Poem of the Week | November 21, 2016
Owen McLeod: "A Brief History of the Universe"
This week, we are excited to offer a new poem by Owen McLeod. McLeod’s poems appear or are forthcoming in numerous journals, including New England Review, Field, Yale Review, The Minnesota Review, Willow Springs, Sugar House Review, Passages North, and others. He is a studio potter and an associate professor of philosophy at Lafayette College. He lives and works in eastern Pennsylvania. His website is www.owenmcleodpoetry.com.
Author’s note:
Over time, a child’s drawings of people evolve from random marks to spiky blobs, from stick figures to more or less human forms. Recently, I was struck by the thought that if a set of pictures like this were arranged from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, the series could be interpreted as a visual, mythical, and definitely surreal history of the evolution of human beings. And thus this poem was born. It uses the conceit just described as a device for delighting in, yet questioning, the distinctions between reality and appearance, sacred and profane, transcendent and immanent, the extraordinary and the quotidian.
A Brief History of the Universe
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