THE GREAT REALIZATION

With similarly daft logic—not to mention frequent disregard for regular meter and rhyme—Roberts tells a favorite bedtime story to two children. Back in 2020, the text relates, corporate greed (“our leaders taught us why / it’s best to not / upset the lobbies— / more convenient to die”) and feelings of loneliness brought about by our addiction to screens and social media were transformed into a healthier “work-life balance” while hiding away from the virus. “We started clapping to say thank you / and calling up our moms. / And while the car keys gathered dust / we would look forward to our runs.” Emerging from this rather radically simplistic isolation scenario to a fresher, less-plasticized world led to the titular epiphany, the exact nature of which readers are left to figure out. Along with Americanized spelling and a few unnecessary changes in line order and wording, this version of the poem comes with restrained, sparely brushed watercolor illustrations of, mostly, stylized human figures rendered in a range of hues from paper white (the narrator and children) to shades of brown and pale blue or green.

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