Photo by Amnesty InternationalIsrael. Gaza. West Bank. United States. Iran. The Gulf states. And everywhere else. Do you notice the extent of the silence in response to the brutality? It is inevitable for there are no words for the atrocities that are occurring, for the war that is claimed by a President and half a congress of his cabal and too many more, not to be a war. That is because those who are waging their non-war don’t care that people are actually suffering and dying. 1,100 on March 5th. The great majority entirely innocent, and each individual wound and each death, each child blown apart, each old man under collapsed rubble, each mother unable to feed or protect her children, each being, human and non-human and each animal and each plant dying of the spray on the southern regions of Lebanon of high levels of glysophate (round-up, the second generation of Agent Orange) each evacuated villager who will never be able to return home, each one of these is suffering the horrors of this all too real war.Ina Andreae knew this was coming. When she was alive, she had no words for it either and so she took her life at 25. In reality. But her ghost returned to warn us in the book I wrote, The Story That Must Not Be Told. This is what we will speak about when Janko and I read and talk about the real wars and what two young women understand better than the adults who deny the wars.The other young woman is Amal Tuqan, a 16 year old Palestinian wire walker, living in a refugee camp in the West Bank under siege by the IDF, her experiences, based on a real young woman in Nablus.Janko and I, anguished about what is occurring, and both of us feeling the responsibility to speak and gather all of you, of us, into communities of consciousness so that the truth of what is occurring is served and somehow we will find the resilience to sustain ourselves as we seek the collective wisdom to undo the madness. Please join us for this conversation.
Carolyn Brigit Flynn who will host and introduce the reading writes the following:MARK YOUR CALENDARS! I’m writing to invite you to join me next Sunday, March 15, 12-2 pm PST online for STORIES OF RESISTANCE: A Conversation Between Writers Deena Metzger and James Janko—two amazing luminaries with urgent new books featuring women’s voices of witness and truth-telling.I’m incredibly honored to emcee this event. Registration required:RSVP here.About Deena Metzger and James JankoMany of you know the work of my beloved friend and teacher Deena Metzger, a novelist, poet and healer. Through her, I recently met James Janko. I knew that Janko (as everyone calls him) had been a medic in Vietnam, had won medals which he then gave to Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange, and has written three award-winning novels. After we spoke for a time, I admired his calm, gentle demeanor, and commented, “You know, I’m just meeting you, so I don’t know your history…. are you a contemplative?”Well, yes, he told me. He’s been a devoted practitioner of Buddhism for several decades.I learned that this calm, wise man visited Nablus, Palestine and Tel Aviv in 2017, because he was haunted by a story he read about a circus in Galilee for Israeli children and Palestinian children. He met the members of this circus, and was deeply moved by the Palestinian children learning the circus arts of acrobatics, tumbling and wire walking while living in crowded refugee camps—and their connections with Israeli children in Tel Aviv.
Palestinian circus brings a smile to children’s faces in Jerusalem. Photo by BY-NC-ND/ICRC/J. Serrano RedondoUltimately, his book THE WIRE WALKER, about a talented sixteen-year old Palestinian girl named Amal, is simply brilliant. The voice of Amal haunts the reader, and we are given a window into the role of the arts and creativity during times of occupation and war. Amal not only physically walks a tightrope between buildings, but between cultures and histories.Deena Metzger’s latest book, THE STORY THAT MUST NOT BE TOLD: A DEAD WOMAN’S MEMOIR, features another gifted young woman. Ina Andreae was born in post-war Germany, and as a young artist in the 1970s traveled to Los Angeles to study art at the LA Women’s Building, where she met Deena, who was teaching writing there. Ina confronts the legacy of war and remembrance as the daughter of a family of a munitions company who assisted the Third Reich and benefited economically from World War II. You can see my essay about it here.Taken together, these two books by Deena and Janko address the role of art, resistance, witness and the generational legacies of violence, war and occupation. I’m thrilled to offer these two brilliant writers and thinkers in conversation, and featuring readings from both of their books.MORE ABOUT JAMES JANKO AND DEENA METZGERPURCHASE The Wire WalkerPURCHASE The Story That Must Not Be Told**************************************************************************************Supporting my work with a paid subscription or an intermittent donation allows me to freely offer my writing to the community. If you are not able to become a paid subscriber, recommending this Substack to your friends and colleagues or liking/ leaving a comment is greatly appreciated. (It helps the work circulate)The Story That Must Not Be Told, my latest Novella, is now available on Bookshop, Barnes and Nobles, or Amazon. Or, ask your favorite bookseller to carry copies in your local bookstore.
