I returned to "The Best American Poetry of 2020" to find inspiration and something to share. It was not a fruitful interlude. While they were technically impressive, I didn't find myself connecting with that burst of resonance that signals connection. Of course it was 2020. It was a tough year.
Maria Popova's Marginalian led me to what I was looking for in Love After Love.
Something else she said also struck that chord of connection.
"I found myself spending more and more time in archives, perusing increasingly older books, reading fewer and fewer of the new — partly because such are my subjective passions (of which The Marginalian has always been a record and reflection), and partly because our present culture seems to treat books as little more than printed “content” (that vacuous term by which we refer to cultural material and thought-matter online), self-referential and preying on the marketable urgencies of the present. With each passing year, more and more books seem to be written and sold as commodities than composed as torches of thought and feeling for our own epoch, but also for epochs to come."
I may do some digging into "The Best American Poetry" from years past to unearth those sweet spots of resonance and wisdom I am on the lookout for.
kastilwell
Kathy-
ReplyDeleteI was sorting through emails late this afternoon and came across this post again, which I had particularly liked. I feel that tug of resonance-seeking, instead of printed "content" or plant "materials" - neither of which have any soul!
Yes! I love those moments when something reaches inside and touches (or jangles) things.
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