You need poetry to"free yourself" from misconceptions.
What you need poetry for…
On Reading Books
What I learned most from reading books was that "I needed to read more books".
The Sound of Oarlocks
I rowed through the lifeless water, gripping the jar between my legs. I was alone in the bay. Too early in the season for lobster boats and tourists. A light drizzle soaked through my jacket. I didn’t feel it.
Dad used to take me rowing in the cove at night and tell me Penobscot Bay ghost stories. Pitch black, but for the stars, and the fog light he’d leave on at the shack. My favorite story was my great grandfather’s.
Rubber Soul
A 12” disc of 180 gram vinyl, encased in a glossy, dark green cover. Four mop-topped boys on the front look like brothers, and they’re oddly slanted, the grainy photo distorted. In the corner are fat, bubbly letters perfectly reminiscent of the psychedelic mid-sixties. I’m told by music journals that the album cover was edgy. It probably looks like how the Beatles saw the world starting that year. Ringo says they were stoned out of their mind for the filming of their movie, Help!, just months before, so it’s safe to say they were probably stoned for most of this album, too. Granny probably wasn’t thinking this, though. The album, I’m sure, left a lasting impression on her back in 1965.
Additional Criteria – Hearing Music Playing
When reading a new story, you have to hear the silent music in the sentences. It's pacing, as if moving in an inner dance-like performative experience.
Clinic Hours, After Rain; Ouroboros at the Kitchen Table; Three Small Things I Carry; Pinball, or How the City Learns Its Edges; Sequence: Four Doors
The fluorescent hum remembers the night shift: a blue ribbon of light between the blinds.