“Generational Neuropathy,” by Jeneva Burrows Stone (Poetry ’07)

2007 poetry alum Jeneva Burrows Stone was recently featured in Scoundrel Time. Read an excerpt of “Generational Neuropathy” below:

Generational Neuropathy

Politics tries to annihilate its own consequences in a bright nuclear blast. For a nanosecond, everything (for once) is illuminated. But there’s always another war to end all wars. Remember the Doonesbury cartoon about Star Wars—no, not that one, Reagan’s pet project—Oops! one got through. ‘Bye.

How will I know you in the afterlife? It’ll be recorded, I imagine.

Then the towers fell and fell, imploding story by story, all the way down. Even the great antenna. News ran on a loop of destruction, resolution, imperative, fight. The weight of history become literal. No one debated a tragedy on American soil, not even me.

 

Find this poem, as well as two others, here: https://scoundreltime.com/three-poems-by-jeneva-burroughs-stone/