—ome (a small thing I can't do)
A Poem by Joseph Hamilton
Get out to look in. Go to the hills
or better yet the Mountain. When
a good thing ends, say, Think of all
the non-starters, that which never
began while we were busy with a
good thing. Pray to the Anemoi & sink
the last of that unseasonably cold wind.
As you walk further inland, speak
to the wonders of the Chuo Line––ask,
How do you come so far & still know
where to go? See, it’s only One road
to ÅŒme, only One river & One road.
It’s not strange. It’s structures. It’s
gravestones. It’s where the shrine’s hidden
object isn’t. Later, the Real is you & your
shell-shaped ice cream as you walk the way
of the train, counting the stops. You
never quite reach a high point from
which to look back from & the chance of
swimming leaves with the wind. You’re
full on whatever you could find, the
walk has gone on as long as any walk
should, so you stop under the same
pressure we all do. Right there at
that sad dry End (however small), you
think of what now & else, of our
non-starters. This: the thing I can’t do.
A Statement by Joseph Hamilton on his process
This poem came from an array of incomplete feelings about the physicality of nostalgia –– of an embodied longing for a time or place –– and of how the speaker comes to terms with being in this state of flux “when a good thing ends”.
My writing process comes from a place of confusion whereby the poem’s central concept seems to be simultaneously right there in front of me but still escaping me. The things I know, or think I know, tend never to make it onto the page. Poetry for me –– or at least my own poetry –– is transformative rather than analytical. I enjoy taking a speaker’s inability to name a feeling and framing this conflict in something real or material (a body, a place, an object), forcing them to translate ‘feeling’ into ‘idea’, as Audre Lorde puts it. In this poem, the abstraction of endings and longings is seen through the Japanese town ÅŒme and the suffix –ome.
The writing of the poem came a long time after the concept, and it was only in editing that it actually became anything at all. Sometimes a poem is written as it is thought but I find these moments of inspiration incredibly rare, and I am exceptionally envious of any poet who seemingly thinks in poetry. But I also find a lot of joy in taking an old, empty concept and trying to squeeze a poem out of it: I like the idea that poetry can be surgical and unnatural and difficult as well as automatic and writerly, and also I like the idea that these two sides of a poem can be almost impossible to identify.
About Joseph
BoundBy Co-Founder and Secretary
My name is Joseph, and I am officially the Co-founder and Secretary of BoundBy, and unofficially have very little idea what this requires of me. I do know that I receive submission emails, collect and collate editors’ feedback on poems, and communicate with successful poets regarding the publication of their work. As a very small magazine, every member of the team also specialises in last-minute editing, troubleshooting, squeezing magazine work into their otherwise very busy schedules, organising small and unprofessional (but very fun) poetry-related events, and generally preserving this space to continue to provide young, unpublished, and underrepresented poets a platform to showcase their incredible work.
Beyond BoundBy, I am studying for an MA in creative writing, thinking about writing, not writing, and, occasionally, writing.
I also like my boyfriend, Socialism, and the 1997 Hayao Miyazaki film Princess Mononoke.
