youth

2 posts

The Poetry of Moments in Time

poetry reading poetry

roses

Nothing captures the elusive moment like a poem. Novels are too ham-fisted. Short stories too neat and mindful of their Chekhovian rifles hanging on the wall (“The Big-Bang Theory”). And essays? Please.

For poetry and moments, you need go no further than William Carlos Williams, famous for his dictum, “Say it! No ideas but in things.”

And, when you think about it, it is “things” that make the moment. Usually simple, unassuming things which are imbued with agency in unexpected ways.

Example? The delicious little moment in “The Act”:

There were the roses, in the rain.
Don’t cut them, I pleaded.
        They won’t last, she said.
But they’re so beautiful
        where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she
        said,
and cut them and gave them to me
        in my hand.

You’re Not Getting Older; They’re Getting Younger

poetry

adroit

I once wrote a poem (it’s lying around here somewhere) about how young some of these doctors I’ve seen are getting. Do they really know what the hell they’re doing? I wondered. For some reason, I prefer seeing white-haired-but-healthy-looking sorts behind a scalpel. Behind a jet airliner’s controls, too.

But part of the Isaac Newton “for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction” logic of the universe is that any society getting older is by necessity also getting younger. I mean, philosophy courses that start with syllogisms were the death of me, but this much I know.

One great example of this phenomenon is a newish poetry site called The Adroit Journal. Check out its ancient editor-in-chief. Move over, Methuselah! I sent some poems to this journal because I admired the poems already published there. Only after I clicked the “submit” button did I stumble upon the link to Adroit’s poetry readers.

Look again. Not a white-haired-but-healthy-looking sort in the line-up. Just healthy-looking. And very young-looking. The average age must be, what… 23 or less?

To me, this is a good thing for poetry. A very good thing. Some readers out there consider our fair outpost a bit too exotic for its own good. You know, poetry as precious kingdom. One ruled by a clique in a tower with its own rules.

Something tells me Adroit’s poetry readers have little use for rules and even less for ivory-towered kingdoms. They just know what they like and publish it.

The moral of this story? The world is not getting older; it’s getting younger. And that includes The Poetry World. Thank God and other deities…