“If we were on Mars, /we’d watch comets falter across the Nile-green sky from our lawn chairs” —Andreea Iulia Scridon
You send me your poetry, hoping I'll like it, and I will, because I'm a student of letters; my aesthetic---if not my critical---skills will give me pleasure. The fisherman loves the toil and boredom of what he does; there is not even that much pleasure in love--- sorrow attends all that struggles and ends. Not only will there be sorrow--- pain enters to mitigate grief tomorrow. I know many who are in pain; this makes the mortal want to die; escape from pain such a fond wish, less sorrow is felt---and easier, the goodbye. Or, one will be confused, as, at the end, my mother was, not understanding the kisses and tears falling on her from her son; going isn't bad for everyone. Witnessing my mother, I was sad and now I'm handing you the bad. Imagine how bad poems need to be! You get my grief which isn't even necessary. I could bring this poem to any conclusion--- what the hell! I should write towards pleasure in a green-tinged, yellow illusion. My favorite color was yellow as a child, Andy's green, Sarah's was blue; the last sibling to arrive, Ed--- I don't remember what his was---red? We didn't get to ask William, who left us early. How will I judge your poems? Judge---why did I use that word? Well---is there any guarantee someone's poems---whom you hardly know--- will please? It's not like pleasure is highest from poetry--- I understand it bores many-- unless it jingles for a penny. I will judge it, then, in case there is no pleasure, and since I take an expert's pleasure in judging, that will have to be my treasure---finding fault. Nothing comes from nothing. The world is here---that's possible, we guess. Impossible, we know, to create from nothing (or words) endless happiness. There are instances of pleasure. I can be pleased, now and then, when poetry is good--- poetry is good, now and then, but it may not be good again and again; probably not---I don't know if anything can be good, over and over, even if, critically, in my learned manifesto, we are certain it should. Whenever we meet an image in a poem, we first meet the word and then, "seeing" the image--- it can't but remain somewhat absurd that we didn't "see" anything, or, perhaps, now, we do, since it is an "image," is it not? (And there isn't any idea or plot.) As a judge, I will adore anything, since it is the judgment alone which gives me pleasure. Do not worry, then. Whether I like your poems is completely beside the point. The poem is never good, except that my flawed expertise makes it so. Poetry---and everything---is a tease. All that matters is that we are magnanimous. Go into the woods with me and hold my hand. No, don't. You will never understand. I don't want to argue with you. I want to argue with you. I don't want to argue with you. O I do want to argue with you. Some, like me, forgive everything, even the lack of understanding in debate; ignorance drives it, not the issue itself; I witness silly, partisan hate, even when, ostensibly, love guides the argument; Witnessing, itself, is a triumph; I won't get involved in the puzzles ignorance happily solved already. Those words deserve a punch in the nose; the lines are drawn in bullying stupidity. In a blur of green I smile, leave rapidly.