Poem Of The Week - This Is Not About Us by RK Fauth

When I was here before, I tried to start a series called poem of the week, just sharing a random poem with you and I'd like to start it again. About a month ago, I started attending a virtual workshop hosted by Desiree Dallagiacomo (she's so amazing!) and each week, she brings one or two poems that she doesn't know that well. Why? Because she says our discussions about the poems helps her understanding of them. So I want to do that here!

This week, I'd like to discuss This Is Not about Us (It’s Just about Desire and the Plague) by RK Fauth

More than a crisis, a phenomenon is how scholars describe the bubonic craze that made the Dutch desire, more than anything, a tulip

There were flower auctions and commissioned portraits of   bulbs, certain bulbs worth thousands of seventeenth-century coins

Bulb-like symptoms developed in certain parts of   the body, round nodules in the armpits or groin, for example, but also intolerance to light, pain in the back and limbs, sleeplessness, apathy, and delirium—

But in this version of   modernity, in the floral department of Trader Joe’s, I keep my hands, my saliva, and this bit of trivia to myself

Because we are running out of money and because your mind needs a speedometer, I want to say, You look pretty even in a mask tightened by safety pins in the back of   your head

To purchase means to buy, or to get a grip on—to want to consume—

Tulpenmanie. They say it was like a fever inside an era of fever—

I want to tell you, but you’ve gone worrying down some other aisle. And I am pushing a shopping cart of   baby’s breath, the color of   plums

So here are some of my initial thoughts:

A few weeks ago, we read Golden Hour by Kimberley Casey in the workshop I mentioned. There was a lot of discussion about the meaning of the poem in reference to the pandemic. And something struck me: over the next ten/twenty/thirty years, there are going to be poems set in the pandemic (through mentioning masks, lockdown etc.) that aren't necessarily about the pandemic. For example, I wrote a poem called 'I Got My Vaccine Five Minutes Ago' that is more about my anxiety and how hot it was that day than about the vaccine itself. However, in this poem, the author discusses this pandemic in comparison to the bubonic plague.

To follow on from that, I find it intriguing that the author describes the bubonic plague as a the bubonic 'craze'. I thought that was a fascinating choice and there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, think of all the implications of 'craze': trend/fad, crazy (obviously).

I don't know the truth in the part about the Dutch wanting tulips but I find it simultaneously beautiful and haunting that people were so desperate for flowers that they had auctions and even settled on artwork instead of the real thing.

Also, the line 'your mind needs a speedometer' speaks to me on a spiritual level.

What are your thoughts on this poem?