Click the image to read the full text of the poem, or purchase it here.
the Poet:Michael Jones teaches at Oakland High School in Oakland, CA. His work appears in Atlanta Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and other places. He tries to be a good neighbor.
the Poem:
Yes, poems really can be about anything, even taking out the trash. Really, though, this one’s about that question: what’s to see? It’s a corollary to whose business is it, anyway? How many times have you felt a little funny, say, letting yourself into your neighbor’s home because they’ve asked you to water their plants or feed their cat? Maybe you decide to try a new coffee shop and catch yourself feeling like you’ve cheated on your regular spot. Whatever forms they take, ideas about where we do and don’t belong are durable and sometimes outlive their usefulness. So asking what’s to see can be a liberation. In a short poem such as this, it functions like a haiku, where, in the silence after the poem, that expansive feeling of “filling whatever space will have [you]” is what matters most.
Yes, poems really can be about anything, even taking out the trash. Really, though, this one’s about that question: what’s to see? It’s a corollary to whose business is it, anyway? How many times have you felt a little funny, say, letting yourself into your neighbor’s home because they’ve asked you to water their plants or feed their cat? Maybe you decide to try a new coffee shop and catch yourself feeling like you’ve cheated on your regular spot. Whatever forms they take, ideas about where we do and don’t belong are durable and sometimes outlive their usefulness. So asking what’s to see can be a liberation. In a short poem such as this, it functions like a haiku, where, in the silence after the poem, that expansive feeling of “filling whatever space will have [you]” is what matters most.
the Design:
Title & Name: 18pt American Typewriter Bold
Body: 14pt American Typewriter
14pt Schoolhouse Cursive B
Typewriters and practice with cursive handwriting are two things that have been discarded in the digital age; their representative typefaces serve here as evidence of what might be going into the trash. The arrangement of the title and poet’s name mimics the lid of a certain style of trash receptacle currently ubiquitous in cities and suburbs alike.
Title & Name: 18pt American Typewriter Bold
Body: 14pt American Typewriter
14pt Schoolhouse Cursive B
Typewriters and practice with cursive handwriting are two things that have been discarded in the digital age; their representative typefaces serve here as evidence of what might be going into the trash. The arrangement of the title and poet’s name mimics the lid of a certain style of trash receptacle currently ubiquitous in cities and suburbs alike.
Editorial & Design by Architrave Press, St. Louis
Letterpress printed by Paper Boat Studios, St. Louis
Letterpress printed by Paper Boat Studios, St. Louis
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