Page 223
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Warrors, terror, lace, friendship, poems, stories, doctors' offices, magazines, and novels all enter this page as a strange taxonomy of forms, courage, and what lasts.
The verified page feels essay-like in a good way. It sorts genres of life as much as genres of writing, moving from inner war to the claim that a novel is what a person has been.
'Little Things That Are First' reads like a taxonomy of courage and form. It values being and then witnessing a fighter - 'It is good to be a warror; latter it is better, / to see a warror as well' - and locates conflict inwardly: 'If the eyes or eye is shifting,, / then the war is difinately,, / inside the brain.' It pleads the paradox 'Of terror having no fear' and softens into loyalty - 'Yes, gentel as lace,,' a willingness to go down 'for a friend.' After a bleak middle - 'Nothing to look up to, / folly and the far hill / Sleek as judgement always twice will be done' - the poem turns into a literary sorting: 'A song is a stretch, a poem stays now / A short story is a magazine / A doctor's office / A novel is what you have been.' That final equation makes the novel a whole lived life. Kept spellings 'warror,' 'difinately,' 'gentel,' and 'Ibeg' are preserved.