In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Print this article Convention Hall by Alan Shapiro June 27, 2011 There was the amplified and echoing “optimistic hatred of the actual” that every flag waving to make it so kept waving to the joyous rhythm of even after in the docile chaos of a confetti of balloons tumbling out of darkness high above the lights. Look at Us, the anthem, Look at Us, the shield, the sacrifice – but look at how unfillable the cavern of the Great Hall is, more vacant and silent for the stage dismantled, the massive absence of the cheering and singing; look at how the last of us, our delegate torch in hand sleepwalks in patrol patrolling nothing like a soldier “in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds” who doesn’t know the war has ended, behind enemy lines no longer there, obedient to “a cause he little understands, in a campaign of which he has no notion, under tactics of which he doesn’t see the use”– moving in darkness from light to smaller light along the catwalks through the tunnels over the swept floor to the farthest exit sign. Alan Shapiro is a poet and professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of nine poetry books, including Tantalus in Love, Song and Dance, and The Dead Alive and Busy. He received the Kingsley Tufts Award and the Los Angeles Book Prize. He was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2005, Shapiro won the North Carolina Book Award for poetry, for Tantalus In Love. Source Citation Shapiro, Alan. 2011. Convention Hall. Tikkun 25(1): 12. tags: Poetry http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/convention-hall ...

pdf

Share