The Strategy of Tension
At a bar, lobsters mill
in the corner claw machine,
waiting to be pulled
from their situation,
from brine into boil
filling the room with the smell
of displaced sea, plucked
from bedrooms to be used
in amusements, consumed
by men in cargo shorts.
Not to quote Dostoevsky,
but this might be our greatest sin:
destroying and betraying ourselves
for nothing. Friends,
I don’t need to tell you
that it’s going to get a lot
weirder. The planes
won’t stay in the sky.
The trains will flop up
from their tracks,
while their chemicals remain.
All so two lovers
on a beach can watch the clouds
tantrum over the horizon—
to turn to one another and say,
“My God, people would kill
for this view,” and they’re right.
Somebody already did.
Mini-interview with Christopher Blackman
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
CB: I met the poet Chukwuma Ndulue over ten years ago when we were both in Ohio. Until I met him, I didn’t have any friends who were writers, and writing was a purely solitary thing. Nowadays, I value my friendships in the writing community as much as I do the craft. My friends inspire me creatively and with a spirit of genial competition, and they keep me grounded in this world even when I’m not actively writing.
HFR: What are you reading?
CB: I recently started reading (and enjoying) The Secret History by Donna Tartt, per the recommendation of my friend Keith. For poetry, I’ve just started to read Frederick Seidel.
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “The Strategy of Tension”?
CB: For the last couple of years, I’ve had a sense of deep and pervasive dread about how government and capital, or any institution, really, is going to meet the occasion when the chickens come home to roost. At the time of writing, the poem was initiated by a recent train derailment.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
CB: My first book of poems came out in March of 2024, so I gave myself most of the year off from writing poetry to refill that tank. Now I’ve started writing again and the poems are something new—a little more barbed, more overtly political. “The Strategy of Tension” is one from this new batch. I think my new project is just trying to match the menace of the moment.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
CB: They’re pulling up the ladder. They’re pulling the ripcord. There’s no lifeguard on duty. Whatever metaphor you like. So, the question becomes, what are we going to do about it, and what, if anything, do we owe one another? I’ve relied on my community a lot in the face of my despair, and I hope I can return the favor.
Christopher Blackman is a poet from Columbus, Ohio. His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Sixth Finch, Baltimore Review, and DIAGRAM, among other places. His debut book of poems, Three-Day Weekend, was published by Gunpowder Press in 2024. He lives near Boston.
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Heavy Feather Review 