Modernity
he was born
on the fifteenth day
of the eighth month
because of this
he preferred
the beginning of things
preferred crowds to princes
crossed Europe twice
sang the hymn of our times
in the winter
when they took him out
the citizens milled
some ran about in circles
cried out in their despair
all the world is lost
others were less frenetic
swore their solemn oath
to undue what he had done
others silently noted
the storm which had gathered
on the horizon
| Adam Gerard |
|
levelheaded: Modernity
Like each instant of our lives, nearly each moment in “Modernity” is touched explicitly—and all of them, implicitly—by time. We’ve got months, seasons, order (and what’s a poem if not order?) eras, counting (“twice”) on our hands here. The poem follows an unnamed person through a few events, starting with his birth (which we, at least on some level, can’t help but think of as the start of all time—our dearest epoch, our single life, where nothing contemporary is obsolete because we exist simultaneously).
Gerard takes care to tell us not only of this person’s birth, but exactly when he came into being. The phrase “because of this”—because of his date of birth—claims a causal link between the birthday and what this person likes: “he preferred / the beginning of things.” (This preference simply because he was born, a major “beginning”? Or because the start of the year is when he didn’t make his debut—is this a sideways insight into his regret at being born?) The phrase places a kind of horoscopic stamp on the poem, calling to mind diagrams of the heavens, and that our actions might be, however loosely, charted in some way.
Dude’s preferences also include “crowds to princes,” and, when it comes down to it, royals (unless they marry in) are glaring symbols of—that’s right—time (think William, think Harry). They fall, completely beyond anyone’s control, somewhere on a continuum of time. They do nothing to earn their stature. If he prefers crowds, we may start to think this guy resents the ultimate power of time—just one way to read this.
“Modernity” is a title that, since it updates itself with each second, points to the most present version of time possible, at that which isn’t remote. This is now, and this, etc. It lends the poem an almost perpetual, living quality, like it’s happy to sit across a table with you over coffee and take a stab at defining the times. Bold, right?
At the end of the day, we have a poem whose writer considers sequence and succession, the finite (and, necessarily, the infinite), patiently. Yes, patiently: The poem embodies a response to time, a response made while bearing restlessness while faced with delay—delay in that each of our lives could be seen as a hindrance (while we wait, we might “silently [note] / the storm […] gathered / on the horizon”) to our progression toward death.
– The Editors
