IN ALL THE WORLD
In all the world, how many things are there? I ask
Fifteen, she says
This does not include mice or coffee, so even then the number’s off
Slightly
She says she’s got nothing, panic-stricken, truthful among other outliers
Fingers moving quickly, then stopping, then very quickly moving again
She remembers climbing down from the tree
Placing her feet on the green earth
Starting to count, even then, the number of things in all the world
Writing them down in her small notebook
Panicking when she almost reached ten that she’s run out of paper
But of course she didn’t
The world simply ran out of things
John Findura
John Findura is the author of the poetry collection Submerged (Five Oaks Press, 2017) and the chapbook Useful Shrapnel (2022). His poetry and criticism appear in numerous journals including Verse; Fourteen Hills; Copper Nickel; Pleiades; Forklift, Ohio; Sixth Finch; Prelude; and Rain Taxi. A guest blogger for The Best American Poetry, he lives in Northern New Jersey with his wife and daughters where he is awaiting full disclosure of the fact that non-human intelligence has lived with us on this planet since the beginning of time.
Why this Knocked Taylor Out:
I'll have to confess: as a child I had a "gratitude journal" where I tried to list everything in the world. If that means I'm biased in accepting this poem...I'll take it. Either way, banger poem.
But also this poem is able to balance its humor and its heart in a way that compels a reader to reconsider their own position on the "green earth" and all the "things" that make up our daily life. Poems that allow readers to step into the eyes of a child (even through the eyes of a parent) really strike me as getting at the heart of poetry and the way it makes us wonder.
This poem is such a fabulous look at the way life can overwhelm us with its "everythingness" but also with its wonder.
Interview:
Why did you choose Team Taylor for this poem?
Even though the poem isn't surrealist, I feel like it might secretly want to be, and I hear Taylor digs surrealism. Plus, she also likes "god/God"-stuff, and really, what poem isn't a conversation with a higher power?
This is a poem that both has a lot of specificity, and is also missing some specifics; how did you go about deciding which details would be necessary to build the world of the poem?
I have a thing for specific items in poems - nothing gets in there accidentally - but in this poem, you're right, the important things are the things that are left out. I think this poem plays with the unsaid, the things we can't put into words, and I already have words for "mice" and "coffee."
I like the way this poem feels like a list poem without being a list poem, is that effect on purpose? Or how are you thinking about the form of this poem on the page?
I am obsessed with lists from when I was a little kid. I used to have a book called "The Book of Lists" that was just...lists. I loved that thing. Years ago, I started writing list poems with very specific things in them, almost to the point of hyper-confessionalism. "List Poems" were always something I could fall back on if I didn't feel inspired. I think this poem may be a reaction to the anxiety of running out of things to list, which is of course impossible. But was IS possible is running out of MEANINGFUL things to list, and that happens all the time. I was lying in bed years ago before a long plane flight - and I'm terrified of flying - and in my head I made up a sort of will for who would get my stuff. Aside from my wedding ring and a watch my parents had given me, the value of everything else only existed to me - my possessions are basically worthless to anyone else - and this scared me until I realized that it is true of everyone.