Hard Up

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(35 31 32 1)>Rich people spend their money / on other money. / I spend my money on string colorful string-- How can poetry about poverty and the injustices of late-stage capitalism contain so much joy? How can poems court absurdism without cynicism? How can poetry be both empathetic and irreverent? I wish we all knew what M.P. Carver knows. </span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>-</span><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(35 31 32 1)>J.D. Scrimgeour Salem MA Poet Laureate author of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(35 31 32 1)>Lifting the Turtle</em></p><p></p><p></p>