Ballad of Puppetry and the Fifth Estate
By Ken Babstock
She was told no. She would not stop.
As a child I’d ask my father
why though still awake
he closed his eyes.
In Rilke’s great poem, “Statue of an Archaic Apollo,” the poet articulates the moral statement which the wonderfully wrought torso proclaims: “You must change your life.” Is this the message of the modern Apollo? And if so, how is it we must change?
All of them appeared to be composed of sharp angles between muscle and bone, stretched taught and teasing the notion that a body can rip—that theirs hadn’t yet.
If you write urgently, honestly, I think that it can be easier to be surprised by your own thoughts, your own verse. And that surprise happens many times.