Saturday, January 28, 2017

Kit Kelen - for godsbother - blurt it out


blurt it out

as in the case of the country
you were brought up to love

words sink like stones
in the well of the heart
and one day
the world
goes without saying

still billions of years till then
still time to mean all that you must
to get the phrasing right

blurt it out

words on their death beds
will squeeze a last breath
out of the healthy animal

8 comments:

  1. not really sure if this fits in godsbother
    but
    I am interested in pursuing nationalism as a kind of religious fervour or as blindspot limit to thought modelled on those provided by religion ...

    a kind of a broaden the scope but narrow the focus problem

    centering on the question --
    what is the phenomenon here?

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  2. Is the poem gesturing towards a global perspective and timeframe that transcends and far exceeds nationalism? I see nationalism in the first stanza, then perhaps the consequences in the second stanza, then the poem zooms out to a different perspective. It might just be a result of the zeitgeist, but I see the line "still billions of years till then" as immensely hopeful. Trump won't rule forever!

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  3. nationalism is self-eternalizing -- this is the first order of its bullshit

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  4. or should I say intellectual weakness

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  5. I like the gradual broadening out to macro perspective and the final stanza is incredibly powerful.

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  6. hey this is an opportunity to advertise my book on National Anthems
    - Anthem Quality

    http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/A/bo15571948.html

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  7. I can send you a pdf if yr keen.... shhhhh!

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  8. Kit, I would love a copy. I'm currently teaching a course on nationalism and literature. We read Gellner last week and are on Anderson this week.

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