Forget for a moment your emotions over Bill Clinton's impeachment and the criminal and legal issues. Consider only this aspect of the entire mess: the debasement of the language. Think of the sheer volume of words that were expended over the course of the scandal--by the accused, by co-conspirators, by defenders, by pundits--which were intended not to get to the truth of the matter, but to get through another day with Bill Clinton in office. This abuse of language did not merely demean the speakers and undermine the process, it was an insult to the listener and a fundamental attack on the meaning of the language itself. For this book, Tom Simon has taken the testimony of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, their own words before the Independent Counsel, and has turned choice bits into found poetry. The effects are devastating.
For those of you who, like me until recently, don't know what found poetry is, you may be familiar with the old Village Voice feature where they ran snippets of Phil Rizzuto's Yankee game dialogue in the form of free verse poems. [These were collected in the very funny book, O Holy Cow! : The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto (see a sample)] Similarly, I once found a book of poems collected by Annie Dillard (see Orrin's review of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) called, Mornings Like This : Found Poems. She lifted verses from things like old catalogues or boys magazines and turned them into poems. This technique has a really weird effect; it somehow transmutes the mundane into the profound or the mythic. We are so immersed in language, particularly in today's media culture, that words become cheap. But putting them into the form of poems makes us pause and consider them seriously.
Here are just a few of Mr. Simon's found poems:
From the Testimony of William Jefferson Clinton:
'In the Context of Her Desire'
She raised the issue with me
In the context of her desire
To avoid testifying
Which I certainly understood
Not only because there were
Some embarrassing facts
About our relationship
That were inappropriate
But also because a whole lot
Of innocent people were
Being traumatized
And dragged
Through the mud
By these Jones
Lawyers
With their
Dragnet
Strategy
'It's Possible'
Yes, that's correct
It's possible
That she...
While she
Was working there
Brought something
To me and
That at the time
She brought it to me
She was the only person there
That's possible
'There Are No Curtains'
There are no curtains on the oval office
There are no curtains on my private office
There are no curtains or blinds that can close
The windows in my private dining room
The naval aides come and go at will.
'Paranoia'
After I went through a presidential campaign
In which the far right tried
To convince the American people I had
Committed murder
Run drugs
Slept in my mother's bed
With four prostitutes
And done numerous other things
I had a high level of paranoia
'The Correct Answer'
Let me begin with
The correct answer
I don't know for sure
But if you would like me
To give an educated guess
I will do that
But I do not know for sure
'For Example, Kissing'
I thought the definition
Included any activity by
The person being deposed
Where the person was the actor
And came in contact with
Those parts of the bodies
With the purpose
Or intent of gratification
And excluded
Any other activity
For example
Kissing is not covered by that
I don't think
The Word 'Is'
It depends on what
the meaning of the word
'is' is
If the--
if he--
if 'is'
means is
and never has been
that is not--
that is one thing
If it means
there is none
that was a
completely
true
statement
'What I Said'
I don't know
That I said that
I don't
I don't remember
What I said
And I don't remember
To whom I said it
'A Friend of Betty'
You know
She was a--
She had worked
In the White House
She had worked
In the Defense Department
And she was moving
To New York
She was a friend of Betty
'Never'
No . . .
It's certainly not the truth
It would not be the truth
. . . I have never
Had sexual relations
With Monica Lewinsky
I've never had
An affair
With her
From the Testimony of Monica S. Lewinsky:
'He Was Just Angry'
And he was just angry with me
And he told me it was none of my business
What--you know
What he was doing...
He had never been treated as poorly
By anyone else as I treated him
And that he spent more time
With me
Than anyone else
In the world
Aside from his family
Friends and staff...
I didn't know exactly which
Category that put me in
'Little Tiny Spot'
I told him
That I really cared about him
And he told me
That he didn't want to get
Addicted to me
And he didn't want me to get
Addicted to him
And we embraced at that point
And that's--
I mean it was--it's just a
Little tiny spot
Down here
And a
Little tiny spot
Up here
'Oh, No'
Yes
And at that point
I noticed it
And I kind of thought, oh
This is dirty
It needs to get cleaned
And then I remembered
That I had worn it
The last time
I saw the president
And I believe it was
At that point that
I thought to myself
Oh, no
"Another Time"
Oh
Our meeting ended up
Or was cut short
By the fact
That he had to have
A meeting with Mr. Bowles
So
He told me
That he'd give me
My Christmas present
Another time and
That he wouldn't
Jerk me
Around and
Abandon me.
'A Crime in Washington'
I'm a friendly person
And -
And I didn't know
It was a crime
In Washington
For people - for you
To want people to like you
And so I was friendly
And I guess
I wasn't
Supposed to be
We live in age that wallows in irony and cynicism. We trust no one and nothing. We are always alert for hidden meanings and secret motives. We assume hypocrisy and are suspicious of genuine belief. None of this is healthy for a society. It has given our culture a coarseness which almost all of us feel has gone to far. We must act to reverse this course, to begin to reclaim language, so that we can once again put some faith in words and those who speak them. Leaders--be they politicians, academics, journalists, clergy or whoever--must enforce certain standards of intellectual honesty if we are to restore meaning to words and returm their power to coommunicate universally.
But to read these poems, based on the words of a president and his consort,
is to be bombarded by double entendres and obfuscations and outright lies.
They are supreme examples of the use of language, not to communicate with
others, but to confuse others and to serve political ends. One of
the little noticed crusades of the past century was the effort of conservative
critics like George Orwell,
CS
Lewis, EB White,
Jacques
Barzun, and others to defend the English Language from those who would
corrupt it for their own purposes. This little book is an excellent example
of what they were fighting against, and a useful reminder that the fight
goes on and that they (we) are losing.
(Reviewed:20-Aug-00)
Grade: (A)
