Nick Lantz is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The End of Everything and Everything That Comes After That (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024). He lives in Huntsville, Texas, with his wife and cats.
On the news, the king was cutting the ribbon
at the newest mass grave. That could be you someday,
I said to the baby, pinching his bug-bit cheek.
He looked up at me then, and grabbed my hand
so hard my finger broke. Was it love I felt?
Poems come off as didactic to me when I can feel them trying to convince me of something, and oddly they come off as most didactic when they’re trying to convince me of something I already agree with, or inform me about something I already know. If there’s a trick to avoiding didacticism, it may be in letting go of that intention to instruct, to persuade.
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