Sarah Gengel: An Introduction to Poems by Jeremy Shulkin

Metaphors are our tools for understanding the world we live in. We derive meaning from these comparisons because they get to the true essence; the nexus of that which is being described. Wallace Stevens, in his poem “The Motive for Metaphor” exemplifies the natural human instinct to define and order our environment. Like Stevens, Jeremy Shulkin explores this search for poetic truth through the metaphor. In “ A Misdiagnosis” blood poisoning is compared with the elusive search for romantic love. Through this extended metaphor, Shulkin shows us that things are not always what we want them to be.
There is something so honest in Shulkin’s work. His language is simple yet descriptive; conversational, but at the same time lyrical. His poetry is serious but definite comedic undertones can be heard throughout. Shulkin’s poetic voice is charming, evoking the romantic image of a mysterious stranger sitting at a bar offering life’s wisdom.


A Misdiagnosis

A friend of mine
with a blister on the
underside of his finger
discovered a red line
blushing from the tender
spot highlighting a vein.
The new color coursing
and weaving a perfect atlas
straight to the heart and upon
first-glimpse I imagine a swooning
Elizabethan believing this entwining
into a perfect metaphor we finally see
and touch like something we understand.

But love is never as perfect as symbols
and there the metaphor fractures this red line
within the circulatory system is
not love—but Septicaemia, a type of
blood poisoning, pathogens invading veins.
The body flirts with the tenth most common cause
of death in 2000 by unwittingly
pumping that perfect line through
the aorta, causing arrest, a sudden
stoppage charted by EKG readings as
legible as slips of sloppy penmanship

--Jeremy Shulkin



Done Got Old

Sitting on a bench, North Mississippi,
a still, dust-hung day. An old local,
when I ask “is that your guitar?” tells me
As long as there’s the color blue he’ll play ‘til he dies. And I say,
“One musician I’ve heard
lives around here—maybe
you know his name?—
Junior Kimbrough?”
And he moves both hands
faster than he ever did while sharecropping,
shucking the guitar from its case: “Kimbrough!
Junior Kimbrough!”
Two chords
resonate like a band of twenty—
he moves his worn
fingers over the vibrating steel,
with every bend, a percussive crack, lamenting
now we only move when he’s moved, E to A, E to A.


--Jeremy Shulkin