Judith Hoyer
An Imagined Telegram
LONDON, ENGLAND
23 JUNE 2017
TO THE PRESIDENT, WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON D.C.
FACTS:
YOUR PROBLEM IS VANITY (STOP)
IT LEADS TO CRUELTY (STOP)
YOU ARE SILLY (STOP)
JUST SILLY (STOP)
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Editor’s Note: During the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 15–28, 1962), British philosopher Bertrand Russell sent a series of telegrams to President John F. Kennedy, Soviet Chairman Nikita Khrushchev, and other world leaders. In a televised address on October 22, 1962, President Kennedy announced his decision to enact a naval blockade of Cuba. In response, Russell sent the following telegram to the president: “YOUR ACTION DESPERATE. THREAT TO HUMAN SURVIVAL. NO CONCEIVABLE JUSTIFICATION. CIVILIZED MAN CONDEMNS IT. WE WILL NOT HAVE MASS MURDER. ULTIMATUM MEANS WAR… END THIS MADNESS.”
Judith Hoyer is the author of Bits and Pieces Set Aside (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Atlanta Review, The Worcester Review, Persimmon Tree, PMS poemmemoirstory, Spillway Magazine, Main Street Rag, Small Portions Magazine, Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine and Skylight 47. as well as in the anthology Transition: Poems in the Aftermath (Indolent Books, forthcoming). Before retiring she was a psychologist working in a small school district in Massachusetts.
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