Poetry and Motion in Wisconsin

I thought my poetry talk last night went pretty good. At one point I talked a little about Roger Bissell's "microcosm theory of art."

I agree with him on many points, but I don't think the central metaphor is quite right. No poem passes muster as a micro-recreation of the totality of reality. They are more like windows into what the artist thinks is important about reality. And short poems present very small windows.

Works of art
are way too terse
to show more than a small part
of an artist's universe.

Then, this morning, I ran a "quarter marathon" in Madison. It was a fun race, with rolling hills, wind off the water, and medals just for running 6.55 miles!

Quarter Marathons are fairly rare birds in my experience. I never run one before. I suppose the problem is that it's too close in length to a very popular distance, the 10k, which is 6.2 miles.

The 10-K is close to a Quarter -
but a third of a mile shorter.