Learning, by Utah Phillips
Standing in the alleys of Yongsan,
I wonder if Pyongyang looks the same:
everything broken, endless mud,
children, searching for someone.
Tomorrow the looking will end,
and the begging will begin.Soldiers move briskly, confidently,
among the ruins
of what we have done to each other.
We did it,
not because wanted to,
but because we were told to.Well, it’s done now.
Tomorrow I’ll go home
to where the tellers are.
If there’s any purpose
to what I’ve done here,
it is the certainty
that I will never again
do what I am told.Utah Phillips, Learning, on I’ve Got To Know (1992)
Utah Phillips (b. 1935) is a folk singer, storyteller, poet, and Wobbly labor organizer. This is what he says about his poem, Learning:
Many, many years ago, I was a soldier in Korea. One night, in Seoul City, the Korean capital, I found myself walking towards the AWOL Women’s University. There, in the bombed-out auditorium, I was going to listen to the great African-American opera singer, Marian Anderson. As I was walking, I recalled how hard it was for Marian Anderson to get a hotel room in Salt Lake City, when she came there to sing in my father’s theater. I wrote this poem that night, walking through the streets.
He read the poem on his album, I’ve Got To Know, a collection of anti-war songs, stories, and poems, which he recorded in a single take as a reaction against the Gulf War. Here’s what he says about the album:
During the Gulf War, I got plenty good and mad. I parked my car and wouldn’t drive it because I said it wouldn’t run on blood. Then, with the help of Dakota Sid Clifford, I went into a small but very fine studio here in Nevada City. I said to Bruce Wheelock, the engineer,
Set up two mikes and start the tape. I’ll tell you when I’m done.For the next seventy minutes I spouted, fulminated, and sang about war, peace, pacifism, and anarchy. I used songs, poems, and rants to make the point, and said,Okay, turn off the machine.Bruce said,Don’t you want me to edit it?I said,No! I’m mad! Leave it the way it is!