I first met Jeremiah Walton at Poets’ Hall – this little spot doing big things with poetry and spoken word in Erie, PA. He was playing vagabond all long the East Coast and he found himself in Erie the same night I was featuring* at the Hall. Jeremiah is relentlessly passionate about poetry. He’s young, sharp-witted, and critical. His work plays on the ideas of 21st century life – questioning what it means to create in the digital age. I always look forward to Jeremiah’s work because he’s always doing the strangest most innovative things with the energy of a crack squirrel. Not long ago, he published an entire chapbook of poems as a status update on Facebook.
This poem here is from the perspective of money. Jeremiah imagines Money as a cocky egoist who controls our lives, and quite enjoys his status of Deity in our culture. As Money, Jeremiah takes shots at communists, anarchists, the barter system (Money’s “big brother”), and poets. Money is an asshole, but he’s right. That’s the sad fact of this poem. We do worship Money, and there’s really no sign of that stopping anytime soon.
This won’t be the last you hear of Jeremiah on this blog. I’m a huge fan of this kid, and I think he’s really got a food head on his shoulders. You can find out more about Jeremiah and all of the projects he’s involved with at http://jeremiahwaltonnostroviapoetry.wordpress.com/
*I think featuring is a strange sounding word. It sounds like some kind of sexual fetish.
Destination: Detour 