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| Detail from “The School of Athens” a fresco by Raphael (1483 – 1520) [Click image to call up all published instalments] |
About a week ago, I received an odd email of a future posting on Moristotle & Co. It made me question the way I do my posts.
The post looked like one of Michael Brownstein’s offerings. The title was “Template” and it was followed by only 4 lines:
[preamble…]I read and reread the post, pondering the art, the meaning. Could this be a commentary about poets who have a story about every poem?
[…preamble]
[repeat title]
xxx
I quickly sent an email to Moristotle, and found out that the posting was unintentional. It really was a template, for building future posts. But it got me thinking.
In the poetry world, while many of us love to tell you all about our every piece, it is generally encouraged to just read your poem. A good poem should be able to stand up without an introduction. Could this be a sign to me that I should drop my regular format and just let the work sing for itself?
Perhaps it is a path I need to explore.
The Stories We Tell
The world was bigger back then,
the bears, the rocks.
Our people still had to live,
to grow into the big sky above.
They walked this land,
followed the waters to new homes.
One of our scouts
came across a great bear
in search of a tasty morsel.
He was chased,
a rabbit darting around trees
while the bear followed,
breaking through the timber.
He reached a great mountain,
climbed up its steep slope,
that beast still on his heals
until he was beyond the giant claws.
The bear was mean with hunger,
pulling down that mountain
through the night.
By morning, all that remained
was this scarred rock,
but our explorer was still safe.
The bear wore itself
against the mountain,
both much smaller now,
finally wandering away
searching for easier prey.
We came to this place,
to live safe from that bear
in the shade of the cliffs,
to remember that night
and how we can make it
through the big problems
of our small lives,
huge mountains now molehills
in the shadows of stars,
Devil’s Tower still standing
under Ursa Major
through the twist of night.
| Copyright © 2023 by Maik Strosahl Michael E. Strosahl has focused on poetry for over twenty years, during which time he served a term as President of the Poetry Society of Indiana. He relocated to Jefferson City, Missouri, in 2018 and currently co-hosts a writers group there. |
Personally, Maik, I much appreciate your preambles, even as I highly respect the stance of other poets on our staff who refrain from commenting or explaining their own work. I don’t think there’s a “right way” about this. And if there is one, I am not qualified to judge which.
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