{"id":56,"date":"2015-11-16T07:14:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T13:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thespectacle.wpengine.com\/?p=56"},"modified":"2016-05-11T11:23:57","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T16:23:57","slug":"dan-beachy-quick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"Poetry by Dan Beachy-Quick"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 sections from A Quiet Book<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Emerson once had a dream in which an angel came to him and pointed out the world floating like a child\u2019s bauble in space, took it in hand where it rolled in the angel\u2019s palm no larger than a grape, and said to the dreamer: \u201cThou must eat.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Emerson did. He swallowed the world whole.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to make fun of Pythagoras refusing to eat beans.<\/p>\n

But he thought of the universe as one indivisible thing, somewhat kidney shaped, past articulation\u2014a word whose original meaning is anatomical, \u201cto cut along the joints of the body\u201d\u2014containing when it is opened no parts, as the source of the many is the one.<\/p>\n

When you know you are not dreaming, perhaps it\u2019s harder to swallow the world.<\/p>\n

Or even being chased with your very life at stake, to run across the field that is both a field of beans and the starry archipelagoes, and risk trespassing into the holy ground, isn\u2019t worth the risk.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard to know when you\u2019re dreaming.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

The poet told us to moan, and we moaned.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

She gave us a poem by another poet. The poem had only one word: \u201cBird.\u201d The word kept repeating and it made a shape. The shape was the cage of a bird.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how we learned we become our own limit. Emerson writes, \u201cEvery thought is also a prison; every heaven is also a prison.\u201d That\u2019s how we ended up being this cage with no bird inside it.<\/p>\n

All wire, no song.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The poet told us to moan louder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n

Dan Beachy-Quick is the author or co-author of fourteen books of poetry, exploratory prose, and fiction, including, most recently, Gentlessness<\/i> (2015) and Shields & Shards & Stitches & Songs <\/i>(2015). His work has been supported by the Lannan Foundation, and he has taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Colorado State University. He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with his family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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