Featured Poetry

Jones Irwin – Around Here

In his poem Around Here, Jones Irwin captures a sense of the current political atmosphere, a specific kind of decline in marginal communities but also how they can be energized by political ideas. In observing and writing people, he tries to caution against easy judgements and hasty perceptions which may skim the complexity of others’ lives.  


Around Here

No one smiles around here
Anymore the atmosphere is
Getting nastier

The biographical sketches
Get you so far
An early tragedy here
Drug addict father there

Still there is more
One guy told me his crime
Was an ideological stance
Once he had read Bakunin

You can’t argue with that

However dear reader let’s
Avoid the pitfalls of distortion
That might tempt the organizer
Of principles when faced
With what effectively are
Bare backed people around here

For is each person not
Different every single time
Depending on the angle?

Jones Irwin

Jones Irwin teaches philosophy in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. He has a particular interest in existential philosophy and poetics.

1 thought on “Jones Irwin – Around Here”

  1. I like the combination of depth and comfort.
    A context we can all relate to – shared community narratives – including the one tale we could all subscribe too.
    But then an alluding to a darker side and cautioning us to be wary of being seduced by false or even harmful overview of current political perspectives.

    A very clever and thought provoking piece of narrative.

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