Just So Humans (A Working Philosophy)

Why poetry is like a hot syringe.

A creepy photo from my local work space.

If you've read my work for any amount of time, you know how I feel about poetry. I read it. I write it. I believe in its power to distill the truth to its most essential parts using concentrated language. This belief in distillation is an approximation of my philosophy of poetry.

How high-minded was that? Sounds like something I swiped from a Scotch-sipping poetry professor preaching from some ivory tower on the insufferable East Coast. He lives in New Haven. His wife’s name is Barb. They have toy poodles.

Freaking New Haven.

Let me put it another way. Poetry is hot truth delivered to banded and throbbing veins via syringe. Sometimes the doctors and nurses push the plunger (see, e.g., Forche and Berry below). Sometimes the junkies do the dirty work (see, e.g., Bukowski). When done right, though, the medicine brings something like a rush of euphoric truth.

Today, I’m going to take a crack at delivering the medicine.