A favorite poem that I can’t stop re-reading by a new favorite poet. “Desunt Nonnula” by Kaveh Akbar. (copied and pasted from Bennington Review)
If you haven’t read Calling A Wolf A Wolf… Do yourself a favor and read it!
Desunt Nonnula means “some things are lacking.” It was the last line in a “continuous” poem written by Christopher Marlowe in 1598 and there was some argument between publishers whether or not this 800+ line poem should be considered a “finished” work or not; whether or not to ignore Marlowe’s “desunt nonnula.”
The particular attention to small, material items (crayons, trophies) as well as both a figurative and literal reference to lacking, “hunger” and “absence,” give this poem a particularly lonely feel.
Happy reading 🙂
http://www.benningtonreview.org/akbar/
Kaveh Akbar
DESUNT NONNULLA
as a child I wasn’t so much foreign as I was very small my soul
still unsmogged by its station I walked learning
the names of things each new title a tiny seizure
of joy paleontologist tarpaper marshmallow I polished them like trophies
eager in delight and colorblind though I still loved crayons
for their names cerulean gunmetal and corn-
flower more than making up for the hues I couldn’t tell apart even
our great-grandparents saw different blues owing
to the rapid evolution of rods and cones now I resist
acknowledging the riches I’ve inherited hard bones and a mind full
of names it’s so much easier to catalog hunger to atomize
absence and carry each bit like ants taking home a meal
I am insatiable every grievance levied against me
amounts to ingratitude I need to be broken like an unruly mustang
like bitten skin supposedly people hymned before names their mouths
were zeroes little pleasure portals for taking in grape
leaves cloudberries the fingers of lovers today words fly
in all directions I don’t know how anyone does
anything I miss my mouth sipping coffee and spend
the day explaining the dribble to strangers who patiently
endure my argle-bargle before returning
to their appetites I am not a slow learner I am a quick forgetter
such erasing makes you voracious if you teach me something
beautiful I will name it quickly before it floats away
KAVEH AKBAR founded and edits Divedapper. His poems are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, Narrative, Pleiades, and elsewhere.
Thanks for sharing this one, Lily! It’s powerful, indeed!
Of all things we can find ourselves hungering for in this life as a result of our existential lacking (which is, at least sometimes, synonymous with being human), I agree with Kaveh that none is so substantive, empowering, and (as far as addictions are concerned) productive as a hit of poetry — of apprehending, naming, and thus owning a moment of beauty, even as it necessarily slips away… Keats was right, I think, in his estimation that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty; that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.”