"Bridge (Trust)" - Class 11/15


What a disturbing week. I am glad that we spent election night in class together.

Particularly, I am glad that we read "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" the night of the election. We read it before we knew the results, but you seemed to know what would happen. Or maybe you thought it would make sense to read it regardless of the outcome, because it would still apply in a tight race.

In the poem, Icarus drowns, and everyone is too preoccupied by the beauty surrounding them to notice. Further, Icarus drowns because of his own hubris. The poem is so disturbing to me because I recognize myself as the farmer. And I see many on the political left as Icarus -- because we dreamed big dreams (some even hoped for this outcome so that we might see more grassroots organizing and a political revolution) but were at the same time complacent. As a Hillary supporter since 2008, I have felt like I didn't do enough during this election cycle.

I haven't felt like drawing hills for the past two weeks. Maybe I am too far out from the summer. Or maybe what is happening has finally gotten under my skin. In any case, the results have shaken my faith in our governing institutions, and left me wondering what I can do.




Photos from class on election night.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning


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