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Daily Notes on Poetry & Related Matters

May 31: Yesterday, Endwar hit me with several responses to blog entries of mine, for which I'm grateful. One was to:


May 26 Non-Poem

There is
something
rather than
nothing 
for the
same reason
there would be
nothing
rather than
something
were that 
the
case.

Endwar wondered if the third line from the bottom of this ought to have been, "not the case." After thinking it over, I wrote back, "I think the not-poem says exactly the same thing your way AND mine. It says nothing would exist instead of something if that--nothing existing instead of something--were the case. BUT it is also valid grammatically, I believe, to take it as saying that nothing would exist instead of something it something did not exist instead of nothing . . ." Actually, what I wrote was a little more confused than the preceding, which I edited a little.

I like the effect of "were that/ the/ case," but think maybe the following would be better:


May 26 Non-Poem

There is
something
rather than
nothing 
for the
same reason
there would be
nothing
rather than
something
if there 
were
nothing
rather 
than
something.

This should seem very clear, and I think I don't want a reader puzzling over it. In this particular--prose epigram, of sorts--I like the repetition the change adds.

Endwar went on to say of it, "Anyway, it sounds like the function of the not-a-poem as you call it is to fill a blog entry. On the other hand, this reminds me of Mark Strand's 'Keeping Things Whole' without the personal involvement of the narrator (the 'I' in Strand's poem)." I don't know Strand's poem. I do intend my not-a-poem to state a philosophical position, one I consider not profound but a valid final answer to those asking why this universe exists rather than no universe. A more succinct answer would be, "because." With the note that no etiological explanation of anything is possible without an axiom that has to be accepted.

With that, I quit for the day, which I plan to use to recover from my recent personal health drama. I'm feeling pretty good, by the way. My blood pressure has been very low--except just after I got up, when it was a shade high, though nothing like yesterday's early readings. I had the second of my fish oil capsules, and went out and ran a sizzling 8-minute mile. I'm going to return to regularly jogging, but try to run very slowly--as opposed to my top rate of slow--to avoid the strained ligaments, muscle pulls and the like I seem always to experience.

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