Page 308
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
An old man's thought about youth, truth, poets, failure in LOVE, and manual typewriters turns mistakes and exclusion into the conditions through which youth is understood.
Truth stands in one place, but reaching it still requires effort from fist or brain, as if conviction alone never settles the matter. The possibility of failing in LOVE makes the lesson less abstract and more bodily. Youth has NEVER had inclusion, while song writers, poets, and manual typewriters become exceptions whose beginnings and endings are made of mistakes.
This piece meditates on truth, age, and the peculiar exception granted to artists. The declaration that truth is that which is so sits as a plain anchor amid lines about directing fist or brain at Living and failing in LOVE. Youth has NEVER had inclusion, except through song writers and poets and, notably, manual typewriters, which are grouped with poets as things made of mistakes. The final equation of imperfection with authenticity ties creative work to error rather than purity.