WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: Start Close In

Episode Date: September 5, 2026

Can you know others without knowing yourself? This is the question which David Whyte interrogates in "Start Close In," as he examines what it means to cross over into the unknown territory of The Other. Join Erika Kyba to delve into sound advice...with a poetic twist. 

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, ringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading David White's Start Close In, suggested by a friend of the show. This is a poem that confronts the difficult nature of changing for the better. Start Close In is the advice that White offers,

telling his reader to take the first step rather than the second or third. It's necessary advice if you think about it. If you're trying to get better at something or overcome a fear, it's easy to think about the whole multitude of steps ahead of you on the road to where you want to be and fret over things you don't even have to do yet. The very first step, the most necessary one, is the very one we end up avoiding by thinking this way. In the second stanza, White changes his wording. start with the ground you know he advises. In one sense, he's extending the metaphor of taking steps forward

by referring to the ground that you're metaphorically crossing. But we can also think of ground in the sense of cultivation, since this is a poem about growth. He could be suggesting that a person should till his own field, so to speak, before expanding his horizons. There's yet a third way that we can interpret White's use of ground. By the end of this stanza, he introduces the topic of conversation, and it's implied that he's talking about a difficult conversation, one between two people who disagree. In such difficult conversations, we often use the expression looking for common ground, and I believe that White wants to suggest to that expression to us.

It is as if you and the imaginary interlocutor are on their own separate ground, and White is suggesting to you to start to start to be a question. with the territory that you know before trying to imagine someone else's perspective. He's ultimately going to suggest that only by really knowing yourself, are you going to be able to really know others? To hear another's voice, he writes, follow your own voice, wait until that voice becomes an intimate private ear that can really listen to another. In White's imagination, your voice, your authentic beliefs, actually become the receptacle, the ear, to really listen to others. It helps you respond to what they have to say genuinely.

And that's the only way that real connection can happen. With all that said, let's dive in. Start Close In by David White. Start Close In. Don't take the second step, or the third. Start with the first thing, close in. The step you don't want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way to begin the conversation.

Start with your own question, give up on other people's questions. Don't let them smother something simple. To hear another's voice, follow your own voice, wait until that voice becomes an intimate private ear that can really listen to another. right now. Take a small step you can call your own. Don't follow someone else's heroics. Be humble and focused. Start close in. Don't mistake that other for your own. Start close in. Don't take the second step or the third. Start with the first thing, close in, the step you don't want to take. You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kuy.

If you enjoyed this episode, consider following The Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. And if you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to the Poetry Fix at gmail.com. Join me next week and we'll be reading John Duns since she whom I love hath paid her last debt.