CNF: (NINE) LEFT OF BOOM
by Kim Peter Kovac
- “Left of boom” is the military term for the time before a bomb explodes, versus “right of boom” which is the time after, based on a left-right timeline.
- We (global populations, continents, regions countries, states, cities, persons) are left of boom; however, there are both seen and unseen forces pulling us rightward second by second.
- Which leads to questions about how to understand our zeitgeist’s boom.
- Is boom potentially an actual event, or one we create in our minds? How severe is it?
- Is boom a real place you can find on a map? Is it the knife-edge of a cliff, the doorway to a deep forest, the guts of a glacier?
- Perhaps boom is a glowing seed (metaphorical/psychological/mental) that lives somewhere within us.
- Perhaps boom might lead to a giant hole in our personal bodies or our bodies politic.
- How fast is the clock on tick-tick-boom, and can we slow down the ticking? Or stop it?
- . . . . . . .
Kim Peter Kovac recently published his first collection, Border Sounds: Poems & Dispatches from Other Timezones. He has also published over 150 pieces in print or online in 12 countries and is enormously that one of his favorite prose pieces ever (and his second published), appeared in the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts: Cardigan Spy tells of a theater conference in East Berlin in 1986 where the host-provided translator also worked for the STASI.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “(NINE) LEFT OF BOOM”? “Left of boom” is a term of art popularized by the military after 9/11 used to describe that critical period in which the good guys can act and avert a crisis, meaning the boom. What was a bit surprising is that it is can be used in context of other major events/decisions. For example, one could use left of boom to describe the time frame between when Donald Trump learned in February 2020 how dangerous COVID-19 was, and his decision to downplay it. In this case, of course, the ‘boom’ that could have been prevented was the unchecked spreading of COVID in the US. This is what led to the piece – a musing on the broad exploration of what ‘boom’ might represent, and which booms we might be able to prevent
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
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