Well, it’s official: you have to have born with a silver weed grass smoothie in your mouth to enjoy this new New Yorker poetry.
And really, it’s surprising, and it isn’t. On the one hand, just two years ago, you had that woman carving out an emblematic picture of chicken slaughterhouses with unforgettable vividness; I mean reading the New Yorker poetry was literally like getting beat up, it was like getting hit with a giant boxing glove out of the wall in the face. And this was only two years ago, circa winter 2013.
But it’s funny how long the fixings of war take to come to a full halt, after they’re employed. There are subtle, sophisticated sociological elements at work that have dictated the New Yorker’s poetry back to ennui-rendered conversation fodder. And the POETRY itself isn’t even the conversation material — it’s the objects mentioned. Gone are the emotional stakes, the affectively compelling juxtaposition of the mighty and the morbid, and left is this arbitrary itemized list of Caribbean Cruise discussion points. Oh, do I care about the blood lining these new walls, do I care about the buzzing of screams I hear of dead bodies, of Indians, of Blacks, of Iraqis, of Irish, of Italians, well, who are YOU? Where’s YOUR 401K?