Where Does All the Literacy Go? |
Issue 16
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As we read without engaging
our bodies we rake up texts brown as oak leaves in autumn. No moving our lips, no breath suspended in stark disbelief, only the naked sky spreading rumors of our lack of self and our refusal to learn more of the world we’ll soon disembody. You read for the force of prose breaking on California bluffs. I read mostly verse that creaks at the joints and often shatters. Our piles of books are growing faster than our bookseller friend can haul them off to resell. We can’t use the public library because we’d expose our habits to people too grim to get jokes when jokes are badly needed. The texts eventually will darken into deep shades of mahogany, and our reading will cease without complaint, the lamplight fading and the political moment past. |
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Cloud Mountain (2024). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.
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