Christian Barter
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from Bye-Bye Land
Sampling athletes, politicians and canonical poets (among others), Christian Barter tells the story of 21st-Century America in a poem whose range is matched by its remarkable narrative force.
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Notes on Bye Bye Land
(Numbers refer to–in order–section, stanza, and line.) Part 1 1,8,2: Thomas Wyatt, “Forget Not Yet.” 2,1,1: “Ships, towers, domes, theaters and temples lie / Open unto to the sea, and to the sky,” Wordsworth, “Lines Composed on Westminster Bridge, 1802.” 2,5,1: Ronald Reagan, campaign slogan of 1984. 3,1,1: “History is ours and the people make…