Introduction Akt: a painted or sculpted figure, usually nude. Poetry has always been problematic. Even in oral societies, its archival function gave it dangerous importance. After we learned to write, it became doubly, triply dangerous as the poets remembered not only of the past, but the present and the future as well. And some of them did it with such stylistic aplomb, combining beauty, wit, and wisdom in the fewest possible words. If we, even more than we fear death, fear language because of its absolute mastery of us, then how we must fear those who on occasion master language itself. No wonder the alleged rulers of the most developed societies shy from and decry poetry and the poets, those lovely tricksters who themselves never shy of reminding us we all have no clothes really. Robert Lonoke's words infuriate, amuse, stimulate, and embarrass me, often at the same time. Happily at work in my many cocoons, I read him and face the possibility that, born naked, we are all always naked, and all the rest is pose, gesture, and--yes--Akt. Because the naked maja's hand only emphasizes that which it would hide. So too Lonoke's words. The olive leaf does not cover so much as it points and like all good signs says without words: "Why are you looking here?" |