Lauren McCollum - Two poems
Man, I forgot you published poetry when I talked to you about this project. This is not meant as an affront to poets, more a warning that my own commentary about poetry is usually an affront to poets. Not that I'm shining any great light on fiction or non, but, well, poets and readers, you've been warned.
From "Wednesday Poem," I really like the image of the ceiling replacing the dream (upon waking) and the potential double meaning of the word tangle later in the poem. There seems to be a loneliness to both of these poems.
Aside from your own thoughts regarding Lauren's work and its place within Unsaid, do you find that you're looking for the same thing from poems that you are from prose when reading for Unsaid? And, do you find yourself only reading for Unsaid nowadays, or can you still read simply for pleasure, not wondering how a piece would fit within the Unsaid universe, or if this is an author you'd like to talk to about future issues, etc.?
David: Let me first address your question regarding my thoughts and feelings concerning McCollum's work. At her strongest, Lauren emotes a kind of cosmopolitan loneliness that is set apart from the work of her peers. What sets her work apart is that the loneliness she embraces appears always to be approaching a kind of unseen transformation.
For the sake of analogy, let me deform (in the name of poetic truth) Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam". Imagine the Poet (McCollum) in place of Adam. Her finger is outstretched not to God, but to the gods and goddesses (Stevens, Dickinson, Rilke, Moore) of her choosing. I like this image, it's strong in my mind, but it's still not strong enough.
So consider the Poet's loneliness. She is at home in the world but alone at home. Here is where we further deform Michelangelo's masterpiece. In the original, Adam smiles into the face of God. In the analogous version, the Poet's face is turned away from the outstretched fingers and gazing faces of her chosen gods and goddesses.
Study the Poet's face. Reflected in her downcast eyes we see the knowledge she has gathered from the world. Now bring your eyes to the space that exists between her outstretched finger and those of her chosen gods and goddesses. That space, filled with light, is where the approaching sense of an unseen transformation lies.
The Poet does not see it, but it is there nonetheless. Her eyes seek the world, but her outstretched finger nearly touches those of her chosen gods and goddesses. This opposition within her body creates a beautiful tension that is the poem itself.
It's a beautiful painting that represents the emotive singularity in the strongest of McCollum's work. I wish I could paint it.
To answer your other questions, the "sameness" I seek between any pages included in Unsaid--poetry, fiction, what have you--is built not from similarity but difference. A writer's ability to set his or her work apart is the common thread you will find in Unsaid.
Reading submissions for Unsaid is always a pleasure. And, yes, I can read work outside of the Unsaid realm for pleasure as well. These days, however, when I find free time away from Unsaid, I am usually working on my own pages.
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