Andrea Cohen, "Seaside"

Hi all--

The news may not be reliable with regard to what happened in Los Angeles the last few days. You have to know because while the protests were small, they were intense, and the abuse of federal authority has been/is egregious. What the feds did:

• Shoved a union leader who was peaceably observing a protest and arrested him. You need to see the video for yourself (see below this list).
• Covered entire blocks in tear gas, causing people who were indoors to cough.
• Attempted to raid a Home Depot in order to arrest... well, whoever. It isn't a secret that immigration operations are frequently arresting and throwing out legal permanent residents and citizens.
• Arrested at least 100 people.
• Officials bragged about bringing out the National Guard in Los Angeles, in defiance of state and local authorities, and they got the President to sign off on this.

According to some, protesters were hit with a vehicle, causing major injuries. I can't find confirmation of this in mainstream reporting, but the live reports from the ground give little reason to doubt what happened. Reports from LorennaCleary and Sean Beckner-Carmitchel follow:

Below, video of the SEIU president being violently shoved and arrested:

You're going to hear from people that the protesters are bums who just want to cause trouble. I urge you to ask those who say such things what they would do if they feared losing their loved ones to concentration camps where we can confirm innocent people have been sent. When they deny that anyone "illegal" is innocent, please do ask them if they can differentiate between a civil misdemeanor and a criminal offense. When they start telling you lurid, grisly stories about criminal acts, please inform them that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than the native-born.

We live in a post-constitutional moment. People are using their paranoia and anger to justify anything. They want to use power to hurt others and they don't even know why they want to do so. One second it's because "they don't work," the next it's because of "crime," the next it's because "they don't belong." It's nonstop excuses.

The post-constitutional situation is nakedly authoritarian, constantly grasping for power and pain. And that what makes what happened in Los Angeles so remarkable. As erinscafe on Bluesky noted:

In their words, "people just dropped everything to show up and yell at federal agents." They didn't do this because they hate America or are radical leftists. They did it because they're worried about their neighbors, their friends, their families. They understand that immigration authority does not trump any given law a locality or state has, because freedom means self-governance. Hurting those who have done no harm is an incredible affront to self-governance, a complete dismissal of the "consent of the governed." It is notable how mercenary and dishonest conservatives have become: there's no way given what they support now to argue for the oh-so-precious states rights they were screaming about under Obama and Biden. To say nothing, of course, about individual rights.

Andrea Cohen, "Seaside"

Last time, we examined Kay Ryan's "We're Building the Ship as We Sail It," a poem which discusses the matter of its title. Initially, a ship was built to prevent drowning, but now we have grown and need it to do more. It requires a deeper, curved hull, sleekness, even grace. Ryan's poem is a bit paradoxical; I am not quite clear how one can bend a raft and still keep sailing. But I found it making sense the more I thought about how we see what we wish. How grace emerges from a ship getting slightly sleeker, with cognizance of what has passed and what is to come.

A theme we didn't discuss in detail was that of planning. Ryan's lines are somewhat understated: "It’s awkward / to have to do one’s / planning in extremis / in the early years — / so hard to hide later." Is it only "awkward" to have to plan for the worst? For losing your things, mutilation, and death? Is this a fear which actually can be hidden? Or will it arise again, a panic a random series of events can trigger? "Planning," in Ryan's telling, covers one's slow evolution away from obsessing over annihilation. Weirdly, the recognition of other needs pulls us from the most frightening anxieties. But I do believe that anxiety about death can only be hidden so long.

Below, Andrea Cohen's "Seaside" invites us to dwell on the theme of planning a different way. It doesn't start with panic, but with the ingredients of the imagination. How curiously they work: "we had / to plant the sand / and the idea of happiness." I imagine not a few of us think the beach is an easy beauty to appreciate. I do think it is awesome by the shore, but it is also awesome to reach new ranks in video games I barely have time to play. To borrow Ryan's phrasing, it does seem awkward to have to use our imagination to rediscover nature.

Seaside (from Poetry)
Andrea Cohen

Before the day at the beach,
we scouted out the day

at the beach, because
nothing happens without

planning, because we had
to plant the sand and

the idea of happiness.
We had to haul in

the water. All our
pleasures were forays

into wilds, were carry
in and out—like

our bodies, which
glistened, and were gone.

Until I read it a few times, I didn't catch that Cohen's poem describes nothing but planning. "Before the day at the beach, / we scouted out the day / at the beach..." It's funny how planning can be the achievement itself. "[N]othing happens without / planning" as literal, a statement of self-cause, the unity of necessary and sufficient conditions.

Relatedly, I am prone to believe that many are all talk and no action. Lots of "concepts of a plan," even plans themselves, and no actual effort. I know I am not alone in this belief. And I know there are consequences for being too cynical. "[N]othing happens without / planning" is a certainty, a truth which cannot be denied. People will act because they want immediate results and reveal they have done extremely shoddy planning. Usually, disappointment and bitterness follow. Also, they might plan only for specific results, and in that case something strange can occur. They'll get good things, things they didn't expect, and have no idea what to do with them–if they acknowledge anything good has happened. To be clear, the very notion of planning is controversial, even if necessary.

So at this juncture, the emphasis on planning as inevitable and inviolable is striking. Ryan's poem is ultimately about acceptance. One has to accept the ship will never be perfect. Here, "the idea of happiness" has to be planted; you plan for it because you envision it. As if you know it innately and need others to discover the same in themselves. There's some kind of natural perfection which requires the use of the imagination. This use is less spontaneous and organic, more structured and demonstrated.

Cohen plants "sand and / the idea of happiness." "We had to haul in / the water:" what is being hauled? Not the water, but one's self. "[P]leasures were forays / into wilds," little explorations yielding bits and pieces of knowledge. You get the picture. Usually we'd say a beach day is carefree, playful, unstructured. Maybe that's true, but Cohen points to a different order underlying it. A discipline of being at the beach which unlocks nature. But that unlocking does not yield a permanent good. One's pleasures go "in and out" like the tide, and the glistening of one's body is a memento mori itself. For a moment, you shine, but only for a moment.

What has happened? It's so quick it feels like nothing, and I believe that's the point. The incredible goods had in the natural world come from a quiet but realized determination. An order you slip into once indicated, as it isn't hard to play with sand or look for hermit crabs in shallow tides. The perfection of the plan is the nothingness of it all. It's beautiful, it's happy, it's gone so soon. And that means the fast evaporation of time isn't just a problem for happiness or beauty. It's also a problem for rationality. We think of reason as building these philosophical and scientific edifices which stand the test of time. First of all: no they don't. Secondly: if you actually know what's good for you and can get it, that will more than likely happen in a blink of an eye. Life can be barely tolerable when most of our plans do work.

I feel like "Seaside" ultimately complements what we discussed before with "We're Building the Ship as We Sail it." If the latter points at a maturity which accepts imperfection, then this poem leans toward an achievable perfection which isn't very much at all. That doesn't mean, of course, that you don't go to the beach. Far from it. It may be awkward to use your imagination to rediscover nature, but that's one's fundamental calling. "[N]othing happens without / planning," and the perfect plan, the complete action, is nothing because it is everything. Living in an inland desert, I know so many who would love to spend just one day at the beach.