files

Looking through some old files this afternoon, I stumbled across a folder containing a bunch of drafts and comments from my own undergraduate writing workshops. Tucked inside was this poem by Curt Anderson, a poem that, at twenty years old and a senior in college, I deemed as "everything that's wrong with American poetry right now."

I was prone to sweeping generalizations then and pretty much condemned everything I didn't understand, this poem included.

Of course, I don't feel that way now about this poem, but the poem did have a major influence on me as it has stuck with me since that time I first read it in the Whitworth College periodicals stacks that winter.

I've thought of it often and, over the years, have tried unsuccessfully to locate it, but could never remember the title or the poet. I could only remember the pun on "Levi-Strauss" and something about Saussure. I'm so happy to have found the old photocopy and to be able to post it here.

You never what you'll find when you go digging in the past.

Platonic Love

We dine at Adorno and return to my Beauvoir.
She compliments me on my Bachelard pad.
I pop in a Santayana CD and Saussure back to the couch.
On my way, I pull out two fine Kristeva wine glasses.
I pour some Merleau-Ponty and return the Aristotle to Descartes.
After pausing an Unamuno, I wrap my arm around her Hegel.
Her hair smells of wild Lukacs and Labriola.
Our small talk expands to include Dewey, Moore and Kant.
I confess to her what's in my Eckhart. We Locke.
By this point, we're totally Blavatsky.
We stretch out on the Schopenhauer.
She slips out of her Lyotard and I fumble with my Levi-Strauss.
She unhooks her Buber and I pull off my Spinoza.
I run my finger along her Heraclitus as she fondles my Bacon.
She stops to ask me if I brought any Kierkegaard. I nod.
We Foucault.
She lights a cigarette and compares Foucault to Lacan.
I roll over and Derrida.

Curt Anderson

Poetry, February 2000