I was invited to write an essay with the title above by The New Quarterly to accompany a long poem of mine that will be appearing in their spring issue. Here is the opening paragraph. If you would like to read more, please support a wonderful journal and buy a copy!
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Pondering my reluctance to engage with this essay, I suddenly realized what was holding me back. It was the title I had been assigned. Why? Because “Falling in Love” doesn’t describe my relationship with poetry very accurately. After seventy-two years of living – at least seventy of them with some kind of awareness of the art – our relationship doesn’t embody the sudden madness of infatuation but instead a dogged, occasionally rueful, commitment. It feels a lot like a long marriage with its ups and downs; its periods of resentment, withdrawal, and silence; its moments of renewal and genuine passion; its shared jokes and pleasures; its reliable consolations.
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