It is necessary to
have had a revelation of reality through joy in order to find reality
through suffering. Turn that
equation around: because his eyes radiate love, he reads us poems
about cruelty, a broomstick up the ass. He reads softly, so only we
can hear. I ask a man at the register to tone down. Poetry is a
necessary fiction, when it is not fact. Change is in the air, our
cousin says. He was a young woman, about to be married, and then he
was an older man. He was an abused girl who spoke in tongues whose
sentences now rest flat.
I don't like flat poetry, a colleague
says. Nor do I like
sentiment. Yet there's
poetry in trauma's rehearsal. Suffering
holds us close, but joy gives us leave.
--for TC Tolbert
--for TC Tolbert
3 comments:
I feel like I need to sit with this one for a bit. It's uncomfortable, of course - no way to read the broomstick without discomfort. "Poetry is a necessary fiction" falls flat for me. I'm drawn to "Change is in the air" etc. "Nor do I like sentiment" - who's saying this? What is trauma's rehearsal? Somehow, that line feels like it's commenting on the actions wrongly connected to a traumatizing event. Great last line.
The person saying those things is a colleague in a meeting. But lots of people say that. "Trauma's rehearsal" is the saying it again in a poem. It cuts both ways, as it might release the trauma, or it might make it worse.
Turning the initial statement around: it is necessary to feel joy before you can discuss suffering, or ... Wong on this.
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