Harjo, Walcott, & Schwartz Reflection: The Future & The Past

            In this reading, I noticed how each poet approached the future in a different manner than we’ve previously explored. Particularly with Harjo’s poem, “A Map to the Next World”, the future clearly is in conversation—arises from—the past. To build this map to the next world, Harjo outlines the past—both its successes and failures. She writes that her “tools were the desires of humans as they emerged/ from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens” and thus reflects on how the past—both the immediate past and the seemingly timeless, ancestral knowledge of existence. I would argue from this reading that time always exists in communion; the past, the present, and the future inform and complete one another. Memory similarly plays a vital role in mapping the future—Harjo writes that we must “Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness” and that this “forgetfulness stalks us”. We must remember our relatives, our embodied selves—this is what makes up the truth of existence. And, as the poem concludes, Harjo acknowledges that the path and the map lie outside our previous conceptions of structured being—instead, “there is no beginning or end”. Instead, “You must make your own map.”

            In the other readings, there is once again a breakdown of our conception of future and past. In Walcott’s poem “Love After Love”, he creates an image of the present and the past coming together and sharing a meal. This meeting adds a more personal layer to time, the future, and the past. Instead of looking outside of oneself as in Harjo’s poem, Walcott examines the clash of the future and the past within a perosn’s identity. The future respects, celebrates, and communes with the past—Walcott paints a portrait of  this meeting, writing: “You will love again the stranger who was yourself…Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life…” This image of the future is soft, yet determinedly affirming—and it exists outside of the bounds of linear time.

            Schwartz’s poem similarly approaches the future in a different manner—not of a distinct futuristic world arising from our current interests or concerns, but of boundless, positive possibility. Each speaker communicates an aspect of the multiplicitous future: it is queer, it is joyful, it is ancient. Similar to Harjo’s poem, this future that we desire (that will be) comes from our forgotten past. “The future strips the wallpaper and reveals the raw beauty of what never needed to be improved upon,” they read. Once again, the future pulls from the past—but not the past of plastic waste, but that of the natural truths.

            Each of these poems examines the future in a way that departs from our previous readings. While I notice certain similarities to “Rise” for example, these poems seek to actively engage other parts of time to create and understand the future. I find this especially compelling—after all, what is the future without the past, the present, and all of time?