Polaroid
The problem with realism,you once told me,is the closer your art gets to itthe more real it must become.Can memory be a worry?I suspect it works more like a wish.I worry I should have becomea short-track speed skater. I wishI weren't this set of rusty steel claws.If I'm being honestI'm not entirely surewhat a memory is.A drawer in the basementfull of old batteries.A mirror you look into to seeanother mirror that shows youyour own butt from behind.There isn't much I'd do over.Not even the previous line.I'd rather watch everyone dance.If I'm left with one memorylet it be dance. The crimsonin a Joan Mitchell painting.That first F Nina Simone lingers onin "I Loves You, Porgy."The old lighthouse we walked out tonear the harbor that summer.I remember you said it lookedbetter from a distancewhere it was possible to imaginethe light was still shining.
Feature Date
- August 28, 2024
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“Polaroid” from Hold Everything. Copyright © 2024 by Dobby Gibson. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org
Dobby Gibson is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Hold Everything, which will be published by Graywolf Press in October 2024. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, and The New Yorker, among other publications. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
“Gibson's a poet I never tire of hearing: the more of his work I read the more I want to read. . . . On the one hand, it's sad, as sad as life. On the other, it's not, and thank Gibson for it. He could even be the voice of my generation, if my generation had a beautiful voice.”
—Stephanie Burt
“Every poem in this book tells me something I don’t know, or something I’m always in need of being reminded. . . . Gibson’s Hold Everything shows us what it might mean if only we could hold everything we need to survive, love, and thrive. I love this book.”
—Dara Barrois/Dixon
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