Since I published my post about Eve Packer’s “No Mask, No Talk: Corona Poems 2020-2021,” I have had been nurturing a very strong impression that refuses to quit haunting me, the notion that I have been put in touch with a profound expression of our times. It’s causing me to re-examine my motivations as a writer, and the subjects that previously interested me.

I remain, in my best moments, intensely driven. Yet I also want to connect with what’s going on, not merely to raise a torch to elitist ideas of art and literature, but through these subjects, to broaden the possibility of engagement with important and timely issues. Therefore, you may expect that I will diverge from some of the subjects I previously announced would fill these pages, and others, which shall for now remain nameless, will soon emerge. The art world has a problem with always needing to reinvent the wheel. There’s a constant habit of dipping back into the stream of history to reanimate or justify something that never originally received its due regard.

While I am yet fascinated by important creative figures from the past, like Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys, it’s my hope that they may yet serve as models for future knowledge. If I can ably discern elements of their essential nature, the same as I do with contemporary working artists, then I can add them to subjects of progressive importance.

Otherwise, expect new perspectives from me.