This past summer I wrote “U-topias” about an ill-fated, meandering voyage, a long poem for me but very short compared to wandering voyages like the Odyssey or the Hebrew Bible. My search began with an irony – our town’s name said it was by the sea (Nieul-sur-Mer). But every time we set out to find our splendid coast, it was nowhere to be found.
The more I threw out the net to explore this absurdist joke, the more I pulled in — more wheezing fish, more old flip flops, fluff, flowers, existential broodings. The poem knows that paradise has been lost – that’s a clear-eyed assessment. It gathers evidence and clues without putting together answers or a coherent narrative. Is it environmental destruction? Malfeasance? Incompetence? But on the loss of paradise, it isn’t giving up.
If anything, paradise is lost, then regained through poetry. The poem’s title, “U-topias,” published this week in The Common Online, refers to the original meaning of utopia, no-place. That could be a name for poetry itself. Poetry is the place, and it is involved in restoring lost value in the world. Restoration through humble things. The humblest of things. The world of love and things of the earth. Rebirth of paradise in the heart.
https://www.thecommononline.org/january-2026-poetry-feature-1-u-topias