The Lives of Poets Aren’t All that Cinematic

(an erasure poem, based on a film review by Lucy Scholes in Lit Hub)

Everyday existence
in a study strewn with papers,
quotidian myth of exceptional
lives: the infamously reclusive
in daily repetition, habit,
routine— A man who drives
a bus, in bed early one morning—
still half asleep walks to work
shortly thereafter. The drapes,
the shower curtain, even
the crockery. Routine
as monotonous detail, day-in,
day-out. Love poem inspired
by a box of matches. In the early
morning sunlight, composition
begins. You have a life, I
have a routine whether
from memory or as spontaneous
composition, what’s first
and foremost a depiction of life.
The years are not kind;
how little they reveal,
supporting and frustrating
in equal measure. The balance
that must be struck in that
interdependency, all-consuming.

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