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“If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” In middle school- If you love it so much ,why don’t you marry it was the typical response for proclaiming your affection for a thing out loud. It was dangerous to love something, to care, to gush with enthusiasm, to swoon, or feel overcome with awe and appreciation. But hating and proclaiming your hate? Completely legitimate. It was okay to be enthusiastic about what you didn’t like- to make known what you thought sucked. And if you added a word like fuck, no one would dare tell you to marry anything, or murder anything, or do anything at all. If you were brave enough to utter a proclamation like“I fucking hate math” you’d earn the respect of your peers and maybe even get a few laughs. But loving weird things like certain words, the existence, iridescence, and built-in eyes of peacock feathers, characters in books like Pippi Longstocking and Harriet the Spy, textures like the warm, smooth metal slide at the playground making glinting low-hanging tiny stars in collaboration with the sun, or the appealingly giant pom poms kids made out of yarn to put on their roller skates, well that was about as uncool as you could get. Mary Ruefle writes: “O ruthless thistle, match in the dark/ you can talk to anyone about the weather/but only to your closest friends/can you mention the light.” In honor of poetry month, I want to share my enthusiasm for the ode; the poetic form made for the sole purpose of housing enthusiasm. I like to think of the ode as enthusiasm’s apartment. Also, our 16-year old dog Miette died earlier this month, and the day before our five-year anniversary, my partner’s hand was severely burned. Not to mention the war and suffering in the world at the hands of greedy, fascist maniac which, of course, has been a faucet of perpetual astonishment and despair, enough for a million or more laments. So, I figure, maybe I’m not the only one who could use some celebratory odes. Read more on my Substack.
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