Michael Jackson

A phrase kept coming back to me; something I'd read years ago. Somehow it's stuck with me, to be pulled out when feeling slightly cynical about media reaction to the death of a noted person: "Our grief has gone to market."

It turns out to be a misquote of a poem by Oscar Mandel, found in a book my parents gave me for my birthday or Christmas in 1964, Of Poetry and Power: Poems Occasioned by the Presidency and by the Death of John F. Kennedy. My gosh, that was 45 years ago, and I've carried this book around through Pittsburgh, Ironton, Harrisburg, Racine, and Chicago.

The first two stanzas go like this:

1
First came the special issues of the magazines
With loyal photographs: the old rich times, the rocking chair,
The wife who knew who Dali is, the muscular war,
The politics retouched and smiling, the happy hammer
Of his power, the idiocy of death. Fifty cents.

The president was dead, tears fell and incomes rose.
Wait, brothers, wait,
My grief has gone to market too.

2
The picture books cost more but they were meant to last,
They used the most caressing words, like strong ideals
And dedicated heart and faith in our democracy.
And those who sold the plaster statuettes (one dollar each),
Their right hand mourned, their left rang up the cash.

The president was dead, laments and incomes rose.
Wait, brothers, wait,
My grief has gone to market too.

For a few hours it looked like Farrah Fawcett was going to be the cash cow this weekend.

Poor Farrah. Poor Michael.