Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is

Tuesday, November 5th, 2024. And Lord have mercy, it is Election Day in the United States.

Today's poem, First Fight, Then Fiddle by Gwendolyn Brooks, offers a little bit of political perspective

on the occasion. Here's the poem, I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and then read it once

more. First fight, then fiddle. First fight, then fiddle.

Ply the slipping string with feathery sorcery,

muzzle the note with hurting love,

the music that they wrote, bewitch, bewilder,

qualify to sing threadwise,

devise no salt, no hempen thing for the dear instrument to bear.

Devote the bow to silks and honey.

Be remote a while from malice and from murdering.

But first to arms, to armor.

Carry hate in front of you and harmony behind.

Be deaf to music and to beauty blind.

Win war. rise bloody,

maybe not too late for having first to civilize a space wherein to play your violin with grace.

For being a brief sonnet, it is very punchy, like a wound bowstring. It is taught. The whole feeling of the sonnet is firm, but not rigid, vibrating with tension.

There's also a surprising reversal right at the beginning of the poem. We get in the opening line the repetition of the title, first fight, then fiddle, and it seems to be an ordering sequence. But what follows that imperative is instruction on fiddling rather than fighting. But there's something wrong with the music.

Ply the slipping string with feathery sorcery,

muzzle the note with hurting love.

The string is slipping.

...