How do you define the boundaries of a cloud? It’s a more challenging question than it may initially appear. When there is a mist of water droplets surrounding each cloud, and it’s impossible to determine precisely where the cloud ends within this mist, we are faced with not just one cloud, but numerous potential clouds of varying sizes—a limitless array of clouds, or maybe none at all.
This philosophical dilemma is the focus of Peter Unger’s 1980 essay, “The Problem of the Many.” It also serves as a central motif in Timothy Donnelly’s poetry collection with the same title—yet for Donnelly, the boundlessness of the cloud serves as a symbol for a broader type of flexibility, where accepting a world without distinct definitions becomes a form of resistance against capitalism. According to the speaker in the titular poem, when we draw distinctions, we are essentially “asserting a position / about what constitutes reality, deciding which water droplets rightfully belong to the cloud / and which are excluded.” By rejecting the urge to impose order on reality, we can strive towards a world where inclusivity prevails.
Clouds hold a special significance for Donnelly: his previous book, which received the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and delved into the contradictions of consumer culture, was named The Cloud Corporation (2010). Both The Cloud Corporation and The Problem of the Many critique neoliberalism; they are dynamic, clever, and rich in references, unfolding through expansive, complex poems with extended lines and intricate syntax.
Each section of The Problem of the Many concludes with an extended poem, showcasing the boldness of the new collection. In “Hymn to Life,” Donnelly narrates the stories of various extinct species, linking their extinctions to key moments in human history, art, and popular culture. As he swiftly transitions from the plight of the Banks Island musk ox to Katy Perry’s “Roar” to Rainer Maria Rilke, a sense of despondency pervades his work. It seems he is questioning how the human impulse towards creativity can be simultaneously beautiful and detrimental to other forms of life.
In “After Callimachus,” the most extended piece among these long poems, Donnelly traces the supply chain of Dairy Queen’s “Fritos Taco Grande BeltBuster” burger, pondering how mankind’s inclination to exert control over the world through science has led to a chaotic, uncontrollable reality where genes from Arctic flounders are spliced into tomatoes. Despite his discontent, Donnelly remains ambivalent, avoiding blanket condemnations found in “Hymn to Life.” The same driving force behind our urge for control also fuels our creative spirit: gazing at the night sky, Donnelly realizes that “the only way to endure life’s challenges” is still “to embrace it.” Throughout these extended poems, particularly in “After Callimachus,” he experiments with new and often rigorous forms, departing from his usual Wallace Stevens-inspired tercets. Donnelly has mastered the art of skillful line breaks that make his complex sentences intelligible, and in this work, his adeptness with formal structure shines as he seamlessly integrates tightly structured eleven-line stanzas and fragmented, scattered verses into a single poem.
For Donnelly, our modern tools—like science and economics—are as inadequate at defining humanity as they are at defining a cloud. This skepticism will resonate with readers of The Cloud Corporation. What sets The Problem of the Many apart is Donnelly’s genuine concern for others. In his earlier works, Donnelly swiftly transitioned from the tangible to the theoretical, with his social consciousness leading him into what Stephanie Burt has termed a phase of “pessimistic introspection.” In this latest collection, however, he examines the world’s fractures with attentiveness and hopeful caution.
“Mutual Life” showcases Donnelly displaying heightened levels of empathy as he follows an unnamed writer through an insurance company’s lobby. Comparing writing and life insurance as two methods of coping with the fear of mortality, Donnelly appears poised to criticize the writer’s hubris. Instead, he forgives them, along with the metaphorical language and literary predecessors represented by the writer. At various points in the collection, Donnelly even envisions a new sense of collective lyricism. In “The Human,” tucked away in the acknowledgments section, Donnelly emerges from contemplating Aristotle’s Politics by stating:
[ … ] And when I close my eyes to brace against
the late imperial effects of it, I feel a forebear step forward
from a cave in thought, its arms extended as if to take part
bodily in the beauty of what we call sky, and through some new
distortion in the throat, indicates what the many, still situated
in dark behind us, come one by one to tremble at the mouth to see.
The notion that together we might rediscover a prehistoric, untainted form of communication—free from “imperial effects”—is not a tangible political agenda. However, coming from a poet who previously delved deeply into introspection and pessimism, it marks a notable step forward.
In a review of The Cloud Corporation in the New Yorker, Dan Chiasson characterized the collection as a “poetry of retreat”—emphasis on the well-read internet enthusiast, the critic sequestered in their dwelling. The Problem of the Many also includes profound interior poems, yet its scope extends beyond Donnelly’s personal confines. While most philosophers confronting Unger’s dilemma seek to identify a solitary cloud within the enigmatic mist, Donnelly aspires for the opposite outcome: by blurring the boundaries imposed by knowledge systems that compel us to define clouds, he aims to dismantle other types of boundaries—be they national, social, or political. As Donnelly articulates in his titular poem, “To expose oneself” means “a deconstruction / into expansiveness, devoid of constraints, unexploitable, in essence an adversary / of established authority.”
