![\"\"](\"http:\/\/projects.ccu.press\/edwardslive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2022\/09\/thumbnail_Circa-MMXX-cover-687x1024.jpeg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s got stuff about the pandemic in it. It\u2019s got stuff about the very violent ideological politics of the time\u2014the destruction of a lot of democratic norms over four years from 2016 to 2020,\u201d said Albergotti. \u201cSo the poems are very topical and informed by a moment, but I\u2019m always trying to find a way in them to see beyond that, to see a larger relevance, to connect it to something beyond the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drawing inspiration from various poets, Albergotti shows within Circa MMXX<\/em> how the past tends to reinvent and reconnect itself to our present lives through poetry. For example, Philip Larkin\u2019s \u201cMCMXIV\u201d [1914] inspired the last poem of Albergotti\u2019s chapbook, \u201cMMXX.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Albergotti notes that in remembering the thousands of lives lost during World War I, \u201cLarkin\u2019s poem ends, \u2018Never such innocence again.\u2019 And the idea behind it is that after such a cataclysmic event, no one could be innocent to the world again,\u201d said Albergotti. In \u201cMMXX,\u201d Albergotti makes a similar connection, using two men fishing as a metaphor. \u201cThe last two lines are, \u2018The fish drifts back toward the hook, no longer afraid, such innocence, ever again,\u2019\u201d said Albergotti. \u201cThe idea of going back towards the hook and not heeding your fear, or not really understanding the danger you\u2019re putting yourself in, is that other kind of innocence which is ignorance. It\u2019s like saying, \u2018What have we learned? Here we are100 years since the flu epidemic that killed a whole lot of Americans and people worldwide, and here we are again100 years later.\u2019 We just forget. We let it seep out of our consciousness, and we don\u2019t prepare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In writing about timely topics within this collection, Albergotti hopes to challenge his readers to view the events of 2020 differently and to view poetry as a way to take control over the chaos of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s this one thing that Robert Frost said about poetry that stuck with me,\u201d said Albergotti. \u201cHe said, \u2018It\u2019s a way of taking life by the throat and not letting life get away with skirting around you. You take it by the throat and say, \u201cThis is real. This is it.\u201d\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To Dan Albergotti, professor of poetry in Coastal Carolina University\u2019s Department of English, poetry is a way to see our world through a different lens, to make connections from the past to the present, and to understand the capacities and limitations of human life. \u201cI remember reading poems when I was a teenager for English…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[116,74,120,119],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-corner-faculty-voices","tag-english","tag-poetry","tag-reading","tag-words-to-say-it"],"yoast_head":"\n