April is Poetry Oath

I stuck to the topic but 

said a few wrong things.

Things that might have hurt a certain person's

feelings, the one referred to in the poem 

as "the travel agent."

                                    -- Sharon Thesen

The lines above are the opening lines from Sharon Thesen's three-page poem "The Front Yard". This poem is Thesen's contribution to the final instalment of The Capilano Review's three volume, alphabetically-ordered 50th anniversary anthology of mostly new writings and images, most of them poems, or about poems, like the poem concerning "the travel agent."

(In an effort to locate this conditionally hurtful poem I googled "Sharon Thesen" and "the travel agent," and all that came up was a link to New Star Books' 2017 Spring catalogue, which announced a re-issue of George Bowering's A Short Sad Book [1977], where hockey player Frank Mahovlich plays a "travel agent," and "Sharon Thesen"'s new book, The Receiver.)

Sharon has a knack for welcoming readers into her poems. At least that's how I feel when I read her. Renee Rodin has this too. As have others. Welcomed in this instance is not a rocker by the fire but a whiff of the uncanny, the one-quarter view's wry smile. All that needs to be said of sincerity is "I stuck to the topic." Even Stan Persky couldn't argue with that one.

Sticking to the topic, "wrong things" are wrong not because they "hurt a certain person's feelings" but because they "might have." Important distinction, writes Fawcett/says Fawcett, and if he were alive today he would tell us why, maybe why back in the day there was "only room for one poet in this household," and why today's apology can never, ever, ever hinge on the conditional.

The front yard is a staging ground, every house owner's little theatre. What happens there can be horrific. A lot of contemporary art is set there. Did Dan Graham make a work where what was being watched on TV inside a house was relayed to a TV on that house's front yard, or did he only think about making that a work?

Five lines later we find out that "the travel agent" is "Poetry," and I'm off on another "track," too tired to keep up, but I will finish reading this poem eventually.

Reading is not a race. Finish lines get "postponed." You can write on things you haven't finished reading. This post is not finished. I have added to it twice since its posting.