Two nights ago, at the Alchemy poetry reading series (which is at a new venue which I really like, by the way, right by Grebovka park, it’s a place dedicated to aristic events, has a great stage, big comfy couches, and popcorn), I read a rather longish poem about the Grandfather Paradox and the multi-verse theory.
Normally, I write lots of short poems. I like it when I can crank out a long one, but the short ones are not only easier to write, they tend to be more popular. But this one was very well received, which made me happy, because I want that to be the title of my next book: Paradox.
I was talking to a friend after the event and he said “I remember you wrote a long poem about evolution a few years back.” This surprised me. I’ve never put that poem into any of my books because it was so badly received. Oh, it got the usual polite applause but I could tell about halfway through that people’s eyes were glazing over and lines I was certain would get a reaction – if not an oooo, at least a bit of nervous laughter – got nothing. So, I laid it aside and forgot about it.
Today I went looking for it, and it was about the last poem I found among my ancient writings, but I found something else instead – lots and lots of short poems that haven’t made it into any collection. Some of them truly are crap, but there are others which deserve to see the light of day, (the poem in question actually is pretty bad, I realized on rereading, but it talks about something important to me – it’s more about the future of evolution than evolution – and it rhymes, so I’m putting it in, I think) and so they’ll go into my next book, which should maybe be called Kitchen Sink, as in ‘everything but the…’ because that’s what it’s going to be.
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