Welcome to National Poetry Month at The Other Pages. My name is Steve Spanoudis and I curate the series each year, with help and contributions from Bob Blair, Kashiana Singh, and (Nelson) Howard Miller. I’m coming to you from Coral Springs, Florida, on the eastern edge of the Everglades.

Today I want to focus on two poems by American poet Michael Torres (https://www.michaeltorreswriter.com/). He is a current professor in the Minnesota State University system, and a former graffiti artist, originally from Pomona California. His first collection, titled An Incomplete List of Names, was published in 2020. I’m going to read from two pieces, the first is titled “Because My Brother Knows Why They Call Them “County Blues,” but Won’t Tell Me Why,” and the second one is “My Brother Is Asking for Stamps.” The complete text for both poems is available online at the Poetry Foundation.

Yesterday, I commented on Fred Marchant’s poem that bad things happen. In today’s two poems, a sibling is dealing with a brother’s incarceration in sort of a “. . . and then what happens . . . “ progression.”

In the first poem the speaker feels left behind, Sadness. Loss. Struggling to understand. He tries to come up with some kind of metaphor to help him understand. He says,

When my brother left, I painted our room

blue to make a more manageable sky. But

the room couldn’t mean anything besides

an offering of endless daylight for the parade

of shadows and the solitude shadows purchase

by virtue of their existence.

And then, he turns from color to noise, he continues, later in the poem:

Ultimatums were set,

sides chosen; each faction manufactured bigger

and bigger speakers. Volume knobs turned to 10.

Then, walls of roar. I don’t care who won. Really.

Finally, he admits,

I’m not a good liar. I’ve been looking for the perfect

metaphor for sadness. All along. I apologize

for nothing. I sit with my sadness, desperate

to relieve its weight. It’s not as easy as everyone

makes it seem.

It isn’t easy, obviously, for anyone, but adults often hide the emotions that a child or adolescent cannot.

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