Questions for Mike Sharpe about Thou Shalt Not Kill Unless Otherwise
Instructed
Q. You haven’t published poetry before. Why now?
A. I was shaken by the death of a graduate from a nearby high school. He
was killed in Iraq in November, 2004. I memorialized him in a short
poem. The act of writing a poem tapped into a well of thought and
feeling about the war in Iraq. I found myself waking up night after
night writing down ideas that surfaced from that well. I had no
intention of writing Thou Shalt Not Kill . . . It wrote itself.
Q. Do you have a favorite poem?
A. No. But the first and last are like bookends for the entire
collection. “The Twin Towers” conveys the onrushing emotions that we all
felt as we watched the towers collapse. Then it describes the abrupt
wrong turn that we took in Iraq. “The Helpless Giant” is America tangled
up in Iraq. But it is also our vision of what America was and what it
can be in the future. Sometimes stories occurred to me, nursery rhymes
with a twist, even a playlet. I’m not going to say which one that is.
Q. You’re making life hard for me. You set yourself up as an expert on
the Iraq war. Are you?
A. Look what the “experts” have accomplished. I could see what was
coming from the sidelines and I see the morass we’re in now.
Q. Aren’t you going to make a lot of people angry with your attacks on
George W. Bush?
A. If people are angry, they don’t need any help from me. Some people
are still angry about the Vietnam War. But we had to get out anyhow. I
hope that readers will think rather than get angry.
Q. Do you consider yourself patriotic?
A. Yes. The invasion of Iraq was one of the greatest tragedies in
American history. We have turned Iraq into a recruiting ground for
terrorists. I hope that we have learned not to rush into war when we
have the alternatives of diplomacy, alliances, inspection, aid, world
opinion, and all kinds of carrots and sticks.
Q. Aren’t you giving comfort to America’s enemies?
A. The war in Iraq is giving comfort to America’s enemies. The sooner we
leave the less comfort they will get. The Iraqis need a neutral third
party to help them resolve their differences. Otherwise, the insurgency
will go on with no end in sight.
Q. Are you criticizing our troops in Iraq?
A. They didn’t choose to go there. I am criticizing the administration
that sent them. The majority of Americans want them out.
Q. How would you fight terrorism?
A. In the short run, by working with all the counterterrorism
organizations in the world, Arab and Muslim included. In the long run,
by using our resources to end poverty and the humiliation that goes with
it. It is doable. It costs far less than war.
Q. You are against war, period. Isn’t that a bit utopian?
A. As circumstances change, people change. The world is much smaller
than it was because modern communication, transportation, and weaponry
have made it smaller. There are no faraway wars anymore and little wars
can get very big very fast. People react to great, ominous, visible
facts. I have hope that they will react to the fact that war has become
suicidal.
Q. Are your “poems” really poems? You don’t follow any particular form.
A. Poems don’t have to follow any particular form. If they move you by
their intensity, rhythm, and thought, they are poems.
Q. Who’s going to read this stuff?
A. I have written a note to the hesitant reader saying, don’t be afraid
to read Thou Shalt Not Kill . . . I have written nothing esoteric. My
meaning is clear. No previous training is necessary. Just start reading.
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