"The Sentence" by Nathan McClain

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day October 23, 2019   The Sentence   Nathan McClain

begins with its subject,             which is the sentence. Track the sentence             to find out what happens or how it will act. It is            the subject, after all. To track, meaning keep an eye on,           which is synecdoche, part representing the whole             of a thing. One may track a package if he pleases.            One may track a person, though you'd probably want             the whole of him, not only an eye, or perhaps             only an eye. Look how the sentence is so capable             of embracing contraction. A him may function             as a subject, but that depends upon the sentence, i.e., A man              is subject to his sentence. You understand.              Such syntax renders it like a package showing evidence             of having been tampered with—              Copyright © 2019 by Nathan McClain. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 23, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "'The sentence' was written on the heels of a longer sequence of poems I'd composed over the last year or so, all entitled 'They Said I Was an Alternate,' which interrogates facets of our seriously flawed criminal justice system through the lens of criminal trial and jury duty, though I'm sure my occupation as a teacher greatly informs the poem's approach. It was one of those gift poems that arrives nearly whole and requires little revision, which means the poem was difficult to trust. Anyone who knows me well knows I have long resisted writing overtly political poems, largely because, as a black poet, I felt it was somehow expected of me. And I much prefer to offer the unexpected, yet here we are." —Nathan McClain   Nathan McClain is the author of Scale (Four Way Books, 2017). He teaches at Hampshire College and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. Poetry by McClain   Scale  (Four Way Books, 2017) "A Noun Sentence" by Mahmoud Darwish "Postscript" by David Lehman "revision, impromptu" by Fred Moten October Guest Editor: Oliver de la Paz   Thanks to Oliver de la Paz, author of five collections of poetry, including The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Paz about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 6, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. Unsubscribe:here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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