opposition to the child tax credit have in common? Both are targeted at poor women (especially women of color) and seek to deny them exactly what middle- and upper-class white men currently get: welfare and drugs and the ability to make their own decisions about when to have children, what to spend their money on, and what cocaine-fueled orgies they want to attend.

The Republican Party has not changed. They’ve just been emboldened to reveal the priorities they’ve always had (much to the dismay of their think-tank conservative intellectuals who were the most duped by the party into naively believing the pretexts they sold to the public). The post-Goldwater GOP has always been about punishing the poor for not being born rich, punishing people of color for not being born white, and punishing women for not being born male. (And gay people for being gay, and they’re super-pissed at Trans people for confusing their prejudices. How can you keep attacking women if society’s definitions of gender get fuzzy? Who will you be hateful towards? You might accidentally harm someone who turns out to be a bro later, and you might provide advantages to someone who turns out to be a woman. Can’t have that in today’s Republican Party. Such a conundrum!)

Of course, these results becoming obvious won’t change any MAGA minds. They are just as dissuaded by the revelation of their hypocrisy as they are persuaded about the existence of a disease that has killed a million Americans. (Yeah, we hit that milestone. Thanks, antivaxxers. You did it.) They will continue believing their opposition to abortion access is just as righteous as their opposition to direct payments to poor families. But the rest of us should see this very clearly now. And all it took was four million hungry American children.

The next experiment on the docket: Will four million hungry American children be enough, or will we keep letting Republicans dictate public policy?

Panther Power-Ups

(I assigned my students to write a kind of essay we call a “personal narrative” which includes an incident, response, and reflection, and I’ve been pondering something myself, so I thought I’d write one to use as a model. I hope they’ll appreciate it. Maybe you’ll like it, too.)

Benjamin Gorman

Mr. Gorman

English 1, Period 1, 3, and 4

March 5, 2022

Panther Power-Ups

We have so many vital lessons to teach children, and so many are reactions to the dangerous lies they are taught by our world. Here are a few truths I’ve been contemplating today:

Secrets, in general, are bad. If adults tell kids to keep secrets, all our radar should go off. And if adults are trying to stop other adults from telling kids the truth, that should worry us, too. Instead, we can teach kids about the value of truth by showing them that the joy of a secret is in it’s revelation. Sure, it’s fun to know what’s inside the wrapping paper and keep that secret until the gift is given, but the joy comes in the revealing. As they get older, we can reveal a more nuanced version of this truth. Sometimes telling a secret isn’t joyous, exactly. But it’s a relief. Even if the truth is uncomfortable, even if it’s the kind of truth some adults don’t want them to know, don’t want them to hear, don’t want them to speak, it should come out. A dream deferred rots or explodes. A truth hidden may vanish.  

So I want to tell kids a secret or two and encourage them to reveal these truths. They have the power to decide if they reveal them today or wait until the holiday where their secrets are revealed. That’s up to them, and they get to revel in the pleasure of the telling. 

Here are a couple secrets they’ve been pressured to keep, to bottle up, to hide: They are smart. And they are powerful. I’m not positive why we don’t encourage kids to reveal these secrets. I have guesses. Some of it may come from a religious impulse to be humble. If so, maybe we need to unpack that. Would it really hurt a deity if Its creations owned their intelligence and power? Would it diminish the deity Itself? If so, what a fragile kind of omnipotence. I doubt that. Instead, I think it serves the priest caste to tell believers not to own their intelligence and power too much, lest they question the religious leaders.

But maybe the origin of this secret-keeping isn’t religious at all. Maybe it’s an outgrowth of a healthy impulse to care for the welfare of the people around us mixed with an unhealthy capitalist impulse to make everything competitive. After all, if we can’t say “I’m smart,” or “I’m powerful,” without saying, “I’m smarter than you are,” or “I’m more powerful than you are,” then of course we will hurt the people around us. But what if we could learn, at a young age, to own our intelligence and power without learning it must be at the expense of the child sitting at the desk next to ours? What if we could learn that our gifts are different, our insights complimentary, our power compounding when we work together? Who might benefit? Almost everyone. (And here I reveal I’m just as much a product of capitalism as everyone else.) Who would lose if we knew that? Who might have a motive to keep us from seeing those truths about ourselves? Could it be we’re told to keep these secrets by the people who want us to work for their benefit in factories or fields or restaurants or cubicles for wages that don’t honor our intelligence and power? If so, acknowledging our intelligence and power is a revolutionary act. 

I encourage kids to stand up and say it. “I’m smart.” Own it. “I’m powerful.” And together? “With the people around me, we’re even smarter and more powerful.”

But here’s another secret we hide: Some days we won’t feel smart. Some days we won’t feel powerful. I have competing theories about why we keep our self-doubts secrets, too. Part of me thinks we hide these facts from kids because it might frighten them to know the adults in their lives lack the intelligence and ability to protect and provide for them. They need to know we’ve got their backs even on our own dark days. That’s an understandable reason to withhold. But part of me suspects we don’t reveal these truths to kids for the same reasons we don’t reveal them to other adults, the same reasons we don’t like to admit them to ourselves. We don’t want to be vulnerable because we worry articulating our doubt will speak an immutable prophecy into existence. So we model bottling things up and hiding them away. And kids see through us. Know why? Because they are smart.

Before the pandemic, I used to high-five my students as they came into my classroom. Ah, yes, remember those halcyon days when human contact didn’t feel like a roll of the dice? How naïve I was. My classroom is at the end of a long hallway on the first floor. A stairwell starts just outside my door, and I would lean on the handrail that comes down into the middle of the hall, hold up a hand (sometimes very high for those ninth graders who are already taller than their teacher) and welcome them. There, I could catch the kids coming from the other end of the hall and also the ones coming down the stairs. Not all students wanted to high five, and that was fine. In fact, I distinctly remember one student who never wanted to high five, and our lack-of-high-five became a bit of bonding; I’d see her coming and immediately drop my hand, and she would smile appreciatively at not being put on the spot. It was enough for her that she felt recognized as she came into the room, and her appreciation was enough for me. Most students did like the high fives, though. Many would keep high fiving years after they were in my classes, just touching base as they went by on their way to Sophomore English, Spanish 3, Senior American Government, graduation, college, jobs, a galaxy of varied and sparking futures. Some of my ninth graders would have preferred complicated daps, I’m sure, but I lean into my old, uncool white guy-ness, and they accept my limitations. I cannot even map their galaxy of potential, just give my little gravitational nudges. 

When the rumors of the pandemic started to spread, I realized high fives were not wise. Even when we’d only heard about a single case in Seattle, I worried a proffered high five would make a student feel uncomfortable rather than welcomed. I started bumping elbows. Then I realized that posture just inclined us both even more into one another’s breathing space. Next I started kicking the inside of my shoe against the inside of the shoe of any student who wanted that welcome. It was fun but cringed at the thought I’d scuff up some kid’s nice white shoes with my galumphing combat boots. Some of my kids take their shoe game very seriously. 

Before I’d found some fourth alternative, we were all sent home. 

In retrospect, I wonder if I should have incorporated some kind of virtual high five into the beginning of my online classes. We talked frequently about trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Or, to be more accurate, I talked about it … to a screen of mostly empty squares, the world’s worst game of Tetris where every row was filled by the same shape, no points were scored, and nothing moved for over a year. 

During that time, there were a lot of days when I didn’t feel smart or powerful. I didn’t feel dumb, exactly. I felt insensible, dulled, as though someone had brained me with a hammer. I did feel powerless, though. It manifested as fatigue. I remember commiserating with a friend who’s also a psychologist. I told her I was worried because I was taking two or three naps a day. 

“You’re depressed. And there are a lot worse ways you could choose to cope with that depression,” she told me. “Your body is telling you what it needs. Take the naps.”

So I took the naps. And I cried the tears I needed to cry. We all had a lot of things to mourn. Activities. Connections. People. And more people. Here’s another secret: On my list of things I was mourning, certainly lower than the missed last visit with my grandfather, lower than the dear friends I still mourn, but, full confession, probably higher than most of my failed romantic relationships of the Covid era (sorry), and higher than the novels I thought I’d write and the vacations that had to be postponed, I was mourning the loss of those high fives. I needed my kids. They are smart. They are powerful. They lift me up. 

Now we’re entering a liminal stage, an estuary between the dangerous fast-moving river of pandemic Covid and the wide sea of endemic Covid. Some of us will be taking off our masks, some keeping them on, and we’ll return Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “We Wear The Mask” to the curriculum because it can mostly go back to being metaphorical and hurting the way it's supposed to. I’m going to make a proposal to my students. With the assurance that I’ll be using a lot of hand sanitizer, I’m going to offer high fives again. They’ll be optional just as they always were, but now I will understand them differently, and maybe my kids will, too. While I ask, “How’s it going today?” the high five won’t just be saying, “Welcome to my classroom.” Instead, I’m going to call them “Panther Power-Ups.” (We’re the Panthers, and a lot of us are gamers, so we know what a power-up is.) When my students are feeling that their red health bar or blue mana bar is running a little low, when they don’t feel smart or powerful that day, I want them to experience that contact as an infusion of my confidence in them.

I’m going to draw a picture of myself giving a high five to a student on my whiteboard. She’ll have a thought bubble coming out of her head that says, “I need to know someone thinks I’m smart and powerful.” But I want the kids who are feeling good that day to understand the power-up is an exchange. I’ll have a thought bubble coming out of my head, too. It will say, “I need to know someone needs to know I think they’re smart and powerful.”

Because I need them, too.

That’s a secret I’ve learned.

And secrets should not be kept secret. 

I Live-Tweeted All Ten Movies in The Fast and The Furious Franchise

I survived the experience and grew to have a confusing affection for the absurdity. If you would like to join me on the journey, here’s the entire, spoiler-laden epic complete with Hobbs and Shaw and the newest one from the movie theater. I apologize for the typos. I tried to extract the whole thread so I could clean those up, but I couldn’t keep the GIFs, and those are some of the good punchlines. I amused myself a lot, so maybe some of this will tickle your funny bone, too. The thread is rolled up HERE.

Free Edition of Corporate High School for Public School Libraries, Classrooms, and Public Libraries

I am a high school English teacher. During Covid, the school where I teach (shout-out to Central High School, no relation to the CHS in this novel) discovered a lot more students wanted to read eBooks than had previously been the case. Maybe some of you like reading on your phones. Maybe you’ve gotten used to staring at screens during the pandemic. Regardless, we found that the cost of those eBooks really added up. And here I am, the author of a book that’s all about how we need to fight back and defend public schools against the increasing attacks from those who see them as a source of corporate profit. I didn’t want this novel to be a burden on public schools (or public libraries which are also essential for protecting the people of a democracy). So I worked it out with my publishing company to provide this edition for free for public schools and public libraries. (There’s a nice advantage to being the co-publisher of the company: I only had to check with my co-publisher, Viveca Shearin, and no one else could stop us. Thanks, Viveca!) We know some people outside of public schools and libraries might sneak a copy or two. We decided it’s worth it. I hope you enjoy this book. It was a ton of fun to write. And there’s a lesson there: Standing up for you believe in isn’t always enjoyable. You get push-back, and sometimes that push-back can be awful. But sometimes taking a stand is a blast! You don’t do it for the party, but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying those bright moments when they come. I hope this book will be a bright moment for you, too.

Trigger warnings: There’s some challenging material in this book. There’s a scene of an attempted sexual assault. There are references to people experiencing homophobia and racism. There’s one pretty graphic description of a beating. And there are lots of references to environmental disasters that will likely be the consequences of global climate change. I tried to handle these events in the story with care. I think the book is completely appropriate for most high school students and even more mature middle school students, but students who have experienced some of these traumas should be forewarned. There is a balance to be found between accurately depicting the horrors of the world, even an imaginary one, and exaggerating those horrors to make a point. I tried to find that balance, but it’s impossible to know exactly where it is for every reader. So please know there is no shame in closing a book if the content gets to be too much for you. You are more important than anything on a screen. Take care of yourself.

The free edition of the eBook is available for public school libraries, classrooms, and public libraries HERE.

High School English Teacher Confession

Okay, everybody, I'm going to let you in on a little secret about high school teachers. Or maybe just high school English teachers. Or maybe just me. We grouse about our middle school and elementary colleagues. (Or maybe I'm the only one, and other English teachers just nod politely while I do it. Is it just me?) "Why didn't anyone teach these kids how to use a comma by ninth grade? How did this kid get to me without learning to use a period at the end of a sentence? There, their, and they're; it's not that hard!" Here's another secret: My middle school and elementary colleagues did teach them. They taught them these lessons over and over and over and over (and over). It's not their fault. It's mostly developmental. These concepts just click at different times for different kids.

But here's something else about high school teachers, or maybe just high school English teachers, or maybe just me: We don't thank our middle school and elementary colleagues enough. Well, I just got through a huge stack of essays, and I want to very publicly say THANK YOU! Thank you to the teachers at Talmadge Middle School and Independence Elementary School and Ash Creek Elementary School and Monmouth Elementary School. And thanks to the great Educational Assistants at Central High School who have been working with my kids who are on IEPs or who are second-language learners. Because my kids are writing with more technical proficiency than perhaps any class I've had before. Whatever y'all are doing, keep it up!

And to the folx out there who are saying, "None of the kids are learning anything this year," sit down. First, that simply wrong. The kids are learning a lot! They are living through something none of my other students had to weather, and they're still learning, so please stop telling them they aren't. They can hear you! Also, when you say things like, "They're falling behind," I'd like to know who you think they're falling behind. Are there children living on the International Space Station I'm unaware of? Because last I heard, this is a GLOBAL pandemic. Do you really think Harvard is going to say, "Nope, we just won't accept any students for the next 12 years because they all had a bumpy year during that GLOBAL FREAKING PANDEMIC?!" Your kids are rock stars. Take them out for ice cream. (Use the drive through and wear a mask. The person scooping the ice cream and leaning out the window to hand the ice cream to you is a person, and decent people wear masks to protect other people.) Your kids deserve ice cream.

And I know this has been incredibly rough on you, too. Most of the negativity directed at our schools and teachers and, yes, even our kids is just frustration looking for a target. I get it. Pandemics are not fun. So get yourself some ice cream, too. You deserve it. Even those of you who have been particularly nasty to the very people working so hard for your kids. You just haven't learned how to productively direct your frustration. I feel you. I sometimes do the same thing. I'm working on it. I recommend ice cream.

Last, to my high school colleagues who will get these ninth graders next year: Hold onto your butts! We've got some dang good writers coming your way. And the students got those skills from the people I used to complain about. Remind me of this the next time I'm grousing.

Today in Ben's hate mail:

Today in Ben's hate mail:

"@elcooterbubba: Don’t reproduce, we have enough 3’s in this world"

First: Mr. Cooter-Bubba, this message is a comma splice. It should be two different sentences, or it could be joined with a semicolon, a coordinating conjunction, or a subordinating conjunction without the comma.

Second: You need some end punctuation at the end of that second sentence ... once you turn it into a second sentence.

Third: Too late! I have a child (only one that I'm aware of), he's amazing, and the world has far too few people like him, so I really ought to have had more. Also, I'm snipped so this is not useful advice anymore.

Fourth: What is your rating scale? 3 out of 10? I can accept that. 3 out of 100? That's a bit harsh, but calling for the sterilization of 3% of the world's population still seems high. 3s at different events? I would be proud to be a bronze medalist. This is unclear.

Fifth: Numbers do not require apostrophes even when pluralized in this way. They still don't own anything, so they aren't possessives. For example, when you decide you need some extra large tires for your truck in order to feel better about ... things, you'll be purchasing some 265s, not 265's. The tires don't own you. They just help with your issues. Find your bliss. But punctuate properly.

Sixth: I appreciate the feedback. It helps me grow. Next time, please provide something actionable so I can improve. Have a wonderful day, and call your parents to thank Ms. Bubba and Mr. Cooter for raising such a delightful human.

Inclusion in A Critical Conversation

Logo for A Critical Conversation by Claire Osborn

When I was asked if some of my poetry could be included in an art exhibit that focuses on the intersections of art, race, and privilege, my first response was one I expect most artists can identify with. My impostor syndrome flared up like a gas can held too close to the fire. I thought, “My work doesn’t belong there. That’s for real artists.” I wasn’t reacting that way because they wanted to include poetry in the exhibit. I thought that kind of interdisciplinary inclusion was a feature, a kind of metaphor for the interracial conversation the show is all about. But even then, shouldn’t they find real poets?

My next reaction was more pragmatic. I did not want to be a part of the kinds of conversations about race I’ve heard about at some conventions, where a panel of white artists tell a predominantly white audience about racism. I told the curator, artist Kathleen Caprario, that my role, as a cishet white man who wants to learn to be a better ally, is to be a signal booster and promote the voices of traditionally marginalized people. I told her I wouldn’t feel comfortable taking a spot from a person of color. She appreciated that and included Lydia K. Valentine, a poet I greatly admire and think of as a real poet. But Kathleen told me she wanted to create the kind of conversation that would include a cishet white male voice, also. To Kathleen’s credit, the artists included in the exhibition are very diverse, far more than is representative of the demographics of Oregon, the most historically racially exclusionary state in the US. Last night Kathleen hosted a party (online because that’s where we all live now), and I got to hear from some of the artists about their work and the questions they were posing through it. I was a bit star-struck by their insight and creativity, and I am honored to have my work close to theirs. I want to send a heartfelt thanks to Kathleen Caprario and Gregory S. Black who created the exhibit, Eugene Contemporary Arts where it is displayed, the supporters of the arts who have made it possible, and, more than anything, to the other artists who didn’t hook a finger in my direction and say, “What the hell is this guy doing here?”

The exhibit is open from Jan 14 – March 21, 2021 and is on display online as well as in person, so check out their amazing work HERE. There will also be opportunities to come view it live, including some demonstrations of some of the art being created (make an appointment HERE), and there will be online panel discussions with some of the artists announced on their website HERE.

November Newsletter: Dancing one The Ashes

To sign up to receive this newsletter in your email each month, go HERE

Dear Handsome and Clever Readers with Perspicacious Taste in Newsletters,

Some good news and cool opportunities I want to share with you!

Yesterday my fifth book launched. I know I should have mentioned in it a previous newsletter, but this book is so personal that I have trouble plugging it. Why, you ask, would he release a book he’s not comfortable plugging? This book is a collection of the poems I wrote in the immediate aftermath of my ex revealing that she never really loved me and announcing she was leaving me, continuing through to the point where I started feeling the first glimmers of hope that my life would go on. I felt compelled to share the poetry with the world because I suspect there are people out there who might connect and maybe even take some comfort in the shared experience, but being this transparent feels dangerous. After deciding to publish, I treated my own anxiety by telling myself very few people would read it. I told a friend I expected it to sell four copies, two of which would be read. Instead, it became an Amazon bestseller on the first day. To my surprise, this felt really good, thanks to some readers who reached out and told me it had exactly the effect I’d hoped. So I’m letting you all know. If poetry is your thing, When She Leaves Me is available now, here: https://bit.ly/WhenShe

This Saturday, November 28th, at 5pm, I’ll be participating in a reading with two other poets, Lydia K. Valentine (Brief Black Candles) and Zack Dye (21st Century American Verses). The event is hosted by Not a Pipe Publishing and co-sponsored by bookstores Third Place Books, The Neverending Bookshop, and Books on B, and writers organizations Portland Ars Poetica, the Oregon Poetry Association, and Writers in Town. You can register for the event here, and Not a Pipe Publishing will send you the Zoom link for the event: https://bit.ly/TFPMonth

Saturday, December 19th, I’ll be participating in Jolabokaflod PDX. Jolabokaflod is an Icelandic tradition in which people give one another books on Christmas Eve and then read together. Authors Margaret Pinard and Elizabeth Mitchell created a version of this in Portland to connect local authors and readers. This year it’s all online, and I’ll be on a couple of panels: “Writing YA in a World of Identity, Sexuality, and Violence: How Much Is Too Much? – Michaela Thorn, Debby Dodds, Karen Eisenbrey, Kate Ristau, and Benjamin Gorman” and “The Year of Publishing Women – Sang Kromah, LeeAnn McLennan, Mikko Azul, Heather S. Ransom, and Benjamin Gorman” but there are a ton of other great offerings as well, so check out the whole schedule here: https://jolabokaflodpdx.com/

Monday, December 21st: The Writing Against the Darkness team, a group of writers who raise money to fight Alzheimer’s through The Alzheimer’s Association’s annual The Longest Day fundraiser, is getting started early this year. Normally we build up to the annual event on the summer solstice, then get together that day (online and in person, though it will all be online this year, of course), and write from dawn till dusk. This year we’re going to have a dress rehearsal on the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. It’s a much easier lift to try to write on the shortest day, and we can start our fundraising efforts and hopefully remind more people that they can join the team. So if you would like to join us, we would love to have you. All kinds of writing and all writers are welcome! 

http://www.notapipepublishing.com/blog/2020/11/5/writing-against-the-darkness-will-be-writing-on-winter-solstice

Monthly Poem

I may not have been very good at maintaining a monthly newsletter, but I’m remaining pretty consistent at writing poetry, so here’s one that fits the season well. 

Gratitude in 2020

The liquid soap

on the dishes

is just green goo until

churned, it becomes bubbles

and people keep popping up

on my phone 

excited by isolation.

Vicky, the poet, talks about

sharing and gives me a prompt

and Eleanor, the writer, says,

"I'm not bailing on what I've got, but just

whew … I've reached for

someone else's dream, it feels like"

and Jessica, a tired new mom,

tells me about her son's meltdown but

she pluralizes to

"We are tired and want to be held"

That's the year.

When the country discovered its

deeper rot in the middle

of a plague and only barely

tossed out the dictator after

so much damage

and so many standing

with signs that really said

"We are tired and want to be held"

and Thanksgiving could be

obligatory and false except

I'm grateful

for all the bubbles

Sign off

I’ll keep sending you flowers every day (digitally, through Instagram and twitter and FB) to try to bring some added beauty into your life. But don’t let anyone tell you how you have to feel this holiday season, including me. If you don’t feel hopeful, you aren’t obligated. Take care of yourself in whatever way you need to right now. I’m pulling for you.

-Ben

Celebrating Survival

Tonight I attended the launch party for Lydia K. Valentine’s beautiful book of poetry, Brief Black Candles. She had 113 people in attendance! One of the things she talked about was the way her father would welcome people into their family, saying, “You’re a Roberts” to non-blood relatives. I have long been a believer that family is the people we love, so this really spoke to me. And it made me reflect on the way the launch of my next book will be very different from my novels. In addition to my blood relatives, I have a wonderful family of people I’ve adopted, and people who have adopted me, and I know many of you all would be there to celebrate this next book’s launch if I asked. But it’s such a strange kind of celebration I would be asking you to attend.

Inviting people to celebrate the launch of When She Leaves Me would feel a bit like asking people to come to my own personalized version of a party to celebrate an asteroid striking the Yucatan Peninsula and wiping out the dinosaurs. Two years ago, my life exploded, but it did so in stages. First, I found out my marriage had been built on a lie. Then I foolishly fought to maintain that marriage anyway. I tried to live in the debris of the explosion for a while. Then that failed. Slowly (ever so slowly), I crawled out from the fallen trees and discovered the ashes in the sky were thinning. Slowly. So slowly. This book is not about some magical, complete recovery. I am a diminished person compared to the man I was two years ago. I’ve learned a lot about myself, but most of it is humbling and not-at-all flattering. I made a choice to include poems in the collection that revealed me to be angry, sometimes petty, often melancholy, frequently pathetic, and generally not a great guy to be around the last couple years. It’s odd to celebrate sharing that.

And yet, you are reading this because, for millions of years, small mammals like me survived. And we survived in community with one another. So, while I won’t be throwing a traditional launch party (or a non-traditional online version), I do want to thank you all for your support over the last couple of years. To paraphrase Lydia’s father, you all are family. I once heard Oregon’s poet laureate Kim Stafford talk about how poetry is about making connections in a very immediate way because it can be written so quickly. My novels take years to write. I’m sure part of the reason I turned to poetry during this time in my life was because I needed immediate communication with you, my family. Collecting that need two years later, when I’m no longer in the place I was in when this book ends, loses some of that benefit for me, explaining my reluctance to promote this book as much as I should, but I hope the work retains that benefit for you; I hope you’ll feel that reaching out in every poem and recognize it as a sign of my gratitude for you. Maybe survival is a small thing to celebrate, but I’m glad I get to survive with all of you.

Contest Announcement: Is Donald Trump the Biggest Liar Ever?

This could be fun! Let’s make a game of it. I believe Donald Trump has told more documented lies than any human being ever. I could be wrong about this. One of the big problems with our politics is that people are unwilling to learn they are wrong and admit it. So I’m going to challenge anyone who wants to participate: Show me I’m wrong. Not only will I admit it, I will pay you for teaching me. I will send you a free, signed copy of one of my novels and a $25 Visa gift card (in the hopes that you’ll like my book and choose to use the gift card to buy another from your locally owned independent bookstore 😁). I’m paying you to prove me wrong.

Rules: Be the first to provide me with the name of someone who has told more lies than Donald Trump, and provide a link to documentation that this individual has told more than 20,000 lies, and you win. I’ll DM you to get the address where you want me to send your book and Visa Gift Card. It’s that easy.

But! (And this is on your honor) if you can’t think of anyone, spread the word about this contest. Share the post or tweet or link to the blog. Ask your friends. If you are a Trump supporter, try to get help from other Trump supporters. If you have a celebrity you know who might want to share this and even sweeten the pot with a prize of their own, ask them to participate. If you know someone in the media, ask them to cover the story of the contest. Because this is more than a game. This matters. 

Here’s the thing: I have asked Trump supporters this question before. Can they name me anyone, not just a President or a politician by ANYONE, who has ever told as many documented lies as Donald Trump. Here’s what I get back: 

• Absurd guesses based on partisanship rather than evidence. “Obama!” “Clinton!” Not even close, and they can’t ever find any documentation for those claims. 

• Or both-sides-ism. “All politicians lie.” Perhaps, but that’s as logical as answering “What does 2+2=?” with “All math questions have answers.” Trivially true but not going to get you far in a math class. 

• Or what-about-ism. “What about Benghazi?” Again, trying to shift the question to “What is the most significant lie?” and not even doing a very good job of it. 

Here’s what I never get: 

• A name and evidence to support the claim. Not once. Not yet. 

I reached out to a Harvard Ph.D. expert on lying, Dr. Bella DePaulo, to see if she could think of any documented cases that would top Trump. I was worried there might be some famous case of a compulsive liar who had been studied and all his/her lies tallied up by a psychologist. (Dr. DePaulo’s work on Trump has focused not on the quantity of his lies, but on their nature. She’s found he is an exception in another way. Not only does he lie more than anybody, but his lies are exceptionally self-serving and cruel.)

She couldn’t think of anyone who beat him in sheer numbers off the top of her head, either. “I don't know of anyone, but it is possible that such people exist and someone else could point to the evidence,” she said. So let’s find out! Anybody got a name and a citation?

Here’s why this matters: If someone lies to you, they are doing something wrong. We have a basic moral framework, supported by every religion and moral schema, that dictates that people should tell the truth. We make exceptions for “little white lies,” those expressions of polite falsehood that serve as social lubricant. But we all understand that falsehoods undermine relationships, and that too many undermine society itself. If everyone were to lie like Donald Trump, verbal communication itself would simply break down. We’d be living in caves and grunting at one another in a generation or two. We must believe that the people with whom we are communicating are at least making an effort to communicate honestly. If they aren’t, they are harming us. But here’s the thing: If they are harming our relationship by being deceitful, and if we know that, and if we encourage them to continue, we are participating in the harm. And if we know better than to harm ourselves (and that’s a logical leap, I know, but let’s stipulate it), and we continue to do it, we are fools. That’s why one of the myriad ways we describe lies (and for a great read on those, check out Bullshit: A Lexicon by Mark Peters) is to say someone has “made a fool” of you. So as people are making their final voting decisions, and as the rest of us are trying to figure out how to feel about people who support Donald Trump, here’s something we should all be able to agree on: If, as I suspect, Donald Trump has told more lies to the American people than any person ever, and if someone is aware of this contest and follows the results, and if they still decide to vote for Donald Trump, they are a fool. That’s not mean to say. It’s not uncivil. It’s something they are telling you about themselves. If they know about this contest and vote for Trump, they are saying, “I know he makes a fool of me. And I am okay with that because X, Y, Z.” And they may have reasons, even legitimate ones. They aren’t irredeemable or unworthy of engaging in community in the future. They aren’t necessarily an evil person; that’s a separate debate. But they are a fool, self-evidently, almost tautologically. 

And I think that can help us going forward. If we can at least understand that Trump voters are fools, while we can still live together and build a society together, we can all make an informed decision not to allow those people to hold the kinds of positions where their foolishness will continue to cause harm. For example, I would be hard-pressed to imagine a circumstance where I would ever vote for someone I knew supported Trump, and that’s not because I want to punish them for the harm their vote caused, but because I wouldn’t be able to trust them to make good decisions in the future knowing they were fully aware that Trump lied to them more than anyone else and they chose to believe him anyway. What kind of decisions would that person make in a position of power? It’s reasonable to assume they would make foolish ones. Because they have told us they are a fool. (If they were running against someone who I knew would cause terrible harm, I’d certainly consider it. I’m all for strategic voting to produce the best possible outcome. But that’s a separate debate.)

I am excited to see what someone out there can find, or to see how broadly we can spread the word if no alternative answer can be found. 

And please, think carefully about this question when deciding how to vote and how to live with your neighbors after the election. I suspect most people have made up their minds at this point, but regardless, we still have to learn to live with one another on November 4th. Maybe that will be in a country dominated by fools. Maybe it will be in a country where the majority of us have to figure out how to minimize the harm caused by a sizable number of fools. Or maybe it’s just a country where one guy has been foolish and will be forced to admit it and pay somebody. Let’s figure that out together, shall we?