I Know it When I Hear It: iTunes Shuffle Surprises Me

Famously, Justice Potter Stewart once wrote about pornography: "I know it when I see it," in reference to pornography in 1964's Jacobellis v. Ohio Supreme Court decision. In his opinion, the movie The Lovers was not pornographic.

I thought of Stewart's standard when my iTunes (on shuffle) landed a remarkable poem I had never before encountered last Monday afternoon as I was working at Hebrew U. The poem, "Last Gods" by Galway Kinnell, is as raw and sensual as any I've ever read. Thinking at first that I was listening to a poem that was ostensibly about something else but with a strong undercurrent of sexuality, I began paying close attention only for the brunt of the poem's lyrical message to smack me across the face.

The poem, which you can read here (it's fascinating, by the way, to encounter other under-the-radar bloggers through google searches and search around a little bit in their on-line lives) is a wowzer - fresh, vivid, and lyrical.

Now, as to its possibly pornographic nature, I'll weigh in with a "no." Although I'm not sure I'm capable of acknowledging anything, at this point in my life (at least), as "obscene."

As for phenomenal poetry? I know it when I hear it.