About the Poems - JM

These poems were written over the course of one week this past spring while I was working as a substitute teacher for two students on long-term suspension. One student beat his brother with a baseball bat. The other student did something I have no jurisdiction to speak about. I wrote these poems while they were completing class work. I kept thinking about how these two students were living in a space both emotionally and physically separate, yet having to go about a daily routine. However, some ideas these poems orbit around are the legitimating forces of language and their relationship to knowledge. Nothing in language ever matches up perfectly. But why do millions of people walk around acting as if things do? And why do millions of people mysteriously agree with each other on a certain level concerning meaning? These poems are hinting at the predicament to be confused with language, but to embrace the experience as vital and even playful.