It was the televised images and commentary of journalists regarding the range and accuracy of the Cruise missiles then raining down “shock and awe” on Baghdad that gave Dan Wilcox the initial idea for his poem “Baghdad/Albany” some twenty years ago.
If Baghdad was vulnerable to massive missile strikes from afar, well, why not his own hometown, a mere 150 miles or so from a hypothetical warship in New York Harbor?
For Wilcox—a central figure in (and an architect of) Albany, New York’s thriving grassroots poetry scene for several decades now, that was a thought that clearly had the potential to become a poem.
But first, he said, it would take some time to “compost.” So that initial thought didn’t make it to pen and paper (or his computer screen) right away, remaining “just in my head” where what he calls “composting” could take place.
“It was always in my head,” he said, remembering the two-and-a-half mile walk each morning from his home to his office when he would mull over the stark implications of a missile strike where he lived, and their potential for a poem.
For Wilcox, it was a natural question to raise. Since his teen-age years in the 1960s poetry and political activism have both been central to his life and his identity in his community.
“Howl’ changed my world.”
Poetry to such an extent that, in 2019, he was named one of the city’s “Literary Legends” by the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library (in a city renowned for writers and poets, no less, from Herman Melville to William Kennedy and so many more). And activism through such actions as his twice-weekly “peace vigils” at sites ranging from a busy suburban intersection to the New York State Capitol. (A Vietnam-era veteran, he is an active and highly visible member of Veterans for Peace; see his bio below.)
Tellingly, both his poetry and his activism come from the same wellspring, he said—his high school discovery of the Beat poets.
“The poetry actually led me into activism,” Wilcox said. “‘Howl’ changed my world.”
And years later its author, Allen Ginsburg, helped Wilcox resolve what was for him a conflict between art and activism. Was he a “political poet,” he wondered, or an “art for art’s sake” poet? There, too, Ginsburg provided the answer when a radio interviewer raised the same question of the famed poet.
“Politics is just another topic,” one of many that poets explore, Ginsburg responded, giving Wilcox a new way of thinking about what he had seen as a conflict.
“Politics seasons a lot of my poems, but it’s only one of the topics I write about,” Wilcox says now.
But it’s not politics per se that gives “Baghdad/Albany” its extraordinary power. Once the initial idea had composted, the poem that emerged is striking both for its lack of explicit political commentary and for its effectiveness in bringing war into the daily life of the reader.
War, after all, is most often an abstraction that many Americans can brush aside as they go about their lives. “Baghdad/Albany” brings the horror right back home. The missile targets mentioned are actual places and the potential devastation is easy to envision. And a reader doesn’t have to know Albany, New York, to feel the impact. The point carries over to any American city with, say, a hospital and a Dunkin’ Donuts.
If “shock and awe” was largely a cable news spectacle for many of us, what might we say when “A young mother driving home from work is shot/by nervous tankers as she drives across the Normanskill Bridge?”
One measure of the poem’s universality is the fact that it has been adapted by other writers for their own hometowns, and with only a handful of changes can speak to any war in our century. By changing the place names, poet Cheryl Rice transformed it into “Baghdad/Woodstock” and Jack Rossiter took it even further in his “Baghdad/Chicago.”
Neither does it grow dated, war being an evergreen reality in our world.
It is “one of my most published poems,” Wilcox noted, including its release as a Broadside in an edition of 1,000 copies.
Here is the poem:
BAGHDAD/ALBANY
The TV glows green like the obsolete computer in the attic
blurred shapes that could be buildings or simply the geometry of electrons
bright circles of lens flare as accents
an abstract electronic image they say is Baghdad.
I don’t know Baghdad, don’t know where the missiles are falling
I don’t know which buildings are burning, which roads are blocked
I don’t know Baghdad, but I do know Albany.
They say the missiles are launched from ships 200 miles away
they say they land with “amazing accuracy”.
There could be ships in New York harbor
firing Cruise missiles at the Empire State Plaza, at the Governor’s Mansion on Eagle St.
200 Cruise missiles raining down on Albany tonight
with “amazing accuracy”
taking out Lark St., the Bookstore, the Flower Shop,
Elissa Halloran’s gone up in smoke
Ben & Jerry’s a sea of mush
Bombers’ Burritos blasted to bits by its namesakes.
With amazing accuracy one missile misses by only 1%
takes out my house, rattles the windows of St. Peter’s Hospital.
Wounded shopkeepers and teachers, their children bleeding
show up at Albany Medical Center; the halls are jammed
with improvised beds; a team of doctors and nurses
die in an explosion in the parking lot.
The sound of planes overhead, the trucks on New Scotland Ave.
are the invading army, blasting into Albany.
A young mother driving home from work is shot
by nervous tankers as she drives across the Normanskill Bridge.
on Willett St. the 1st Presbyterian Church is in ruins
downtown St. Mary’s Church burns, City Hall collapses.
Galleries burn, paintings and photographs melt with the wallpaper
no poetry can be heard on Lark St., or Hudson Ave., or North Pearl.
And in Watervliet the homes of laborers and postal workers, of waitresses
and truck drivers are flattened when the Arsenal is hit
(the enemy says it was a cynical and evil move to place a military facility there).
The electricity stops, the water fails, the Price Choppers and
Hannafords are looted, Mobil & Hess stations are on fire
Dunkin’ Donuts a pile of plastic and bricks
next to the broken bottles of what was once Justin’s.
And School 19, where citizens sought refuge from their burned houses
is mistaken for a command center and hit by a bunker buster.
I watch TV, watch a city destroyed by an invading army
it could be Baghdad, or Basra
it could be Saigon, or Leningrad
I don’t know Baghdad
but I do know Albany.
And it’s burning.
—Dan Wilcox Originally published in Monthly Review
And here is a link to a video reading of “Baghdad/Albany” by Dan Wilcox.
Although Dan Wilcox once worked as a dishwasher & as a short-order cook, he has never driven a cab. For most of his career he worked as a bureaucrat & wrote poetry. He was named one of the 2019 Literary Legends by the Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library. He claims to have “the World’s largest collection of photos of unknown poets.” He is the host of the Third Thursday Poetry Night at the Social Justice Center in Albany, NY & is an active member of Veterans For Peace. You can read his Blog about the Albany poetry scene at dwlcx.blogspot.com.
Truth.
Wow. I was living in Albany for the 'shock and awe' show. This brought back a lot of those memories. Powerful. Thank you for this.