Can you go through the step-by-step process of writing this poem from the moment the idea was first conceived in your brain until final form? The journal, Jewish Currents, used to email a daily Jewish fact called “Jewdayo” that I subscribed to, stories about Jewish-related stuff associated with that date. June 7, as it turned out, was the date the Supreme Court voted 5-4, in 1971, that Paul Cohen wearing a jacket with the words, “Fuck the Draft” on it was protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. This was the Jewdayo story on June 7, 2019, and I was inspired! (It first appeared on June 7, 2011)
Jewish Currents
https://jewishcurrents.org/june-7-fuck-the-draft/
The Supreme Court Decision
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/403/15
June 7 was also the date that The $64,000 Question quiz show debuted on CBS in 1955, and the date on which Max Factor, the cosmetics king, died in Los Angeles in 1996, and the date in which Charles Strouse, the composer whose works included Bye Bye Birdie and Annie, was born in 1928. Factor and Strouse were Jews, of course. The $64,000 Question? Hosted by Hal March, aka, Harold Mendelson, likewise Jewish. The connections with Jews were sometimes a stretch, but the factoids were fascinating!
Watch Hal March host the $64,000 Question
Read About Maksymilian Faktorowicz aka Max Factor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Factor_(person)
Read About Charles Strouse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Strouse
Since I read about it on the internet, at my computer, I likely started the draft at the computer, rather than in a notebook. I can’t find a penned raft in many of my notebooks at least.
I remembered vividly the uncertainty of the draft and the war, in those days. In high school I’d gone to a draft counseling/anti-war meeting that met weekly at the home of a Philosophy and Religion teacher at the local college.
I decided to focus on my college cohort as the opening of this poem, before spilling the facts of the case, to indicate what it meant to all of us, “sticking it to the Man.”
Where were you when you started to actually write the poem? And please describe the place in great detail. June 7 is the day after my birthday, and I was sitting at the computer with a cup of coffee when I opened the Jewdayo email for that day and jotted some mental notes. I do believe I must have composed the poem online, since there is not a draft in the notebook I was filling up at the time, but I probably lounged in a chair and thought about it some, too, working out the “plot,” the setting, situation. These things don’t come whole out all at once like Athena springing from Zeus’s head! I had to do some additional research, to get the full story, including the dissenting opinions, etc., just for the background. I’ve forgotten where I found the detail about Cohen asking the judge for his confiscated jacket back, but it seemed like a triumphant punchline.
What month and year did you start writing this poem? June 7, 2019, was when the Jewdayo article appeared. I probably completed a rough draft within an hour, and then spent time over the next few days revising, tinkering. I might even still be tinkering had the poem not been taken for publication that fall!
Were there any lines in any of your rough drafts of this poem that were not in the final version? And can you share them with us? Unfortunately, I do not have any rough drafts. I revised the electronic file online and previous words were not saved. I do recall including lots more factual detail, like the date of the arrest – April 26, 1968 – and somebody’s horror that “women and children” were present in the corridor when Cohen walked through, but also noting that Cohen did not threaten anybody or commit any acts of violence. TMI…
What do you want readers of this poem to take from this poem? The title of the poem, “Justice,” may or may not have ironic overtones, but the concept of justice is central to the event, and I wanted readers to think about that, and Harlan’s comment, “One man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric,” is just right on. This is what freedom of expression is all about.
Which part of the poem was the most emotional of you to write and why? My status as a “dangling man” (like Joseph, the protagonist of Saul Bellow’s novella, Dangling Man, as he waits to be drafted in 1944), was the most visceral aspect, and the image of Cohen “sticking it to the Man” when he asked for his jacket back!
Read About Saul Bellow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bellow
Order Saul Bellow’s DANGLING MAN
Has this poem been published? And if so where? This poem was accepted by Evening Street Review not long after I wrote it, and appeared in the Winter 2020 issue.
https://eveningstreetpress.com/product/evening-street-review-number-27-winter-2020/
It has just been republished in the “Re/Set” issue of Earth’s Daughters.
http://www.earthsdaughters.org/
Most of theBACKSTORY OF THE POEM links can be found at the very end of the below feature:
http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2021/02/will-justice-drakes-intercession-is-251.html