As
November 5,
2024, the
day of the
most
significant
election in
United
States
history,
approaches
the Steiny
Road Poet
has been
reading
Jamie
Raskin's
lyrically-written
book Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy.
On September 7, 2024, she heard The Jamie Raskin Oratorio, a powerful
poem by Anne Becker based on Raskin's book, with piano and trumpet
accompaniment by Noam Faingold. Washington Musica Viva (WMV) with
Carl Banner on piano, Chris Royal on trumpet, and Anne Becker reading
the words performed the work at the Church of the Ascension in Silver
Spring, Maryland. The beloved U.S. Congressman Jamie Raskin sent a
video to the concert, saying he would be a mess if he showed up and
instead would attend the Bruce Springsteen concert that was held at
Nationals Park in Washington, DC that evening.
The concert was structured in two parts, beginning with a transcription of
Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe song cycle played by Carl Banner on piano
and Rhonda Buckley-Bishop on soprano saxophone. This instrumental
presentation grounded the evening in a variable feast of moods. Although
Schumann meant for this work to be sung, his music is so sonically rich
that it easily stands on its own. As always, Steiny enjoyed hearing these two
talented musicians play together.
After Anne Becker delivered her poem which ran just under 40 minutes,
Steiny and the audience of an estimated 175 rose to their feet in
thunderous appreciation.
BACKGROUND
Jamie lost his only son to suicide days before the January 6, 2021,
insurrection perpetrated by the then-sitting president of the United States
Donald Trump. Thomas (Tommy) Bloom Raskin, a second-year student at
Harvard Law School, had been, since childhood, a precocious philosopher,
policy wonk, and moral voice in his father's ear. Plagued by severe
depression and sleep problems, Tommy, 25 years old, ended his pain and
was discovered by his father on December 31, 2020.
HOW DID THE JAMIE RASKIN ORATORIO COME ABOUT?
Carl, who founded Washington Musica Viva in 1998, commissioned a piece
based on Jamie Raskin's speeches, asking Anne Becker to work with
composer Noam Faingold, who is WMV's composer-in-residence. Anne
accepted the commission but then found she needed written text to work
from. Access to Jamie's speeches was recordings only. Anne said in an
interview Steiny conducted September 11 that transcribing was daunting
and would have taken too much time. She needed to have his words in a
written form to work with. What drew her to Jamie's book was his strong
connection to his son.
WHAT WAS THE POET'S PROCESS?
At first, Anne said she believed she could not talk about Tommy's suicide,
but as she read further, she felt she had to. What helped her understand
Tommy's decision was that she had a good friend who also committed
suicide. She realized that Tommy came to the point where pain was greater
than his will to live.
Among the observations Anne made about Unthinkable—Jamie is a good
storyteller, he injected a thread of magic in his storytelling touching on
such things as Hogwarts, the fictional boarding school of magic from the
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, and that family was an important
aspect of what Jamie was imparting about himself and his son.
Anne also said she had a personal experience with the Institute for Policy
Studies, where Tommy had interned at a young age and which was
founded by Jamie's father Marcus Raskin. Tommy's Baba, Marcus, had
been prosecuted by the then Attorney General Ramsey Clark but acquitted
for conspiring to aid and abet draft evasion during the Vietnam War.
Tommy was vehemently against war as well as an animal rights activist.
Anything that endangered life concerned Tommy, which made his suicide
so much harder to accept.
Of "Unknowable," the subpoem that begins The Jamie Raskin Oratorio,
Anne said she had strong feeling for it because it is most like her own
poetry. For years, Anne has led her poetry workshop Writing the Body for
people who have experienced life-threatening or chronic illness as a
patient, caregiver, or family member. Pay attention to Anne's use of words
with "s" which gives a shushing, seething, and sinister feel to the silence
experienced by the suicide's death.
Unknowable
by Anne Becker
Peaceful the room was
and every object in it
after all that would happen
had happened and there
were only objects in it:
soft cotton clothes strewn
where they had fallen
when they shucked the body
they had cradled, they contained,
they caressed all the day before;
a book come to rest, open
lying face down on the floor.
No movement now, not even
of air entering and leaving
the lungs. No cell twitching,
performing its functions, no
metabolism burning its chemicals,
no exchange of by-products,
elegant symmetry. The body
innocent, not cold yet, still
seemed the same, the skin
still pliable, still supple,
except for the terrible static
of the darkened room.
Mostly, Anne used Jamie's words for this eleven-part poem. According to
Anne, some of Jamie's words have such importance that they were like
singing [musical] notes.
Anne described the structure of this work as a poetic compression. It took
her nine months to write it. The hardest piece to create was "Dear America,
My Son", the closing subpoem. She said while she doesn't normally keep a
journal, she had to for several months before she could write the closing.
WHY WAS THE WORD ORATORIO CHOSEN FOR THE TITLE?
Anne said it came from the idea of oration and what an orator would do.
She said it was somewhat tongue in cheek, because it doesn't have the
elevation of historical and mythical elements. However, she added that
there is a sacredness in Jamie's approach.
Oratorios are somewhat like operas in that they are large-scale music
events with an orchestra and singers. The difference is there are no
costumes, scenery, or acting. The themes of well-known oratorios of the
past are usually religious.
When Steiny asked if Anne had thought of expanding this work so that it
becomes a bone fide oratorio, she answered, "I spoke for Jamie without
pretending to be Jamie. I felt that the work shouldn't get too big for its
britches." Nonetheless, Anne said she would like for the work to be
presented again.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO HAVE THE ACCOMPANYING MUSIC?
For Anne, the piano and trumpet were other voices. "I didn't feel like I was
alone because these voices were joining me." She also said that every time
they put the music with her words, the result was different. It was more
improvisation than an exact presentation of words and music.
The music was a mix of tonal and dissonant expressions. Unlike the
Schumann Dichterliebe played earlier in the concert, Noam Faingold's
music could not have stood alone without the words. Happily, The Jamie
Raskin Oratorio music was performed by two outstanding and passionate
performers—Carl Banner on piano and Chris Royal on Trumpet.
WHAT WAS THE GOAL FOR WRITING THIS WORK? DID POLITICS
PLAY A ROLE?
"Absolutely," Anne affirmed, "these things [about the January 6
insurrection] needed to be said. I did this kind of thing [addressed pressing
issues] in my book, The Transmutation Notebooks: Poems in the voices of
Charles and Emma Darwin." Coincidentally, Steiny read Raskin's book Unthinkable during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and felt it
was the blueprint for what was presented at the DNC, down to the use of
the word weird which is peppered throughout his book. The Jamie Raskin
Oratorio ends with a Walt Whitmanesque close that sums up the violence
of the January 6 insurrection, quotes Thomas Paine, a hero of Jamie and
Tommy (We have it in our power to begin the world again) and quotes the
preamble of the U.S. constitution (In order to form a more perfect union)
to advocate for the miracle of the American democracy, a state of being
"vulnerable as life itself."
Dear America, My Son
by Anne Becker
What now, dear America, my soul,
my son? We could have lost it all
on that day the Capitol was attacked,
windows and doors smashed,
Capitol police assaulted, wounded—
their eyes gouged out—and murdered
while we ran for our lives
with gas masks we could not use.
Our nation, our democracy, could have
been plunged into authoritarianism,
mass violence, and, even, civil war.
Then I would have lost you twice,
my son, my soul, dear America.
Join with me now I'm driven
by memory and the spirit of you,
Tommy, my son, wanting far more
from our democracy, not less.
We must express our dread of
fascism, what it has done to humanity
in the last century, what it does now.
And the horror of Nietzchean politics of
"force, fraud and will to power." Government
must be the active instrument, a drum,
promoting the general welfare,
not just of human beings,
but all living things. Morality
must replace violence
as the essence of power.
For most of the history of the world,
dictators, autocrats, bullies, despots,
tyrants and cowards were the rule.
We have it in our power
to begin the world again.
Such a miracle: democracy. Such a
fragile, precarious, transitory thing.
Vulnerable as life itself. We,
the people, our inalienable rights,
our consent to be governed. In order
to form a more perfect union and
preserve to ourselves the blessings
of liberty, amending the Constitution
as we gain more wisdom, a wider vision.
And likewise, Jamie Raskin wanted to preserve the details of both his son's
short life and that terrible day of January 6 when a sitting president of the
United States tried to upend the most revered democratic government in
the world. Brava to Anne Becker for assisting Jamie Raskin in that effort
and may the world know Tommy Raskin and never forget the terror of
January 6, 2021.
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