The Cosmos of Small Details: When A Young Poet Asked for Advice
For Dean Young (1955-2022)
Hey Bro, how do we know what’s real?
Like what’s really real? Can you actually
prove to me dinosaurs existed? Prove
evolution? Prove radio waves? Gravity,
rainbows, calculus, the water cycle,
Hi-Fi, Wi-Fi, or photosynthesis? Prove
camaraderie or credit or blame or
love or loathing or gods or ghosts or
trauma or pain or coping or the desperate
need to hold onto childhood agony
because that’ll be the fuel for when you
invent the first internal combustion engine,
X-rays, the first wheel, bicycles, water
filters, germ theory, silk from worms
munching on mulberry leaves, global
trade routes, & altered migration patterns,
or plutonium or the device that’ll allow
you to actually see molecules, atoms,
quarks, feelings, or how airplanes
or poets fly. Is there ever a day it
doesn’t rain? Is there ever a day
without death? So everything must
become the proverbial grist for the mill
Wait just a minute. Prove the tides,
the air stream, hurricanes versus
typhoons versus witches are only
witches if they drown—thin line
between fueling hysteria & being
brave enough to speak out against
the con being perpetuated. Such
thin lines among belief, emotion,
knowledge, power, & the abuse
of power, which basically describes
my Catholic upbringing. So, how
do we make sense of X? Where X
might be…reality, magic, & maybe
the idea of existence itself? 42 &
beyond 42. So how do we make
those authentic & magical connections
with others—whether it’s in the form
of relationships or in writing itself?
Well… it may seem counterintuitive,
but the best way for beginning astronomers
to create a generalized-slash-shared
experience is by delving headlong
into the particulars of your very own
lived-slash-imagined experience: five
senses, props, proper nouns, soundtracks,
odd fascinations, weird peccadillos,
strange captivations, wild obsessions,
humble talents, & specific details
of precisely what happened. Through
particulars (not abstractions), you’ll
connect with a small group of likeminded
freaks & like a stone tossed into a flat
pond, those connections will ripple out,
& maybe now those ripples are radio
waves out beyond the Milky Way, out
into the warm distances of the universe,
& you’ll then connect even better with
an even broader audience. This is why
we tell beginning writers to show, not tell.
Showing allows us to experience… and…
just maybe… connect & experience
and-or empathize with you. Like walking
into a room suddenly filled with freshly
baked brownies. And your grandmother.
Who doesn’t miss getting lost in the folds
of a hug from grandma? Or a pat on the back
from a lifechanging professor? It’s not rocket
science; it’s priceless rocket fuel. The fact is,
we’ll all be dead soon. Living 75 years isn’t
even a blip in our cosmic history. And so—
terribly—many of us aren’t even guaranteed
that long. And there’s about nothing more
ridiculous than using our precious seconds
to write our ridiculous poems. But their
ridiculousness is our culture is, in fact,
our time well-spent. Because we all
so desperately want to be remembered,
so why don’t you give me something
to remember you-yes-you specifically by,
instead of being yet another person to
mimic-imitate-remember dead white
British hoity-toity poet X by. I already
remember them. And I’d like to remember
you, too, you bleeping weirdo. Because this
is what we’re really trying to get at, right?
To connect to people who think like us—
making the ordinary extraordinary or
magic-wanding the extraordinary into
the ordinary—even if it’s a galactically
small pool of people who think like us.
Bob King is an Associate Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. He holds degrees from Loyola University Chicago & Indiana University (MFA, poetry). His poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Red Ogre Review Unlikely Stories, Mark V, The Dillydoun Review, Emergence Literary Journal, American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, Muleskinner, Allium: a Journal of Poetry & Prose, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Northwest Review, Quarter After Eight, & Green Mountains Review, among other literary magazines. He lives on the outskirts of Cleveland with his wife & daughters.
Note: Inspired by The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True by Richard Dawkins (2011) The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979), and Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798, 1805).