Poetry: “What the Fuck” by Robert Pearson

New Voices opens the year with Robert Pearson’s “What the Fuck,” which is a poem that expresses more than meets the eye. At first glance, the poem is almost too simple, absent of the kinds of elements we talk about when we talk about poetry: lyrical metaphors, crafted forms, sly wordplay. But Pearson’s poem, even if it ignores the traditional conceptions of what a poem is recognized to be, cuts through the noise. It’s honest. Pearson’s poem is a call for human connection beyond the words on a screen, ironic because it’s likely this is exactly where you’re reading them. But Pearson isn’t asking us to put down our phones, just use them for their original purpose—a text message can only do so much. Talk to someone, hear their voice, he’s instructing us. Do a little more, just a little more. Hear the voice of your loved ones, not just their curated captions. We aren’t going to unplug, we’re in too deep. So maybe, just maybe, we can do the next best thing.