The Phenomenology of Anger

Annotation — My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

- Phenomenology of Anger, The (Rich, Andrienne) - Poem in 9 parts. Part 4 references the My Lai massacre.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: 4. Madness. Suicide. Murder / Is there no way out but these? / The enemy, always just out of sight / Snowshoeing the next forest, shrouded in a snowy blur, abominable snowman / At once the most destructive and the most elusive being gunning down the babies at My Lai vanishing in the face of confrontation / The prince of air and darkness computing body counts, masturbating in the factory of facts" (1)

Notes

Poem in nine parts; part 4 references the killing of the babies at My Lai and the "factory of facts" computing body counts. Track B6, read live at Stanford (introduced by Barbara Gelpi). Spoken-word poem. CFS-3311, 33 1/3 RPM, stereo, ℗ 1973 by The Stanford Program for Recordings in Sound; Side 2, track 6: "The Phenomenology of Anger" (7:18). The front cover is a black-and-white woodcut-style print of a woman with a bird, fish and hanging corn on a teal ground; the back says the cover includes the print "It Will Be Alright" (1970) by Sally Stillman, and carries a portrait of Rich by photographer Sissy Krook. The sleeve states the poems were read at Stanford in January 1973, that Side 1 opens with an introduction by Barbara Gelpi, and that "this recording contains a valuable commentary on the American bombing of North Vietnam, occasioned by spray-paint inscriptions on campus buildings…

About the artist

Adrienne Rich, born 16 May 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland; died 27 March 2012 in Santa Cruz, California. Poet, essayist and feminist, an anti-Vietnam War activist in the late 1960s and early 1970s. [Source: Wikipedia]

Themes

Anti-War · My Lai · Civilian Casualties · Anti-Calley · LGBTQ+

In collections

My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]