Detail from FDU Wamfest 2015 poster |
Growing up in a two-horse hamlet in upstate New York, folk
songs as I recall were about long lost loves and heart-wrenching memories of faraway
fabled places like Scotland and Tennessee. Yesterday, a singer-songwriter from
Texas named Darden Smith plucked a folk song out of me.
“Why’d you join the Army?” Darden abruptly asked, just as I
bit into a slice of pizza at a songwriting workshop he was conducting at a
Creative Writing Club meeting at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Florham
Campus in Madison-Florham Park, NJ.
I’d dropped by the workshop to see what I might pick up to
use in writing workshops I coordinate in New Jersey for Warrior Writers, an
organization that provides an outlet for military veterans to work on ways to write
and talk about hard-to-tell experiences. I was also there as a participant in a
three-day words and music festival called Wamfest that FDU hosted. The theme of
the festival was “The art of healing/ Veterans.” Warrior Writers Kevin Basl,
Eli Wright, Sarah Mess and I read poetry as introduction to three well-attended
concerts that wove together words and music addressing war and aftermaths.
At Darden Smith’s workshop, I was looking to see how a
professional wordsmith works with tight-lipped students who had served in the
latest wars. I nearly choked on pizza when he called out to me across the room.
“Why’d you join the Army?” Damn, he‘s calling on me. I felt
like a suddenly trapped student hoping not to be noticed in the back of the
room. I joined the Army a very long time
ago, in 1962, after dropping out of college. But that isn’t the full story. My
thoughts swirled wildly; actually, the story began long before then.
“I wanted to go to West Point when I was in 7th
grade,” I blurted out.
Question by pertinent question, Darden pulled out the essence of my
life story, while tinkering with guitar riffs, honing this phrase and that
phrase that popped out of my mouth, all the while explaining to the circle of fascinated
students how to focus on the “emotional truth” of a story being shaped into a
song.
Welcoming suggestions and feedback from David Daniel, the
creative writing professor who organized the event, and others in the circle, he
demonstrated the process of “collaborating on songs” that he does with fellow
songwriters, musicians, and people whose story he helps tell. Smith is the
founder of an organization called SongwritingWith: that does workshops with active
duty troops and war veterans and other survivors of traumatic events.
Later in the afternoon, he entranced a hall full of students,
faculty and visitors with a concert of songs from such workshops. The finale of
the concert was the song Darden Smith coaxed out of me and created in the
course of a lunchtime workshop. It was the most concise version of what I've been trying to say for decades.
SHATTERED GLASS PIECES
Darden Smith/Jan Barry
Eisenhower went to West Point
I wanted to be like him
At 21 I put down my rifle
I wanted to be a general
I wanted to win
I joined the army went to Vietnam
It’s when I first had my doubts
But I went to the Point anyway
There was something I had to figure out
Shattered Glass Pieces
Shattered Glass Pieces
Reflecting the whole
Story that had to be told
I picked up a pen
I had to tell America
About the secret nasty war we were in
My view of my country was broken
In pieces on the ground
I put the story into poetry
And scattered it around
Shattered Glass Pieces
Reflecting the whole
Story that had to be told
50 years later the war goes on
50 years later we sing this song
War is not a game
It shattered man woman and child all the same
Shattered Glass Pieces
Reflecting the whole
Story that has to be told
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