A Poem for the 99%
If it’s true that a person has to become more than half-
dead to this world to live in it happily, then I’ll be happy
never to live in it happily again. Let the phenomena
alternately capsize and crank me up into the Atlantic
air—I will hang there jangling till the point of view
turns out to be borne on the concave back of some far
too faulty conception of happiness, which is to say just
say the word and I’ll tear it down and get back to work.
From “LYCOPODIUM OBSCURUM” by BR Poetry Editor Timothy Donnelly. It is the 99th poem of 99 Poems for the 99 Percent.
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Boston Review is a magazine of ideas, independent and nonprofit. We cover lots of ground—politics, poetry, film, fiction, book reviews, and criticism. But a few premises tie it all together: that democracy depends on public discussion; that sometimes understanding means going deep; that vast inequalities are unjust; that human imagination breaks free from neat political categories; and that powerful images are worth piles of words.
