Page 20
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Gibby's laughter precedes fragments about booze, people, floating and death. A speaker asks how to follow through with a poem, and later speakers argue about knowing everything.
The closing speaker, twenty three, treats certainty as a problem. The earlier speaker mentions a poor soul and a giant at death, but unread words leave the connection between that image, the writing question and the argument unresolved.
A handwritten page that opens 'If Gibby knew laughter.' and 'a little to do with / booze, the people, the', then moves through 'Pressed well with a fine' and 'Floating out / there' to 'second, I poor soul will / never have. How good to be / a geant to there death'. A line about 'My poem' asks 'How is it possible / to follow through?', and the page ends in quoted speech: 'You full of it damn it, I / know your full of it!' followed by 'I'm twenty three, and my / problem is that I will always / know everything now.'
The page shifts from a drifting passage about drink, floating and a last second into a question about writing and then sharp, colloquial argument. The closing speaker frames certainty as a burden, a youthful boast turned complaint, and it stands as the speaker's claim. Several words remain unread, so the connection between the white-and-nose passage and the argument is left open.