A Complex Poet on a Loaded day

April 20 is considered a significant date for a number of different reasons. Historically speaking, it is rumored to be the date of Hitler’s birth. It is also a correlation between police codes and drug busts; the date 4/20 has become somewhat of an international holiday for pot smokers, which makes sense since April 20 usually coincides with Earth Day. And finally, it is also the anniversary of the Columbine incident.For some of us, April 20 has become a day of intensely muddled emotion that leaves most of us questioning what we feel but never how deeply we feel it. This muddling left me unprepared for the phenomenal poetry that I found at Frost Common but also seemed to serendipitously prime me for the darkened clarity that Ethan Paquin imparted upon his audience that evening.If you are the type of person who craves the intense over-stimulation raves and rock concerts, then Paquin’s reading may not have been the place for you. In a great, almost puritanical cleansing, Paquin has ripped away all the frills of poetry leaving a jagged and intimately raw edge while still allowing for a complexity that we must work to appreciate. Paquin refused to engage his audience with the conventional witty asides and confessional anecdotes that so rampantly dominate most poetry readings and, by doing so, he displaces the burden of engagement upon his listeners.Paquin’s minimalist presentation, and I wonder if this wasn’t a bit intentional, left me wanting more: More time. More poetry. More of the Poet. Basically, more of everything-a sensation that I found oddly more satisfying than the satisfaction that would come from having gotten what I expected. Perhaps it was the surprise. Perhaps it was the feeling that I had tasted something that promised to get better with age. I am not quite sure what it was exactly but some element of lacking made me deeply appreciate Paquin’s presence.Even in spite of the slightly ineffable nature of my experience at this reading, I found it necessary to bring Paquin’s book, Accumulus, from which he had selected a number of his readings, home with me in order understand more and came away with the conclusion that Paquin’s work: in the same way that a good wine improves when given space to breathe, so too does Paquin’s poetry become more enchanting when given the proper amount of time for savory rumination. In his poem, “Like an Empty, after Chuang Tzu,” the conundrum of the “nameless” in this poem is indicative of the poignant lacking of Paquin’s writing. He somehow manages to pull you right into the deep experience of a moment of pain without once relying on the aloof or the transcendental. I highly recommend to anyone who has found this article even remotely compelling that you take the time to invest energy in the works of Ethan Paquin-the reward will be great. You may find, as I have, that the more of his writing you are able to consume, the more you stand to question why we are so gluttonous to pain our eyes with the poetic experience of reading. But, then again, you may only question, as Paquin might, “why must the sun shine in order for success to enter the casket.”