About the Poems - ES
About the Poems
by Erik Sweet Here are some notes on my poems. Passages from “Sunlight or Sunshining” began as part of another poem, which I scribbled on a receipt while walking through the Home Depot on Central Avenue in Albany, NY. The Whalen quote from “Today, Pt II and III” originally came from the first part of “Today” which was originally subtitled “several pictures abandoned.” Whalen is an important figure to me; I like his quote because I realize too many people forget about the importance of humor and spontaneity. In the original version, before I remixed it into the current version, there were some lines about the importance of improv and fun. These lines reference a backyard baseball game from my childhood. The questions you ask, the repeating— Like the childhood pickup baseball game we had In our Buffalo backyard Till break of dusk, the game immeasurable in terms of fun But we couldn’t repeat the game the next day, It lacked a spirit, it lacked itself To be inside a life is rather funny, questions never answered Maybe they are really the wrong questions “In Pen” was written as a response to “In Pencil,” which started when I was thinking about what writing in pencil looks like versus pen. When I wrote “Pies” I was thinking about the whole cooling pie on the windowsill thing; do people still steal pies off the windows like in the old movies? I’ll have to bake one and set it out on my windowsill and see if it gets taken. I’ll keep No Tell Motel readers updated!