'I Find Out How Little I Know'

Pessimism has its charms, chief among them being the reduced likelihood of disappointment. Even on the diminished scale of an individual life, utopia is toddler-level delusion. I still remember the cover of the April 1970 issue of Ramparts magazine, which proclaimed “Utopia Now!” I was seventeen, a senior in high school, and already knew this was dangerous nonsense. Here is a poem by the late American poet Kelly Cherry, “History” (Hazard and Prospect: New and Selected Poems, 2007): “It is what, to tell the truth, you sometimes feel That you have had enough of, though of course You do not really mean that, since you recall It well enough to know things could be worse And probably are going to get that way But still want a long and memorable life, which means Having to learn more of it day by day, The names and dates of all the kings and queens And those less famous who ruled the territory Known as your heart and now are gone, by one Dark route or another, from the plot of your story.…