Dana Levine -- Week 15 -- Pick a Poet (Clint Smith) -- “What is Left”

     Through reading many of Smith’s poems this year, I have come to love his style of poetry and his ideas that he presents. He goes so deep into thought, but not in a way that is so confusing that only the poet understands. It leaves just enough room for interpretation, while making the general message of the poem clear.

This week, I chose his poem called “What is Left.” It is a poem full of open-ended questions that really get you thinking. The questions all trigger your sense of awareness and pull you into different perspectives of what could possibly be the reality. The poem begins with questions surrounding nature and leads into some deeper questions as it asks “...is it called disappearing if no one knew you were there…” Although all of the questions in this poem are ones similar to this one, I enjoyed trying to come up with my own answers to them and use the poem as a sort of game to see if I can gather evidence and make a solid argument to prove an answer to this open ended question.

I really enjoy these open-ended questions with no one right answer. While reading this poem, I went deep into thought on what the answers truly could be. One of the statements that stood out to me was “I come from a city that is drowning while being told it is rinsing itself clean.” So many times in life, things don’t turn out to be how they seemed. You find out someone is not the person you thought they were, or a childhood perception is crushed by reality. But I question if this has to be the case. Is there one correct answer, or is perception reality?