It was a
century in which we touched ourselves in mirrors
over and over. It was a decade of fast yet permanent
memories. The kaleidoscope of pain
some inflicted
on others seemed inexhaustible
as the positions of sex, a term
whose meaning is as hybridized as the latest orchid. Terrorism
had reached a
new peak, and we gradually
didn’t care which airline we got on, as long as the pilot
was sober, and the stash of pretzels, beer, and soft drinks
remained
intact. On TV, a teenage idol has just crawled, dripping wet,
from the top of a giant Pepsi can, or maybe I imagined it,
flicking through channels where the panoply
of reality
shows has begun to exorcise
the very notion of reality, for both the scrutinized actor
and the debilitated viewer who becomes confused and often
reaches
into the
pastel screen for his glass, while down Broadway
sirens provide a kind of glamorous chorus
for this script of history where everything is so neatly
measured
in miles,
pounds, or megabits. How nice it would be
to drowse in the immeasurable. How nice
it would be to escape.
And there’s a wobbly
marble bench
beneath an
out-of-focus tree on the Web
I like to
occasion my body with.
How brief
we’ve become in our speed
I think. How fast the eternal.
How desperately
we need a
clearing, a place
beyond, but not necessarily
of nature. And the rain
was so deep
the entire forest smelled of stone, then the sun
broke, burying the long shadows
in gold. And the wounded
king woke in a
book long since closed, and the princess
came to in a bed so large
she could never leave. How desperately
we need a new
legend, one with a hero, tired
though he may be. One who has used
business to give up
business, one
who has bought
with his heart what we
sold with ours.
— Kenyon
Review Fall 05
Pushcart Prize
Selection 2007
Writer's Statement
What I care for most in poetry might include the collision of
tangible and
intangible worlds. I'm impassioned by the synesthesia of the
world that I can know and entranced by the mystery of those that
I cannot know. Perhaps St. Augustine most accurately phrased
this condition: That which we perceive through the senses is
constantly changing, and that which is changing cannot be true."
I like to follow language where it wants to go, because finally
I am more attracted to what cannot be known, for the unknown is
dependent on a tone or feeling generated beyond the scope of
words.
Born in Faribault, Minnesota, in 1953, Mark Irwin has
lived through the United States and abroad in France and Italy.
His poetry and essays have appeared in many literary magazines
including Antaeus, The Atlantic, The American Poetry Review,
The Georgia Review, and Paris Review. His awards and
fellowships include The "Discovery"/The Nation Award, a National
Endowment for the Arts and Ohio Art Council fellowships, the
James Wright Poetry Award, and fellowships from the Fulbright,
Lilly, and Wurlitzer Foundations. He has five books of poetry,
the last three from BOA: Quick, Now, Always, White
City and Bright Hunger, which features the poem
showcased here. He teaches at the University of Southern
California.
top
