On Poetry, From the Personal to the Political

Salzburg Global Seminar, with support from the Bush Foundation and the McKnight Foundation, is proud to host at Schloss Leopoldskron artist residencies from selected Fellows from the Cultural Innovators Forum, a program that since 2013 has brought together cultural innovators and creative practitioners from around the world.

Artist and Fellow Carl Swanson spent eight days at Schloss Leopoldskron in October, working on his poetry, inspired by the surroundings. Carl reflects on his experience below.

I couldn’t stay as long as I might have liked for this residency. I have young sons I had to get back to, and a family funeral to attend. The service was for my uncle Peter, a composer and musician, and I had been turning over something to write for him, about him. Being in Salzburg provided a spark for a poem now titled Everyday Chapels, which I was able to read at his memorial. It reads, in part:
 
I visited Mozart’s birthplace today,
and you were there, in the raw wood and gold leaf,
in the expectant hope of how music turns us inside out,
opens infinite worlds.
 
“Is there a place for poetry in policy?” Salzburg Global Seminar President and CEO Martin Weiss asked me during an introductory meeting, and my response was that there has to be. As a part of my residency, I curated a project titled This Is For You, and in that artist statement I wrote that, “[poetry] is a way of welcoming others into your thoughts, emotions, and culture, to create exchange and understanding.” We need that invitation to reflect and understand if we are to create human, humane policy. I read On Connection, by British poet, novelist, and performer Kae Tempest whilst in Salzburg, and this passage has stayed with me as a response to that question:

“Naked language has a humanizing effect; listening to someone tell their story, people noticeably opened up, became more vulnerable, and let their defences down; the rooms got less frosty, less confrontational…Each time I have walked into strange rooms with poems to tell, I have had to confront my own insecurities and judgements about who I was talking to and why, and each time I was taught something about what connects us being more powerful than what divides.”

Art and creativity is also the fertile ground for seeding change. This Is For You gathered 21 contemporary books of poetry and poetry journals from poets working in the Midwest of the United States, or published by Midwest presses, as a way of bringing my hometown to Salzburg. These works were selected with an intentional focus on a presentation of a diverse America, as a counterbalance to the mostly mid-century, mostly white poets currently in the Schloss Leopoldskron library. Recognizing the creative work and possibility in the world should be at the core of an organization with “global” in its name.

"The Zoom calls and WhatsApp chats that came out of our time together saw us through the early pandemic, as many of our creative outlets and careers hit existential roadblocks."

There is also that ongoing, productive tension, of both the global network and the specific location of Salzburg Global Seminar and Schloss Leopoldskron. I was part of the last Cultural Innovators Forum cohort to come to the Schloss in 2019, before the global pandemic upended our lives.

That experience of being in this place and to have the time and space to connect was invaluable, but even more so was the connection that continued afterwards. The Zoom calls and WhatsApp chats that came out of our time together saw us through the early pandemic, as many of our creative outlets and careers hit existential roadblocks.

Now, as part of the 75th anniversary celebrations of Salzburg Global, portraits of our cohort taken by Fellows Yasmine Omari and Jose Cotto are displayed throughout the Schloss. To return and see friends from around the world visible as part of the setting for other cohorts, Fellows, and guests was a delight, and a reminder that the work of expanding the reach and connection between Fellows is a continuing task. Urbanist Jane Jacobs observed that “new ideas need old buildings,” and the renovations, re-curations, and reimagination of the Schloss are making that possible.

But back to poetry. Although I was in Salzburg at a quiet time for programming, around my visit were sessions like Connecting and Supporting Ukrainian civil Society in Time of War, the Corporate Governance Forum on Global Disruption and Uncertain Horizons: How can Boards Navigate New Risks, and Public Policy Innovations for Inclusive Communities. Critical conversations for these times of strife and upheaval. Amidst all this, I come back to the Bertolt Brecht epigraph:

In the dark times
will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

I share the reflection prompts that I put together for This Is For You, as an invitation to sit, reflect, and be inspired. These prompts were loosely organized along the themes of the shared values of Salzburg Global Seminar and Schloss Leopoldskron – welcome, exchange, fairness, and transformation. All of those things take time, and imagination.

Choose a word, write as many rhymes for that word as you can think of.

What does home sound like? Smell like?
When have you felt welcomed?

Set a timer for 5 minutes. Just write.

Write down your earliest memory.
Describe a friend's laugh.
What is the first thing you want to tell a new friend? The second thing? The last thing?

Make a list of words you commonly use. Don't use those words.

Describe a time you were treated unfairly or faced injustice.
Describe your anger. Your joy.
Your love. Your peace.

Take four deep breaths. Write how each is different.

Reflect on a person who changed you.
Where is the movement in your body?
When you think of the best possible world, what is it?

Write a full sentence, then break it up every four words. Read it aloud.

"The personal, the hope we hold as we exist as a human being and relate to others is the fundamental building block of the political, of policy, and of transformation."

I started this reflection with the personal because I must. Because the personal, the hope we hold as we exist as a human being and relate to others is the fundamental building block of the political, of policy, and of transformation. And we must make space for that, whether in our homes, in our conversations, or sitting next to the Schloss Leopoldskron Garden Parterre, in the shadow of the Untersberg.