God Bless America ... Oh And James Naughtie As Well

It is hardly a novel observation that America is a frustrating contradiction. I veer from railing against its inanities (of left and right, of Obama and Ryan) to recalling how it welcomed my twenty-one year old self and tilted me gently towards manhood. Its sense of possibility is compelling and through all my world-weariness it again dragged me back to hope last week.

I sat in the corner of the Arden Hotel last Friday, a lone theatre goer, cradling a glass of sauvignon blanc (favoured pre-theatrical beverage) and passing the time before a performance of Pericles, Prince of Tyre. As with most poseurs I had as company a book of poetry - you know that game you play when you sit in a public bar and pass judgement on the other customers, well for others in the Arden last week the mot juste would have been wanker. So there I was, the wanker reading poetry, when America came riding over the hill like the cavalry. Frances E. W. Harper was the daughter of freed slaves and used her poetry to advocate racial equality. As with all the best writing, this lends itself to appropriation:

 

"Bury Me in a Free Land"

Make me a grave where'er you will,

            In a lowly plain, or a lofty hill;
            Make it among earth's humblest graves,
            But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not rest if around my grave

            I heard the steps of a trembling slave;
            His shadow above my silent tomb
            Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

 I could not rest if I heard the tread

            Of a coffle gang to the shambles led,
            And the mother's shriek of wild despair
            Rise like a curse on the trembling air.

            I could not sleep if I saw the lash
            Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
            And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
            Like trembling doves from their parent nest.

I'd shudder and start if I heard the bay

           Of bloodhounds seizing their human prey,
           And I heard the captive plead in vain
           As they bound afresh his galling chain.

If I saw young girls from their mother's arms

            Bartered and sold for their youthful charms,
            My eye would flash with a mournful flame,
            My death-paled cheek grow red with shame.

I would sleep, dear friends, where bloated might

            Can rob no man of his dearest right;
            My rest shall be calm in any grave
            Where none can call his brother a slave.

I ask no monument, proud and high,

            To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
            All that my yearning spirit craves,
            Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

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So that's America dealt with. Next James Naughtie. He did a model interview with the Prime Minister on Radio 4 this morning - catch it if you can because even the assiduously fair-minded Naughtie got frustrated with Cameron's smooth evasions. But it is not Naughtie as political interviewer I want you to revel in. No, I want you to download as many podcasts of Book Club as you can. I have just listened to J.G. Ballard and Philip Pullman in quick succession. That is why I pay my licence fee.