A Return to the Poem as Daydream

Reportage. Confession. Complaint. I know these modes best; that is, I employ them most often. More memory than imagination, a puzzling of word, line, break, emphasis, image, figure of speech, end, revise, fail to edit well enough… But even these apparent truth-tellings require the strategic lie: the replacement detail, the memory with différance.

In this most digital of ages, boredom is difficult, with or without a smartphone. Piles of books stack up in walls around me, articles, both cyber and print go unread, television episodes, seasons, and series remain unwatched, movies (the good and the bad) remain to be seen. Two books of poetry arrived in the mail today. The World Cup has begun. A recent vacation, 2000 miles, four major destinations, three bear sightings, and  multiple river crossings yielded  hundreds of pictures to be examined, deleted, posted, printed, and filed. And on top of all this (and two sons and a wife), last night I dreamed uncontrollably.

But a lack of boredom, apart from being overwhelming, can also be stifling. After all, it is a “heavy” boredom that makes an achilles out of Henry and J.B. both at once. In dreams time and place are differed; we move freely in time and space.  As in poetry: “It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not […]” (Walt Whitman, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”). Following this double advice, and trying to survive the most recent bout of poetry self-doubt known as artistic honesty,  the next poem (not here yet) will be full of lies, will be more imagination than memory, will try to reconnect with daydream and not be limited by wakeful vision. I am through with truth (for now) as I find that I'm not that good at it anyway.