“Paying Attention” by Joel Savishinsky


If god did not create
the universe, the thought
of him was at least enough
to call it to our attention.


Anthropologist Joel Savishinsky’s first attempts at poetry happened in the Canadian Arctic. While trapping and caribou hunting with native people, he contemplated his frostbitten toes, and began to write a few lines in his field journal’s margins. Since then, poetry has helped him to stay warm and ease life’s pain.