The Power of the Word:
Understanding it Wisely, Using it Truly
This is the revised text of a public lecture held on 9 October 2012 in Sendai
which is one of the regions struck by the Great East Japan Earthquake

Sarah Ann Wider

Encouragement and AppreciationI

have been thinking and thinking about “the power of the word”—
what that power is. What a word is. What it can do. And what it can’t.
Language is always around us, but all too often we are not aware of thewords we hear or say. Yet words are, or can be, essential. Elemental.
Heart-making or heartbreaking, life taking or life giving. Integrally partof encouragement and appreciation—two qualities of mind that are
crucial at all times and absolutely vital in times of great crisis. In theface and in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, thepeople of Tohoku know this deeply. They know. . . .you know. . . .howelemental encouragement is to an individual’s and to a community’s
strength and how essential is a deep appreciation for what has happened
and is happening. Only with such understanding can one address thegrave challenges we face.
The people of Tohoku (Tohoku is the area damaged by the
Earthquake) are our teachers, and I am here today to share some of what
I have learned. In the past few days, my heart has been filled to overflow­
ing. As I have listened to the many beautiful, sorrowful, hopeful, heartbuilding stories from those with whom I have had the cherished honor tomeet, I have experienced the true power of encourage­ment. Each of yourstories flourishes within me; each of your loved ones who did not makeit through the tsunami lives now in my heart and life. I treasure theirstories and yours and will care for them and share them wherever I go.
They sow the seeds of hope for our planet’s future.
As American poet Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) once said, theessence of poetry is sharing. You are living the poetic spirit Ikeda sensei(President of Soka Gakkai International) so beautifully describes. You
have lived through the unutterable and the unbearable. You have found178the power of the word

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strength to carry forward into life and to find the language to express
what must have seemed unthinkable on March 10, 2011. Where doesthat strength come from? Where does such language live? You havetaught me so much.

Your Words Create your Self-Portrait
Before turning to those questions, I want first to think with you about
what words are. When I was a little girl, even before I could read, I was
absolutely fascinated by how words looked. I loved looking through myfather’s dictionary and copying the letters even though I did not knowwhat they meant. It was an illustrated dictionary, and I was drawn to the
pictures as well as intrigued by the shapes words made. The dictionary’s
illustrations were just the right size for a child, miniature with precise
detail that invited a second, third and fourth look. No wonder that I
brought words and pictures together as one. When I entered school andwas learning to read, my teacher made a great game for us out of writing
each word. After we wrote each letter side by side until it formed theword, we were invited to outline the word and see what its shape looked
like to us: maybe it was a building or if you put wheels underneath it, a
train or a truck. I loved seeing the shape of the words themselves . . .
how the word itself became three-dimensional and was not justsomething flat on the page.
I tell you this small story from my childhood to celebrate the liveli­
ness and friendliness words may hold for us. They speak to our growing
imagination (and our imagination should always be growing!) , and they
companion us throughout life. I pause now to ask you each to think of aword or a phrase that has been important to you in your life. Write it
down; think about the memories that come to mind. Then turn to theperson sitting next to you and listen to their story and share your own
about words that have been important in your lives.
I think about the joy children show when they are first using their
voices, devising a language all their own, and then slowly merging that
language into a shared language with others. I well remember overhear­
ing a little boy, probably no more than four years old, skipping hand-inhand with his mother down the sidewalk of one of the streets in Ithaca,
New York, the town where I went to graduate school. To him, words
were a wonderful toy you could take with you everywhere. He sang tohimself and to his mother all the rhyming words he could think of. That
was more than 25 years ago, and I can still hear the delight in his voice
as he heard how words seemed to greet each other so cheerfully in the180

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very way they sounded.
It comes as little surprise that in English we refer to our firstencounter with language, the language that comes most readily andcomfortably to us as our “mother tongue.” For many of us, our firstmemories of language may well have been through time we shared with
our mothers. It is also no surprise that identity and language are so
closely connected. Think how we recognize each other by the very
sound of our voices. Just as we have a unique fingerprint, so we have aunique voiceprint. Something similar happens in the way we use words.
We share much in common, but we also have our own turns of phrasethat create a verbal self-portrait. In his essay “The Poet,” Emerson
wrote, “The man is only half himself; the other half is his expression.”1
He wanted his listeners and readers to explore that other half ofthemselves, precisely because expression mattered so deeply in terms of
the potential within us and our contributions beyond us.
The power of the word is something that is often on my mind,
although it often occurs in another form: what words can’t do. How
often, in English, we say of an experience: “it can’t be put into words”
or “there are no words for this.” Meeting with marvelous women at the
Soka Gakkai Tohoku Culture Center the other day—a place that shel­tered so many and was filled with so many encouraging words at a timeof great chaos—those wise women also acknowledged when words are
inade­quate. At times the most powerful expression of all is simply andfully being with a person, a hand on their shoulder, sitting lovingly withthem in their grief. At times we cannot put what we feel into words. At
other times, we may shortchange language, failing to live up to thewords that could do so much if only we stood behind them. The
difference between what is said and what is done runs rampant
throughout humanity. How do we right those words, so they don’t
become empty husks of meaning or dangerous means of exploitation?

“Words are Things or Nothings”
Again, I use a play on words from English. In English, the word “just”
can mean “true” or “right.” It gives us the word “justice.” But that sameword can also be used very differently. It can mean “only” or “merely.”
Someone can say, “it’s just words” and mean that the words are empty
and meaningless. Here you see a deeper distrust of language that has
crept into English—that words themselves are ineffective or impotent.
However, the possibility remains that the colloquial phrase “just words”
can be turned back into “just” words—words that bring justice andthe power of the word

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guarantee that individuals will be treated with dignity, in short, that eachwill be treated with true appreciation. On my first visit to Japan in 2006,
I remember a conversation where we talked about how appreciation was
the true foundation for justice. I have thought about that connection eversince.
Language is multi-dimensional. Words come in all shapes and sizes.
They are not simply marks on a page or particular sounds in the air.
They can take many forms, involving no writing at all. Many of us knowthat “music” is referred to as “the universal language” because it readily
connects people who don’t speak each other’s mother tongue. As you
know, I love the histories in words themselves, and in English, our word
“word,” comes from a much older time when it also meant a promise,and you still see that meaning in phrases that tell us that “a man is as
good as his word.”
Words—true words—deliver. If it is only a verbal promise and noaction follows, there would be no true word. As Emerson said to his
audience in 1831, “words are things or nothings.”2 While his play onwords may not translate very well into Japanese, its meaning surely
does. If what we say or what we write contains no further force within
it, then it is meaningless. To hold meaning, words must outlast a casualcomment or glance. They must participate in some real form ofconnection. If isolated, they shrivel and die.
Let me describe some of these three-dimensional words. They will
not be hard to imagine, for I know that you know them already. Eachbag sewn and filled by women’s division members for their sisters who
had lost everything was a word of encouragement. Every bit of sludge
and debris removed by youth members was another such word. Again
and again in these past few days, with every person I have spoken, I
have heard how in the midst of their own heart-wrenching loss theyreached out to others and cared for them. When I had the wonderful
opportunity to meet with Mr. Hasegawa last week, he spoke so feelingly
about the joy that arises through our exertions for others. Truly, youembody those words.
I also know that you can provide other examples from your own
experiences. When Mrs. Nakano and her daughter returned to theirhome in Futabamachi on July 16, 2011 for a scant two hours, they faced
the immobilizing weight of many, many emotions and the seeming
impossibility of the task: how could one decide what to take from ahome to which one could not again return? Mrs. Nakano’s daughter’s
action and accompanying words turned the impossible not only into thepossible but then to the actual. Packing a fan and kimono, she said,

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“Mom aren’t these your necessary things.” I pause to think what madethose words possible. The daughter beautifully knew her mother, knew
what was important to her, and knew her mother’s creativity andcompassion and how she expressed both. The dance troupe to which
Mrs. Nakano belonged and which performed for the elderly at nursing
homes and for different towns’ events had been elemental to her work ofencouragement for the past 20 years. Imagine the stories that Mrs.
Nakano and her daughter shared through those years. Imagine also thestories they probably never directly knew about how much people wereheartened by the dances.
Such encouragement could all too easily become a thing of the past,
part of the life “before” March 11. But instead, through her daughter’s
words and their power to speak to who she was and who she would
continue to become, Mrs. Nakano felt strength rebounding within her.
As she tells it, “I’ll dance again! I’ll send hope through my dancing, sow
seeds of hope everywhere!” And indeed she has, dancing at manydifferent events with thirty others who were also displaced from
Futabamachi. A dance is a word with power, speaking to the audience
about life’s vitality, telling stories to be remembered and reinterpreted in
one’s own life. And when the dancers themselves represent the mostdifficult demands we as humans will ever face, we in the audience knowthat we too would—no, must—be able to dance in spirit with them.

Words of Sharing and Mutual Support
When we expand our understanding of what a word is, we see its powerin many places. What could be more important that sustenance? In New
Mexico my home land, there are numerous feast days at the pueblos.
The women prepare food, lots and lots of good food. The practice beganlong ago to make certain that no one in the community would ever behungry. Whoever had a little more would prepare more. If you had lessthat time, you needn’t worry. Everyone would share, and there would
again be a time down the road, when you would have more and bringthat to everyone. The food was a blessing, there to help keep everyone in
the community strong, and prepared so that strength would flow out into
the world. Women working together prepare food so that all might befed. Conversations, laughter, sorrows shared and soothed: all go into thatcooking, and those precious qualities in turn feed others, a larger
sustenance than physical nutrition alone can provide.
In this light, I think of Mrs. Takahashi and the other women in Ōarai
rebuilding Mama’s Eatery. They too know well the heart of athe power of the word

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community. They know what sustains a community and what rebuilds it.
In a town supported by the fishing industry, everyone is involved. Andeven though women themselves were not allowed to become membersof the Fisheries Cooperative, Mrs. Takahashi persevered, creating the
Women’s Fisheries Cooperative so that women could not only have theirwork acknowledged but a place in which their work together would bemuch stronger. From her work with the Women’s Cooperative grew theidea of creating a place in the community where people both from thetown and beyond could enjoy eating the fish that was so important to thelife of the community itself. And when the tsunami devastated Mama’s
Eatery and wreaked havoc on the fishing industry, Mrs. Takahashi andthe women of Ōarai worked relentlessly to rebuild what had been
destroyed. As I read Mrs. Takahashi’s account of the rebuilding of her
community, I was struck by the importance of women within this work.
As she says, “The women of Ōarai are united in solidarity. We cooperate
to help each other along, and because we all stake our lives on our workin the same fishing industry, a spirit of mutual support is naturally borne
amongst us. The fishing industry itself cannot be run without teamwork,
so I believe that this spirit of mutual support is what enabled the quick
restoration of our eatery.”“A spirit of mutual support”—the phrase describes so powerfully thevery lifeblood of encouragement. Here again we see that larger under­
standing of words—communication created through coopera­tion, work­
ing together for a larger cause.

“Poetry is the Heart that Binds Humans, Society and the
Universe”
When Mrs. Takahashi speaks of “women united in solidarity” and of theencouragement they provide, my thoughts go immediately to the Soka
Gakkai Women’s Division members I have met and conversed with bothhere in Japan and in the United States through the Ikeda Center and now
with the women I have met at the Tohoku Culture Center and in
Ishinomaki. That sense of “mutual support” is so palpably present, andthe determina­tion and redetermination for the work at hand is vital andstrong.
I take you back to 2006 when I spoke with Women’s Division
Members. This was my first trip to Japan. I was used to giving papers
for academic conferences where audiences were generally interested
and mostly fair-minded but more critical than openly inquiring. I had
rarely been in a situation where the listeners actively supported the184the power of the word

speaker, literally creating conditions in which it was much easier toexpress thought. At Soka Women’s College, the students brought a
wonderful combination of heart into the room, a receptiveness andopenness to the speaker that I was literally put at my ease and felt as
though I was talking among friends. I was reminded how Emerson
described the best circumstances for expressing the most difficult ideas
not in a logic-determined essay but as if writing to one’s friends. In his
essay “Friendship,” he wrote, “The scholar sits down to write, and all his
years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy
expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend,—and forth­
with, troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on every hand, withchosen words.”3 He also comments in the same paragraph, “ourintellectual and active powers increase with our affection.” Certainly theaffection the students showed me that day and since through theirwhole-hearted welcome, their eager interest in sharing and inquiring
into my thoughts and in turn sharing their own has meant a wonderfulincrease of what I have been able to think and say. And when a few days
later, I met and spoke with women in Yokohama, the life-courage of
those 500 women created a sense of deep connection that abides withme to this day. I want to read you a passage from my journal at that
time,
‘While Angella translates I watch faces and I enjoy this time where it is
as if we are listening together, experiencing the words together. . . .
women catch my eyes, smile, nod, and in some cases cry. . . .500 of us
women listening with our hearts to the thoughts of being peacemakers
in a world that needs our good work. . . .that day will live with mealways. I will always carry that moment with me and within me.

When I returned to Japan in 2009 and had the opportunity to meet with
the Soka Gakkai Women’s Peace Committee, I again experienced such
heartening strength. Here women gathered in the spirit of mutual
support. Sitting with those women, learning about the work they havedone for peace, I felt the strength that comes from shared work. They
have been the careful collectors and guardians of the stories of women
who lived through World War II, enabling women to tell their stories on
their own terms and to share those stories around the world. They havecreated powerful exhibits for peace that have travelled across continents,
and right at home the young women’s peace committee studied how
youth see the world today and envision their part in the peacemaking
process.

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Hearing about this work I thought about the poets these women are
and the poetry from which their work is created and into which theirwork is crafted. Here I use President Ikeda’s beautiful definition of
poetry and the poetic heart. If we want to understand what makes words“true” and how words maintain and sustain a creative power, we need go
no further than that beautiful understanding.
In a poem that forms part of his 1988 essay, ‘An Inquiry into the
Restitution of the Poetic Heart,” Ikeda sensei describes poetry in thefollowing way. Poetry, he tells us, “is the heart that binds together
human beings, society and the universe.” This poetry arises from a “richfountain of the spirit . . . the poetic heart.” That heart is the “source
Of all human creativity
and power of imagination.
It fashions the dreams
and daring and hopes of this earth
creates harmony and concord.
It possesses a force no person whosoever can defy.
It transforms the wasteland within us into a fertile plain.”4“Be strong, Be Strong, Be Strong”
Let us spend time with these words and the power they hold for eachand every one of us. Not only do we see, as one of my favorite
American poets, Audre Lorde (1934–1992), tells us that “poetry is not aluxury,”5 but we also see that poetry is integral to each person. Not justrestricted to a certain few, it connects us all. In its absence we fallapart—within ourselves and from each other. But in all honesty, poetry
is never absent, even if we may miss it for awhile. It is the ever-present
source, inexhaustible and irrepressible. That source of creativity and thatpower of the imagination work at every moment. We see it in Daiki
Oikawa who heard his grandfather’s encouragement, “Don’t stop! Keepgoing!” in the unstopped watch that spoke of time being present, invit­
ing us to the future.
We see it in the sign, now world-renowned “Ganbaro! (Don’t giveup!) Ishinomaki” created out of salvaged wood by Mr. Kurosawa whohimself survived only by clinging to a tree in freezing temperatures, ayoung man who lost his work and home and yet still encouraged his
fellow townsmen not to be defeated. Just yesterday during my stay in
Ishinomaki, a wonderful serendipity brought us together. I had hoped tosee the words I’d seen only in photographs and on the internet. We

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stopped, and Mr. Kurosawa himself was there, tending the place wherethese words stand so strongly. Together we reaffirmed the importance ofeach person doing the very thing that they imagine they can do. We mustnever underesti­mate the power of one strong and pure-hearted individual
nor forget the mutual support of those who gladly contribute theirenergy so that a good action may come to fruition.
As Emerson says, every word was once a poem, and in thesesituations, you see how words become poems, speaking with vitalencouragement. They draw courage from what a person knows and has
known. They honor that person’s past, even as their present changes inways they never would have imagined. And they give courage to those
who don’t know where their courage has gone to.
Over these past few days, I have heard beautiful stories of how you
have done this for each other. I have also seen this eloquently in action. I
have been deeply moved by the loving support you give to one another.
What you might not say about yourself and your own compassionate
actions, others share joyfully, speaking so thoughtfully and carefully
about how you, who have lost the most, have turned your own loss into
the greatest compassion toward others. I have heard the deep apprecia­tion you feel for the way Ikeda sensei’s words live in your hearts andhave come into action at the very time you have needed them most. I
have been touched by your notebooks and scrapbooks where youtreasure words that can then speak again and again. You carry that
profound trust in words’ deep potential, copying sensei’s words evenwhen you cannot recognize your own handwriting, so great is your loss.
How deeply I relate to that, for words ceased to hold meaning for meafter my mother died. I would look at them, read them, but the meaning
would simply fall away. Music spoke to me then, as I know it does for
the Kato family, and for Ms. Tashiro and for Ms. Noda. In time words
began to hold meaning again, and as I took in the beauty of President
Ikeda’s photographs in one of the volumes of the Poet’s Star, I foundthose words that speak to us all: “Be strong, Be Strong, Be Strong.”
In working for others our own hearts are sustained. Even when ourown mission seems to have been washed away, beneath it all, in the
rubble and debris, another mission awakens. Mrs. Kunimoto taught methat when we shared precious time together the other day. I learned thatfrom Mrs. Nakano and her daughter whose story, Ms. Kimura of the
Women’s Peace Committee shared with me. I learned that from Ms.
Kamiyama and the way she has responded to the change the tsunami
wrought in her life. When her doctoral research in marine biology wasdestroyed, what remained? What direction could her life’s work now

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take in the aftermath of the devastation and with the extremes of life’sloss in Onagawa? Before meeting with Ms. Kamiyama at the Ishinomaki
Culture Center yesterday, I had the chance to visit Onagawa. My heart
filled beyond words when I saw what was no longer there. This beautiful
place with the mountains leading down to the water. The trees with theirgreat and dignified presence. The ocean with its bounty of fish. How
would the health of human life be restored in this aching place? And so,when Ms. Kamiyama shared with me her decision to return to Onagawa,
not as a researcher, but as a person dedicated to the reconstruction of theheart of the people of Onagawa, I again saw the power of the lived wordin vibrant action. She spoke about how the values of Soka education
came to life in this moment: how an individual’s education exists for thejoy of working for and supporting others. True education never closes inon itself, and now a grand mission unfolds before her in which I know
many other true researchers will join, restoring our human trust innature，fostering a true and compassionate relation with the natural
world, and opening the individual to their true humanity. She haslistened to the voice of her heart; she will become a Rachel Carson forthe 21st century. When we listen, as she has, with such clarity andintegrity, life again flourishes.
In these brief but timeless days I have shared with you, I have heard
again and again about the words that remain in our hearts when all else
has been washed away. Everywhere I have gone, people have told me
how Ikeda sensei’s words have spoken whether treasured from times
past or bursting forth in what he now writes. They have steadied you andenabled you once again to stand. I think of the pole at the steadfast placeof encouragement Mr. Kurosawa created to show how high the watercame. Ikeda sensei’s words have stood taller than the height of any
tsunami wave. And even if those words simply rest quietly in one’s
heart, they are present, awaiting the time when your own voice willagain speak what they have meant to you.

“Nothing can Destroy the Treasures of the Heart”
Our English word “encouragement” literally means to give courage tosomeone—to give a kind of strength both for enduring and for acting.
When we encourage, we acknowledge what that person has gone
through or is going through. As Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) writes in apoem titled “For a Friend in Travail,” “What are you going through? . . .
is the great question.”6 Indeed in this acknowledgement and willingness
to listen we meet a primary sense of the word appreciate. We value

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deeply what that person’s experience is, in all its dimensions and in allits demands. At the same time, we call to the very heart of that
individual. Our word “courage” comes from an older word meaning“heart” or the very essence of our being. Perhaps it could be equated tolife force. This work of encouragement is precious, crucial because itreaches to the very heart, continuing life in a good way.
This poetic heart and the encouragement it brings speak directly tothe places where we most need to feel that strength of continuance.
When I think about the utter devastation caused by the tsunami, ofcourse my mind goes first to what actually can never be the same. The
beloved home and land that will never look the same. As Mrs. Nakanosays so well, “my hometown of blue sea, green fields, fireflies insummer and crimson-colored mountains in autumn.” And the loved ones
taken so suddenly and so unaccountably from our daily conversations.
These changes are massive. But no less massive are the internal earth­quakes and tsunamis that follow. With such seemingly absolute change,
the heart may certainly become disheartened and the spirit disoriented.
To us, our inner landscape might then look like a wasteland. We mightfeel that within us all is as ruined as the devastation around us. Whateverstood within us now seems flattened and lifeless. We may wonder what
possibly can emerge from the shards and fragments within these broken
spaces within us. What survives destruction? What perseveres throughtime? And how can we again come to feel that possibility within us?
Words that President Ikeda wrote shortly after the earthquake andtsunami come to mind. Inviting us to remember Nichiren Daishonin’s
words, that no disaster or calamity can destroy the heart, he says,“Nothing can destroy the treasures of the heart.” And what is that heart
but the poetic heart, the source of all human creativity. Quoting again
from his words for the Tenth World Congress of Poets,
It possesses a force no person whosoever can defy.
It transforms the wasteland within us into a fertile plain.

“Silence” can be “Healing Words”
What allows us to feel that power of the poetic heart? Perhaps that is thehardest question of all, because the power is there, but we may not beable to feel it. We’ve gone numb, unable to feel the beating of the heart
whose lifeblood streams through us. I want to share a story that Jenny
MacGregor, one of my students, recently shared with me. We had beentalking about devastating losses and the power of the word at suchthe power of the word

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times, and she reminded me that silence is often the most important“word” of all. Recalling a story her mother had shared with her, she told
me about the sudden and unexpected death of her mother’s best friend’s
mother. Her mother and her friend were only 11 years old at the time. It
is never easy to face the death of one’s mother, and at 11 as yourchildhood is changing into adolescence, there may well be no moredifficult time. Jenny’s mom told her how her friend stopped talking.
Jenny commented that “silence was a healing mechanism.” Words were
just too painful. Jenny’s mom knew her friend so well that she
understood how necessary such silence was. In fact, Jenny told me that
all of this young girl’s classmates “unified in support”—Jenny’s
words—and took on the role of protecting their friend, making certainthat no one teased her or demanded that she speak.
Here I see such a deep intertwining of appreciation and encourage­
ment. In this case, these 11 year olds truly took stock of their friend’s
situation. They did not impose their own sense of “should”: how they
thought she “should” be grieving or recovering from such a horrible
loss. They valued her own feelings within this oh-so-difficult
experience, and allowed her to heal in the way that felt best. They
honored her. They appreciated her, and they gave her the encouragementthat was vital to her recovery: creating the safe and supportive space thatallowed her to experience the transformation within herself of a waste­
land back into a fertile plain. Jenny’s mom told her that when her friend
did return to words, she was “so thankful of the actions of my mom andher classmates for being there for her and protecting her even withoutwords.”
Certainly these young people were putting into practice Pres. Ikeda’s
definition of poetry: the heart that binds together human beings. They
embodied that poetic heart in their concern and action for their fellow
classmate and tapped into the “rich fountain of the spirit.”

Poetry is the Process of Sharing our Experience
Thinking about the centrality of the poetic heart, I am reminded ofAmerican poet Muriel Rukeyser. She writes, that poetry resides in “ourwish to share something of our experience.”7 She calls it a process
fundamentally rooted in relationships characterized by a strong sense of
sharing.
Around the same time, in her essay “Poetry is Not a Luxury,” Audre
Lorde described how poetry is a “vital necessity of our existence,” andparticularly of a women’s existence. She writes, “[Poetry]forms the190the power of the word

quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams
toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea,
then into more tangible action.”8
Twenty years later, Adrienne Rich speaking at a conference entitled“Poetry and the Public Sphere” on a panel titled “Poetry, Feminism(s)and the Difficult Wor(l)d” said, “Poetry—if it is poetry—is liberatory at
its core.”9
From each passage, you can see how vital poetry is. It liberates. Its
goal and role are freedom. It provides the particular light in which wetake our hope, we take our dreams and we bring those into action.
Today, I’ll only be able to talk about one of the three poets, Muriel
Rukeyser, whose words spanned much of the 20th century. In her
rendering, poetry is completely freed from exclusivity. Available to all,it no longer is an enterprise for the elite. It is returned to where thesource of poetry has always been: the people. You can see why I thoughtof her work in the context of this paper. Her poetry of and for the people
seems akin to Pres. Ikeda’s poetry and vision of the poetic heart.
For Rukeyser, poetry centers in human interaction. When we wish toshare something with someone, when we work to make that sharing
occur, poetry is made. It cannot be limited to a certain kind of word. It isso much larger than that, more an interweaving of relationships than averbal artifact. As she says, poetry, and indeed all of the arts, are “anexchange of energy.” She was far more concerned with how that energy
flowed, making certain that exchange was possible. You see thisemphasis in her life. When her father went bankrupt during thedepression and she had to leave college, she became a journalist. Not
only was this a way to support herself, but it meant a responsible,
societal role. She covered events that cried for justice. When elevenyoung black men were falsely accused of raping two white women, she
was there. At mining disasters in West Virginia, she reported on the
hearings. She advocated for peace during the Viet Nam War, visiting
Viet Nam when no Americans except those sanctioned by the militarywere supposed to be there. Her work was with and for the working
people, guaranteeing civil rights for all Americans, not just those who
could “afford” them.
She understood poetry to be essentially part of that work. In her 1949
volume The Life of Poetry, she drew attention to the reader’s role. She
writes,At this point, I should like to use another word: ‘audience’ or ‘reader’ or‘listener’ seems inadequate. I suggest the old word ‘witness,’ whichthe power of the word

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includes the act of seeing or knowing by personal experience, as well as
the act of giving evidence. The overtone of responsibility in this word is
not present in the others.”10

Reminding us that it takes more than one person to make a poem, or atleast to bring it to life and keep it alive, she gives us a clear role, onethat is challenging but also heartening. We are, and in fact must be,present in the poem. What we have seen, what we have come to know
through our own experience matters. At the same time, it does not stopwith a solitary reading. We are called on to give evidence. What we haveseen in the poem we must say. We must continue in that exchange ofenergy. As she says elsewhere in “The Life of Poetry,” “poetry is aprocess.”
In Rukeyser’s understanding, poetry is this process. Sharing is its
hallmark. In my own experience I have seen how encouragement deeplyroots that process. When I met President and Mrs. Ikeda, now six years
ago, I felt this definition of poetry come to life. The time we measure by
the clock ceased to be relevant. We were in that timeless time above
time, truly present, part of that long process of peacemaking that is ever
the heart, indeed the poetic heart, of Pres. and Mrs. Ikeda’s tirelesswork. When I use the word “work,” however, I want to free it from thenegative connotations it often carries. How often we complain about
work. . .there is so much to do, it weighs us down, and it exhausts us.
But here, I met with two people for whom their work felt like tirelessjoy. They thanked me as well for the work I was doing, and I remember
feeling awed and humbled. My work seemed so small, and often
thankless. Did it do any good? Would I ever see any results? But thattime with the Ikedas truly opened a new possibility, the real action of
encouragement that transforms each difficulty into a poem in process.
Here again, it may not have been the specific words we exchanged, but
the feeling behind those words, as well as the poetic spirit which theybrought to the occasion and in which I gladly participated.
The past tense is not an accurate rendering. That time continues.

“Mutual Non-Dominant Discourse”
As I was writing these words for you, I must admit that I was feeling,
well, shall I say, a bit discouraged. My time was shorter than I would
have liked. I had been pondering this topic for some time. Journal
entries spoke from various pages. Walks had taken me up into the woods
around my house in upstate New York and when I visited New Mexico

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the power of the wordin the summer, I was looking to sky and mountains to help shapethoughts on the interwoven nature of the word’s power. I had beenreading, thinking, walking, reflecting, but still, to write flowing words
was difficult and unnerving. I like to take time with my words. I lovefinding the exact word or imagining the most vibrant phrase that will
speak to an audience’s imagination. But here time was shrinking and mywords were still scrambling to find a way onto the page. Also, there isnothing harder than to write about the “power of the word” during the
middle of a political campaign. For those of you who may be following
some of what is currently being said in the United States, it is a
discouraging time to think about words. Their power seems reduced to amere brute force weapon. They manifest violence, but show little of the
poetic heart. They attack, they blame, they condemn, they deny: here arewords at their worst, what Emerson would have called “rotten diction.”11
And in that climate it is difficult not to feel those negative effects.
Writing about meeting the Ikedas returned me to a different reality.
Again I was standing with them reaffirming my dedication to the work I
do as a literature teacher. Their firm appreciation and vibrant encourage­
ment sounded the note by which I bring my poetic heart back into
resonant tuning. At a time when literature is increasingly seen as an
outmoded technology and where words all too often become tools for
manipulation, I cultivate, in the slow process that cultivation is, the otherwords that bring power back to its true meaning.
As Carolyn Heilbrun (1926–2003) wrote, “The true representation of
power is not of a big man beating a smaller man or woman. Power is theability to take one’s place in whatever discourse is essential to action
and the right to have one’s part matter.”12 What we strive toward is, as
Audre Lorde said, “mutual non-dominant differences”—ways of speak­ing with each other that allow full participation on each person’s part.13
It invites and indeed expects us to question and carefully consider what
our thoughts are and how we arrived at them. It seeks to express thosethoughts in a way from which others can learn. It is truly poetry in
Muriel Rukeyser’s sense: sharing and giving.
President Ikeda calls upon us all to become poets, to use our words
accordingly—whether those words appear on the page or in dialogue
and heartfelt conversation or in thoughtful, empathic silence or readyaction. He reminds us that the greatest relationship we can have to eachother is as a poet, for the poet is the one who “sees the light ofboundless potential hidden within the individual.” In the aftermath ofthe earthquake and tsunami, the poetic heart responds again and again,from those who had suffered so much and from those who werethe power of the word

193

suffering in deep sympathy. If we allow that heart its full power, there is
no wasteland that cannot be transformed.
My appreciation resounds. I am grateful for the invitation from theInstitute of Oriental Philosophy to deliver this talk, and for making
posible my many conversations in the Tohoku region with women who
had been so profoundly affected by the tsunami and whose courage andresolve I seek daily to uphold. I am also deeply grateful to the women
who were so vibrantly part of the lecture in Sendai. Each of thoseconversational exchanges continues the fine and demanding restorative
work of peace making in a violence-torn world. My gratitude to Nanae
Kimura for her friendship and for sharing with me Mrs. Nakano’s, andMrs. Takahashi’s and Daiki Oikawa’s stories shortly after 3/11/11.
Stories that are shared amplify the possibility that connection andunderstanding will come to frame our 21st century ways of living.
Notes
1
The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Alfred R. Ferguson, Joseph
Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson, Ronald A. Bosco, 10 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. and
London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971–2013), 3: 4.
2
Sermon CXXXIV, The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 3. Ronald
A. Bosco, editor. Chief editor, Albert von Frank. Columbia and London: University ofMissouri Press, 1991, p. 264.
3
The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Alfred R Ferguson, Joseph
Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson, Ronald A. Bosco, 10 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. and
London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University press, 1971–2013), 2: 113.
4Tenth World Congress of Poets, September 28, 1988.
5“Poetry is Not a Luxury,” pp. 36–39 in Sister, Outsider: Essays and Speeches by
Audre Lorde, Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984.
6
An Atlas of the Difficult World. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company,
1991, p. 51.
7“The Education of a Poet” (1976), reprinted in A Muriel Rukeyser Reader, Jan
Heller Levi, ed. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994, p. 283.
8First published in 1977, collected in Sister, Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre
Lorde, Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984. p. 37.
9“Poetry and the Public Sphere” in Arts of the Possible. New York and London: W.W.
Norton and Company, 2001, p. 116.
10
The Life of Poetry, with a new foreword by Jane Cooper. Ashfield, MA.: Paris Press,
1996, p. 175.
11
Nature, in The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Alfred R Ferguson,
Joseph Slater, Douglas Emory Wilson, Ronald A. Bosco, 10 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.
and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University press, 1971–2013), 1: 20.
12
Writing a Woman’s Life. New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1988,
p. 18.
13“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” pp. 110–13 in

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Sister, Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde. Freedom, CA: The Crossing
Press, 1984. Speaking of the building blocks of this discourse, she writes, “Within theinterdependence of mutual (nondominant) differences lies that security which enables us
to descend into the chaos of knowledge and return with true visions of our future” (111).