(non-breaking space) | Studs Terkel (1912-2008)

Studs Terkel (1912-2008)

I’m for the voiceless,
the anti-establishment
and the dead-end streets.

*
When I first wrote the above haiku, it was called “advocate” and it was more or less a statement of aspiration. But before aspiration came inspiration. That inspiration arrived in the form of various people, some of whom I’ve met, others I’ve only heard or seen from afar.

Louis “Studs” Terkel was one of the latter. He was a gifted man who spent much of his life telling stories of the working class and other folks sometimes referred to as the “uncelebrated.” He celebrated those people, quite practically giving voice to the voiceless.

Studs Terkel passed on yesterday, and rather than try to write something new, I thought it best to re-use an old haiku written with him in mind.

image: valkyrieh116

Comments

by howard

November 1st, 2008

Posted in haiku

Tagged with advocacy, heroes, inspiration, memorials, poverty, studs terkel, working class

of mesothelioma

It is being rumored that the LHC in it’s test run has already produced evidence of susy. In fact, it produced the susy partner of a black hole, which instead of swallowing up the world, swallowed up Wall Street. In fact, the susy black hole - also known as sblack shole - a.k.a. Black-Scholes, for convenience of pronunciation, with the ‘c’ added to confuse people - has been around for a while.

Anthony

That's my version of the squeaky wheel saying. The squeaky wheel gets the grease because it needs the grease. People with fame and power automatically have a voice, as though we need to hear from them. They represent less than 5% of the population, so it has always struck me as odd that their ideals are so duly noted.

howard

And yet there are those (like Terkel) who use their voice and position to let ordinary people tell their stories. I think there's something inherently noble about giving your voice to those without one.