Date and Time

  In Phil Kaye’s Date and Time he uses poems in different forms to talk about his own life in the past, present, and future – though in no particular chronological order. He starts the collection with a quote from Jean-Luc Godard: “a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end – but not necessarily in that order” (1). He starts with a section titled “end,” goes onto the middle section titled “beginning,” and ends with “middle.” Despite these section titles, the poems are in no chronological order within them, either. The section “beginning,” has stories from his childhood (“Ruby’s,” 46-47), high school (“Strength, in Four Parts,” 43-45), adulthood (“The Patriot,” 49-50), the past (“Teeth,” 51-54), the present (“Phantom Limb,” 55), and those that could fit in any time period (“Depression,” 42). Though not listed above, each of the poems can fit in one of these sections. By providing an assortment of poem forms from a wide range of time periods, he carefully (yet seemingly randomly) constructs a picture of his life – telling us why he is the way he is, how he came to be this way, what means the most to him, and how has past affects his present and his future.
My favorite piece was “Beginning, Middle, & End,” (17-19) because the form lended itself to the overall theme of mismatched/“random” chronology. By telling the story of a boy’s life with a disorganized sense of old, young, married, divorced, dead, the time before even being conceived, etc., readers can still build a full picture of the man’s life as a great story. Maybe this is telling us that we shouldn’t be defined by our past or our future. These events are told without us having prior knowledge of his background, so maybe we don’t need to know all of that to understand a good story. Regardless, the form is a unique way of showing the highs and lows that define life.
    Still, by referencing the past in many of his pieces, I think he is showing us how we are influenced by all time frames. We can rethink how we think of the past, how the future should play out, and how we exist in the present day.