MPR’s Joe Follansbee interviews former Minnesota U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy who shares a poem on deer hunting, equinox, and views of poets.

Transcript:

(00:00:00) but a story which is agreed upon is that Johnson kept after him in the White House saying where is the head of the deer that you shot on the ranch that the one that I had mounted for you until finally Kennedy put it up just to quietly and And Senator Humphrey and his Memoirs tells about being taken out on the ranch and they came to a deer and Johnson said shoot it and after he said he did but he didn't like to he said he didn't like to kill animals. So they went on a little farther the same day came to another deer and Johnson said shoot that one too and Humphrey shot the second one. And he said he didn't want to do it and then Johnson and Humphrey had the head-mounted. I saw it in his office and he gave me some of the sausage. And I didn't want to eat it and my wife said well you want me to cook I said no. I don't want to eat it. She said why don't you give it to your friends? I don't want my friends to you. So we'll give it to somebody who isn't your friend. I don't even know what people aren't my friends to eat it. So we kept around for about four or five years. I didn't want to throw it away. I would like being afraid of Temptation and finally we sold the house and I decided we've been tested long enough and I away, but it was there was three of the poem which It says gentle the deer was solicitude Solace them with salt and comfort them with apples prepare them for the man who will come a stranger with an unfamiliar gun The Watcher calls and Trust the head turns between the outer Saint Hubert's cross Burns but no conversion today, but quick shot the buck drops to his knees and decent genuflection to death. The dough fleas is not dead. He will arise in three weeks. The head will look from a wall but was changed. These dyes say what are the body of life does have Swift is our witness ground heart and muscle intestinal case tied with gristle a sausage sacrament of communion. So that all may be one under the transplanted eyes of the Watcher. So I guess that came out of political experience or personal experience with President Johnson. Do
(00:02:20) you ever wonder if when you speak about current issues whether Being a poet means that that pundits or journalists or even a general public takes you less. Seriously.
(00:02:34) I don't think the general public is really just is I know they're sort of passing by but the Press likes to say, well you support and even without that, you know, if you like war in Vietnam they say well you you are farsighted. I said, I wasn't Far Side you didn't it's sort of an excuse a well. They didn't have to see it because some peculiarity that actually you didn't have to be farsighted to See what was wrong with Vietnam had been there for you to look at for at least five years before 1968. And so they sort of say well you support and therefore, you know, he sees things that we don't see and half of what he sees isn't there. So it runs on that way. It's more of an excuse. I think especially for the press to kind of cover up.
(00:03:18) Speaking of the Vietnam era there's a poem titled Equinox. Have you could read that poem and tell me what was going through your mind.
(00:03:25) Well, it really was just kind of a reflection on time. I'd written that one on in September the previous year about the equinox and it is it's it really only kind of halfway related to to the campaign. But so this is six months after the September equinox and this are like saying well Asking people to kind of get into the action and this poem says whose foot is on the treadle that turns the burning stars is spun in the whole world halfway around since last I called come down come down started September look through a mournful raid. Now turn their site again upon a world half night half-light men of distant years who said much depends on change of seasons on solstices and equinoxes and the they have given reasons I disagree too much turns on inadvertence or what seems to be an accident of hand or d a chance Sunrise a glance of eyes, whether the wind blows which way the river flows and other things that come and go without regard for season or for reason, but just in case they may be right on this strange night that marks the end of winters fall for lifting help towards Spring again. Hi call
(00:04:50) I know in ancient times poets were regarded as very important in a society partly because they they talked about societal values and imagery and so forth and today poets are thought of more as artists and artists tend to be marginalized. Do you think you're right? Yeah, dude
(00:05:06) were divorced from Life.
(00:05:08) Do you think poets though and today's world? Have an influencer should have an influence on on the Civic life of the political
(00:05:15) life the ancient Irish had a strong feeling of the poet was the dominant person if he was ignored by the king why they would put a curse on him just say, you know, your kingdom will collapse and they just say it once or twice and put it in verse it was supposed to happen. You see the absence of that attitude when Jimmy Carter for example had his meeting on the Mountaintop. He invited people who are even journalists. I think Walter Cronkite was there which is getting pretty close to the bottom and military people and Jimmy Billy Graham was there but he didn't invite any pause which was a serious Omission because there's a certain time of which you need the need the fought and for special or if we're not the else just for some images that people will help people understand better.