Kinnell’s Prayer.

This week’s NYT T Magazine has a surprisingly interesting How to Be Cultured section that has personal picks in various categories like film, art, food, and so on. In the literature pages is The Poems You Should Know by Heart; the first, “Prayer” by Galway Kinnell, chosen by Major Jackson, was new to me, and I liked it enough to bring it here: Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that. Jackson says: I typically say Kinnell’s words at the start of my day, as I’m pedaling a traffic-laden path to my office. The poem encourages a calm acceptance of the day’s events but also wants us to embrace the misapprehension and oblivion of life, to avoid probing too deeply for answers to inscrutable questions. I admire what Kinnell does with only 14 words; the repetition of ‘what,’ ‘that’ and ‘is’ would seem to limit the poem’s sentiment but, paradoxically, the poem opens widely to contain all manner of human experience. The three ‘is’es in the middle line give it a…