Peter Burghardt

(no subject) Peter Burghardt

Poems derived from momentary reflections saved in the poet's subjectless emails.

The poems of (no subject) are an investigation of the personal and the everyday. This collection draws inspiration from the idea of the quickly written subjectless email, as the poet would clear small periods of time to write and record observations and thoughts, then send it to himself in untitled emails. The book takes the shape of an impressionistic twenty-first-century diary, reflecting on themes of anxiety about the future and the situation of the present. As these moments compound, the line between the present, past, and future is blurred in the conflation of self and memory. Driven by a speaker who is hermetically sealed in their private world, these ostensibly subjectless poems derive their meaning through the tension between narrative and emotional resonances. Through moment-to-moment reflections, (no subject) digs deep in search of the big little feelings transmitted by fatherhood, the fusion of time and space, loneliness, resilience, and wonder.