Interview with Michael Brockley
In your poem, you speak of losing belief in “thunder gods and the patron saint of the impossible” with the death of the final bee. What do you believe is still possible for humanity?
I tend to be cynical. There are powerful forces working to create oligarchies in the United States and in the world. Humans have to solve the problems of racism, address social justice, work to create a way of living that is respectful of the Earth and its denizens, plan for a jobless society, and learn how to create governance that is capable of reconciling irreconcilable differences. Maybe as the aging Baby Boomers leave the stage perhaps the following generation can figure out a way to cooperate and negotiate with each other. Particularly in the United States, I think we need to find a way to value our rich diversity. We have spent our nation’s wealth and history creating a legacy that is almost exclusively white, rich, Christian, and male, and we have focused on our past as if presidencies, military ventures and economics are the sum total of our history. Humanity’s hope, and America’s hope, rests in our ability to realize the myths we tell ourselves about who and what we are. We need to have men and women of color at the table and contributing to the discussion. We need to have the role of women expanded so that that our institutions look more like our society. Who people love and how people worship should not be our concerns.
I wrote this poem in an eco-poetry class that was taught by Nickole Brown. It’s easier for me to see what I fear. I’ve never found religion to be very comforting, and I’m afraid that if we continue on the path we have been following for the past forty years we will be living in the sort of world I allude to. The way I see it human beings need to learn compassion, generosity, a sense of morality and ethics, wisdom, integrity, kindness and honesty. The speaker in the poem recalls a time when there were birds. He probably had a favorite pie and looked forward to eating Mexican wedding cakes during the Christmas season. But his grandchildren won’t remember much of anything he talks about as he ages. In 2020, there are people in the United States who have never livd in a nation that built an interstate, that put a human being on the moon, that passed civil rights legislation.
Human beings are running out of time. We listen to rich, white men who repeat tall tales and lies so often that many of our brains have been myelinated with these easy fables. We have a lot of work to do, and I’m afraid that an incremental approach works to the disadvantage of our future.
Do you believe our planet can survive humanity? Why or why not?
I believe the planet will be here. But will there be bees and butterflies, cats and dogs, elephants and rhinoceroses? I still buy cds and dvds and the occasional book. I have large collections of t-shirts and conversational neckties. Maybe the question is what changes do I have to make to contribute to the possibility of there being a planet with humans on it. I doubt there will be any humans left if we continue to put oligarchs and overlords in positions of power. We have to change the way we dream.
Can you share a snippet of poetry that speaks to you, and tell us why?
A number of people have posted Naomi Shihab Nye's Gate A-4 on my Facebook thread. The women in that poem created the sort of world I want to live in. And at the end of the poem, Nye says, "This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost." That's what I want to believe. That's what I want to work toward.
I tend to be cynical. There are powerful forces working to create oligarchies in the United States and in the world. Humans have to solve the problems of racism, address social justice, work to create a way of living that is respectful of the Earth and its denizens, plan for a jobless society, and learn how to create governance that is capable of reconciling irreconcilable differences. Maybe as the aging Baby Boomers leave the stage perhaps the following generation can figure out a way to cooperate and negotiate with each other. Particularly in the United States, I think we need to find a way to value our rich diversity. We have spent our nation’s wealth and history creating a legacy that is almost exclusively white, rich, Christian, and male, and we have focused on our past as if presidencies, military ventures and economics are the sum total of our history. Humanity’s hope, and America’s hope, rests in our ability to realize the myths we tell ourselves about who and what we are. We need to have men and women of color at the table and contributing to the discussion. We need to have the role of women expanded so that that our institutions look more like our society. Who people love and how people worship should not be our concerns.
I wrote this poem in an eco-poetry class that was taught by Nickole Brown. It’s easier for me to see what I fear. I’ve never found religion to be very comforting, and I’m afraid that if we continue on the path we have been following for the past forty years we will be living in the sort of world I allude to. The way I see it human beings need to learn compassion, generosity, a sense of morality and ethics, wisdom, integrity, kindness and honesty. The speaker in the poem recalls a time when there were birds. He probably had a favorite pie and looked forward to eating Mexican wedding cakes during the Christmas season. But his grandchildren won’t remember much of anything he talks about as he ages. In 2020, there are people in the United States who have never livd in a nation that built an interstate, that put a human being on the moon, that passed civil rights legislation.
Human beings are running out of time. We listen to rich, white men who repeat tall tales and lies so often that many of our brains have been myelinated with these easy fables. We have a lot of work to do, and I’m afraid that an incremental approach works to the disadvantage of our future.
Do you believe our planet can survive humanity? Why or why not?
I believe the planet will be here. But will there be bees and butterflies, cats and dogs, elephants and rhinoceroses? I still buy cds and dvds and the occasional book. I have large collections of t-shirts and conversational neckties. Maybe the question is what changes do I have to make to contribute to the possibility of there being a planet with humans on it. I doubt there will be any humans left if we continue to put oligarchs and overlords in positions of power. We have to change the way we dream.
Can you share a snippet of poetry that speaks to you, and tell us why?
A number of people have posted Naomi Shihab Nye's Gate A-4 on my Facebook thread. The women in that poem created the sort of world I want to live in. And at the end of the poem, Nye says, "This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost." That's what I want to believe. That's what I want to work toward.
Narrative Poetry Preview:
Reading the Books of Extinction in an Outpost
on Old National Road While Awaiting the Next Plague
by Michael Brockley
For N. B
I hide behind the thick walls that shelter us from seasons that alternate between arid heat and havoc storms. The dust from this month’s sirocco drifts midway up the outer doors, but the escape hatches on the roof are usually free of debris. All I have left to read are the last jaguar’s memoir and the biographies of fireflies, the trilogy with the quote about the creator’s inordinate fondness for beetles at the beginning of every volume. I quit believing in thunder gods and the patron saint of the impossible after the death of the last bee. On those rare evenings when I remind my grandchildren of how bluejays and redwing blackbirds quarreled over the sunflower seeds they ate, they doubt my reminisces. The youngest no longer believe in flowers. In seeds. Or animals that flew. “What is blue?” they ask while chewing on their hair. My mother once celebrated the return of spring by asking the saints of her faith to intercede for blessings on her behalf. Spring arrived so that the Earth could heal itself. Saints were holy men and women who wore crowns of yellow light above their heads. What use did we ever have then for a patron saint of unattractive people? Or a patron saint of passwords? When the wind abates, I recite my own litany, asking forgiveness from elephants and butterflies. From the night fireflies of my youth, the lightning bugs that did not eat during their adulthood. The next time I teach my grandchildren about feasting, they will worry that I have succumbed to an isolate’s dementia. “Sugar?” they will ask. “Comfort food? What were you grateful for at Thanksgiving?”
Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Thieving Magpie, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and The Twin Bill. Poems are forthcoming in Flying Island, Scissortail Quarterly, and the Indianapolis Anthology.
Michael Brockley is a retired school psychologist who lives in Muncie, Indiana. His poems have appeared in The Thieving Magpie, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and The Twin Bill. Poems are forthcoming in Flying Island, Scissortail Quarterly, and the Indianapolis Anthology.