Connor and Jack discuss the poignant, quiet poem "Child Holding Potato" by Rick Barot. They consider, in Barot's own words, the "limits of art to console," time's relentless march, and the power of stressed syllables. Jack may or may not muse about the one and only Bruce, and Connor may or may not rant about the state of iambic pentameter education.
Learn more about Barot, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rick-barot
Check out Barot's latest book here: http://www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/chord-rick-barot
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Child Holding Potato
By: Rick Barot
When my sister got her diagnosis,
I bought an airplane ticket
but to another city, where I stared
at paintings that seemed victorious
in their relation to time.
The beech from two hundred years ago,
its trunk a palette of mud
and gilt. The man with olive-black
gloves, the sky behind him
a glacier of blue light. In their calm
landscapes, the saints. Still dripping
the garden’s dew, the bouquets.
Holding the rough gold orb
of a potato, the Child cradled
by the glowing Madonna. Then,
the paintings I looked at the longest:
the bowls of plums and peaches,
the lemons, the pomegranates
like red earths. In my mouth,
the raw starch. In my mouth, the dirt.
