The working title for my forthcoming poetry book is A Furious Surrendering: Poems for
Navigating the Unraveling. The title poem contains these lines:

………………                             ….These days being alive feels like
………………                             ….flank speed in roughening seas.

………………                             ….These days we evolve at speeds
………………                             ….that would make our ancestors faint.

………………                             ….These days staying alive requires
………………                             ….the lightness of a rice paper kite.

This poem reflects my experience of acceleration, of disturbance, of unraveling in our common
life as humans. The question then arises: how do we stand, what do we do as things become
more unstable and we feel more stressed and triggered? The phrase a furious surrendering
emerged from my own attempts in that regard. Surrendering is often taken as a passive word,
conveying a sense of futility, of giving up. But the furious modifier brings energy to the phrase.

Dylan Thomas’s words arise for me in this respect:

………………                             ….Do not go gentle into that good night.
………………                             ….Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Yet I have found myself going to another level with these sentiments. Rather than simply raging
against what is inevitable, I am exploring the place where I can surrender on a certain level, in
the sense of accepting what is, but not become passive, and not disengage. Active surrendering
can mean giving over to certain kinds of action, like following the impulse to serve a person or a
cause. Surrendering need not mean giving up, or becoming cynical; it can simply mean coming
to terms with what is, and giving in to the ways that best serve one’s self and one’s community.

But what is a poet’s calling in this? We have only our words. Another poem in the new book
offers these:

………………                             ….It could be that our strength

………………                             ….in the days to come will flow from
………………                             ….faculties too subtle to be muzzled,
………………                             ….waving imperceptibly graceful wands
………………                             ….that infuse the raging tide with light.

The phrase bearing witness applies here. Poets, if we do nothing else, can always bear witness, to
astonishing events, to quiet moments, to joy, to loss, to rapture, to despair. And if we choose and
string our words well, readers may find themselves moved, changed, maybe even awakened. If
we can do that, we will have followed Mary Oliver’s instructions in her poem “Sometimes”:

………………                             ….Instructions for living a life:
………………                             ….Pay attention.
………………                             ….Be astonished.
………………                             ….Tell about it.

William Prindle is deepening his voice in the third half of life. His poetry explores the seams between the human and nonhuman worlds, working to forge a new reciprocity that restores heart to our mutual life. He has won multiple Poetry Society of Virginia awards, and has been published in Verse-Virtual, Streetlight Magazine, Sandy River Journal, Tupelo Press Thirty Days anthology, Written River Journal, and What Rough Beast journal. His poetry collection Medicine Cache Under Lichen (Finishing Line Press, 2025) is available from New Dominion Books in Charlottesville and Amazon.