"Days With the Family Realist"

A poem for the 2009 Phi Beta Kappa Literary Exercises

Albert Goldbarth

 

 

Albert Goldbarth's introductory remarks

[video:https://harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/media/2009-goldbarth-intro-remarks.mp3 width:250 height:20]

Poem: "Voyage" [video:https://harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/media/2009-goldbarth-voyage-b.mp3 width:250 height:20]

Poem: "Days With the Family Realist" [video:https://harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/media/2009-goldbarth-days.mp3 width:250 height:20]

 

For complete coverage of the 2009 Phi Beta Kappa ceremony, see Harvard Magazine's Commencement kick-off and "'Habits are Values in Disguise': The Phi Beta Kappa Exercises"

 

 

 

 

A doorknob on a chicken
my grandmother said once, meaning

useless, stupid. Most of us,
most of the time, are that

exactly. Not that
we don’t have our ambitions,

even our nickel-and-dime
nobilities. Still, some nights

when I can’t sleep, I look
in the mirror, I study this man

who’s planning his own small
parthenons and relativity theories,

bank heists, moon shots, deathless poems.
Go milk a fish she also said. 

 

 

Text copyright Albert Goldbarth

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