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.
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.