democracy without me

I wrote this as an application to be an ambassador to the Canadian Government. I did not get selected obviously for reasons oblivious to the oblivion in me, and perhaps most importantly, in the government.

*

Government needs poetry. Against the anaesthetized procedures, the ready-made euphemisms, and the generality of governance, poetry saves. It questions. It criticizes. It demands why why why.

I rarely know why, which is why, incidentally, I collapse into poems. Truth is slippery there. It is a bright gray, lint-like following the sunlight. Yet despite this playful ambiguity, I believe that poetry is necessary to revitalize the Liberal Government’s mission of innovation.

Why? Innovation transforms, but without reflective engagement, newness is not ensured. Rather, the same difficulties recycle. Meanwhile, poetry prods while produces. It reincarnates while respecting the old.

Why? Each word is life, but it is also death captured, an end to the possibility before. What I am suggesting here is an awareness to this potential universe. Change the dialectic of by-laws and bills to reflect the population. Have them understand. Have them take part in. Have them read and discuss and enjoy the sentences. For while technicality has its place, it is not enough to write blandly. What is essential is the fantastical, a belief in something beyond.

Why? People work and eat and sleep and work and eat again if they’re lucky. No reason compels them to muddle through syntactical snafu. What I believe I can offer, in part with the Canadian Council for the Arts, is a new paradigm: a mandatory workshop for MPs where they digest, throw-up, and embody poetry. While it sounds borderline insane, this is real innovation. It is doing what is necessary before it absolutely is.