Where else but in poetry can a grapefruit hold court, however briefly, over your attention.? In Christian Wiman’s He Held Radical Light, the author brings the point home well enough thanks to a poem by the late Craig Arnold. The poem raises a grapefruit—yes, a grapefruit—to art form.
Reading the neat little details in this poem should inspire you to raise your own humble wonder (be it citrus or any other object, man- or God-made) to a higher understanding. All you need do is spend some time with it. Look at it more closely. Listen a spell. And see this as being very much like that.
Yeah. That’s it. Simple.
If you hadn’t heard of Arnold before, it’s because he has but two works of poetry to his credit. His book Shells was selected winner of the 1998 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition by some poet or other named. W.S. Merwin. And Wiman thinks Arnold’s sophomore effort, Made Flesh, published a whopping 10 years later.
Let’s join him for a breakfast of literal and figurative delight, shall we?
