The Beautiful Losses

There is an ideology that supports all others: the belief in something called the Private Life, which is separate from society, history, and nature. Sometimes it contains one person (or part of a person), sometimes two; sometimes several generations of a family. To stay sane, even subjects of highly intrusive regimes believe in the Private Life, till authority disabuses them. Most contemporary poets uphold this ideology. I don't. The subject-matter of The Beautiful Losses ranges from Biden's infrastructure plan ("Infrastructure") to the hopes of an eight-year-old scientist ("And So You Shall"). There are fantasies set in my DC neighborhood ("Events of Today"), in the Middle Ages ("The Bells"), and among alien civilizations ("Entanglement"). Gods appear - quite funny ones, in "The Fortunate" - though not God. Sometimes I imagine the imaginative lives of others ("Friends"), sometimes their real lives ("Darlin you just sorta"); often, as in the title poem, a near or distant future. Because the future is part of history (really, what else could it be?), and so are your and my most deplorable fantasies. The self and its depths don't orbit reality but reflect it, and it reflects them; the task of imagination is to capture that shared light. Much of The Beautiful Losses, then, could be described as "political poetry." But it differs from that of poets inspired only by their own parents, childhoods, and favored landscapes, for whom politics is always something "outside." Its style also differs. To put it simply: I tell stories. Most of these poems combine lyric and narrative elements. They can be read, though at times requiring help from Google. My secret ambition is - without sacrificing compression, subtlety, or symbolism - territory that poetry ceded long ago to the novel.- Frederick Pollack

• | Author: Frederick Pollack
• | Publisher: Better Than Starbucks
• | Publication Date: Sep 01, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 140 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1737621959
• | ISBN-13: 9781737621959