From prose pieces published in Poetry, July/August 2023:
Douglas Kearney, “On Spite: Folly Comes Daily”
… Kit, who pokes at poetry with a long sharp stick to make certain it’s dead before skulking past it…
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Elisa Gabbert, “On Self-Pity: Go Eat Worms”
Children love screaming when nothing is wrong because something has been wrong, something will be wrong — don’t worry about timing, just get your catharsis in when you can.
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Wayne Koestenbaum, “On Panic: Whose Woods These Are I Think I Know”
Today is Valentine’s Day. Time to hand me an “O thou” — the kiss of apostrophe, the grope of the vocative.
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Poetry leads to panic because you must ferret out the secret story behind the words… What if metaphor skein blocks your fingery entrance?
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Suspension of certainty — I think I know, but I don’t really know if I know — produces epistemological ecstasy, if you’re built to enjoy not knowing.
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If I dislike panic, then I’m exiled from poetry, whose founding ploy is the propagation of fear.
(c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
🤍
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I especially like the Elisa Gabbert quote – it perfectly explains why children love screaming! Nice post Jim.
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Oh and I just had to look up the meaning of ‘crestomathy’ – a new one to me!!
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Well done! Full disclosure: I looked it up myself to be sure I was using it properly. As a language student, I encountered the word mostly in Spanish and French. I knew there would be an English cognate, but it’s not much used in English, I think. In Spanish: Crestomatía.
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Pearls. Thanks for sharing them
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I’m so glad you enjoy them too. Thanks for your comment.
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