[vc_row row_height_percent=”50″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”3″ bottom_padding=”3″ back_image=”56863″ back_position=”center top” overlay_alpha=”0″ gutter_size=”3″ shift_y=”0″][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ position_vertical=”bottom” style=”dark” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h1″ text_size=”fontsize-338686″ text_height=”fontheight-179065″ text_space=”fontspace-111509″ text_font=”font-762333″ text_weight=”700″ text_color=”color-xsdn” sub_reduced=”yes” subheading=”by Kevin Honold”]The Origins of Poetry[/vc_custom_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space empty_h=”2″][vc_column_text]Archaeologists claim that chance nicks
around the rim of a clay drinking bowl
may have suggested meter to a pair of postglacial
deadbeats squatting in one of the less respectable caves,
eating burnt beans, damning the insufferable pride
of the mammoth-killers, what with their fancy skins
and women and stuff. On a night like tonight,
philologists say, when thunder
clouted the mountains, it was someone’s idea to chant
to someone else’s idiot rocking.
Many learned doctors supposes rhyme
has its source in a singsong charm recited over and over
to ward off your mischievous influence.
Now I agree that intellect and memory had to be repressed
if we were to retain a modicum of sanity—that’s why
we learned the advantages of words, I think. I mean,
when the thing that inhabited the sky before god
spent stormy nights striking stones
for its miserable fire, somebody had to do it.
O, Moon. Are you even listening to me?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ align_horizontal=”align_center” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_empty_space][vc_separator sep_color=”color-184322″ el_width=”30%”][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ align_horizontal=”align_right” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ width=”1/3″][vc_single_image media=”57287″ media_width_percent=”100″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]Kevin Honold was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1969. His first book of poetry, Men as Trees Walking, won The Journal/Ohio State University Press prize in 2009.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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