blackbird online journal spring 2002 vol.1 no. 1

 

SHEILA PEPE | High Hopes

And here's "High Hopes" at Colgate.

The titles of both these two pieces ["Come Fly with Me" (previous) and "High Hopes"] are Frank Sinatra songs.

I think after 9/11 was the first time that I got irony, which is probably unlike everybody else.

And since then I'm kind of losing my handle on what irony is. But it just seemed my eternal optimism was kind of dented for a minute, so I was looking for some way to retrieve that.

And I have generational dysphoria. I identify with a lot of the stuff of my parents—World War II-generation parents. So Frank Sinatra seemed like right way to try to boost my spirits—and acknowledge we were entering a point of no return.