My seventh poetry collection, “Wonder & Wreckage” will be officially published on Tuesday, April 7, after a long (and I mean LONG) six-year process.
For those who aren’t versed in the lingo of poetry, this book is a “new & selected,” which basically means a greatest hits collection with some new tracks thrown in. I began working on this book in 2019 with the goal of getting it published in 2023.
A lot happened in between, including a global pandemic and my cancer diagnosis. My mind and attention were elsewhere, so the creation of the new poetry took a backseat.
I also challenged myself to create an unusual framework for this collection: to give it cinematic underpinnings and to tell a story over s sustained narrative arc.
I’ve been a film and music fanatic since I was a child. From being awestruck by “Star Wars” and “Superman: The Movie” to finding a deep resonance with the films of Wim Wenders, Krystof Kieslowski, Sally Potter, and Derek Jarman.
I have a distinct memory of being in the backseat of my parent’s puke-green Ford LTD the first time I heard “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac, Debbie Harry cooing over the disco beat of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” on the radio in my grandmother’s kitchen, Kate Bush somersaulting across my late-night television screen singing “Wuthering Heights,” and Peter Gabriel leading me to the poetry of Anne Sexton with “Mercy Street.”
While most poets get their formal training by reading other poets and getting literature degrees, my first teachers were filmmakers and musicians.
So, it seemed appropriate that the framework of this new & selected collection should pay homage to those early loves and educators. I’ve always been intrigued by directors taking a finished film and adding to the story to present a “final” or “ultimate” version of the story they wanted to tell uninhibited by studio demands and clashes over artistic vision.
But I didn’t want a traditional new & selected. I wanted to mix the old and the new to tell a deeper story. I thought this was going to be my “Joan Didion LA collection,” but as it was coming together, I realized that it was more about my dear uncle, Terry Graves (who appears on the cover), my beloved friend Christopher Jason Siddons, and my muse Derek Jarman – three of the millions lost to AIDS. Most of the poetry I’ve written about AIDS has never been collected in one volume but scattered across collections and chapbooks or appeared in journals.
Some of these poems have been altered to fit this narrative, heighten a mood, and create a stronger connection point. There is a prevalence of truth in my poetry, but there is also a dose of revisionist history, cinematic license, and like Lillian Hellman in “Julia,” a touch of pentimento.
While I don’t think this will be my final collection, I feel like I’ve reached a stopping point. I find myself no longer interested in the “poetry business” of submitting to publications, applying for grants, setting up readings, or wringing my hands over who will publish the next book.
This collection puts a period – a full stop – to a 30-year journey that has now come to a close.
Georgia Center for the Book, Poetry Atlanta, and Rough Draft are hosting a launch reading for Wonder & Wreckage on Tuesday, April 30, at 7 p.m. at the Decatur Library. Dr. Karen Head will moderate a discussion with Collin Kelley and Charis Books & More will be onsite for book sales. Find out more at this link. The book is also available to order via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and from your local bookseller.