[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Max,

Thanks for the excellent perception that I'll take as a question. I actually can’t say whether this poem is a big joke. I can’t say whether I think it’s deep or shallow. And now, please forgive me in advance for getting windy. I think it depends on one’s outtake on life, or more specifically, on whether someone thinks that we sometimes only pretend at a civilized existence. I think I fall into that camp of thinking we often pretend. My poems are confused because I am confused. I ask myself questions like did any pharaohs have qualms about taking their favorite servants into death with them, did at least one Aztec priest have a doubt before plunging the knife into a young virgin and pulling out the heart, did at least one general think that I am killing more people than I am saving, did any farm wife have qualms about wringing all those chickens’ necks. We often rationalize our behaviors in favor of doing what we want to do. I don’t like to see animals die, or to even know they die, but I still eat them. I’ve read myths and artistic pretenses that the act of sacrificing an animal for a meal is an opportunity to thank the gods and to personify the animal as a brother/sister spirit willingly sharing its soul in the circle of life. I am of the opinion that killing an animal is always brutal, never humane, because death is not intrinsically pleasant, but still can be a practical aspect of subsistence. I do think I am in a smallish group of those willing to bring it out in the open, and to admit my culpability. Now whether my point of view or how I bring it out can be popular with anybody, and especially with artists and sensitive people, is a big question that I am experimenting with in the poem. In most of my poems, the joke is usually on me. You are probably very right that this theme would go over better if it avoided what I'll call my little gloss of humor. I don't think it has much chance of publication as it now stands.

All the best,
Jim