A is for Acts explores a concept that I coined “poethos” in an essay on the work of John Matthias, my poetry professor at Notre Dame. Poethos means that writing in general, and poetry in particular, is a nearly perfectible moral act because of the possibility for revision, “five lines times time in the line.” It’s not that the poem should propose an ideal moral response to life but should prepare readers for the poem’s end–sending them into the present (the nownow) which demands action in real time.
Poems 1990-2000 combined A is for Acts with Babylons & Other Places and was twice shortlisted for the National Poetry Series.
Some poems were published in the anthology The Possibility of Language: 6 New Poets.
The sequence “The Longinus Scales” initiates a practice of rendering poetry in multiple scales.
Mike Barrett Archive 