Wonderful--all those rich lacunae. Will need to spend more time with it...it reminds me of the world in Lewis's "The Magician's Nephew"...the world full of pools in which each one was a portal to another world.
On reflection, it might seem like a very strange comparison to your story. But what I meant was:
If most fantasy books (and most stories in general) are about portals to other worlds, then the Magician's Nephew is a kind of story of stories: a story about a portal to a world full of portals. (It's my favorite in the Narnia series and a wonderful read--takes about 2 hours.)
The comparision is this: I love stories (like yours) where the ellipses are so evocative that you have to piece the whole picture of the narrative together largely through the use of negative space. So each of the ellipses has the possibility of opening upon another story/world althogether. The accretion of images gives weight to the story without ever circumscribing it. I find it so evocative as a reader...
...and later I see that this is listed as a "new poem" and not a new story. A funny distinction coming from you, as you use this trick in your stories all the time.
It's funny, just now I was reading a synopsis of "The Magician's Nephew" and felt a compulsion to go back to Narnia, which I haven't read since my twenties. So thank you.
And I love your description of the piece's form.
I actually call it a "piece" -- how's that for committing?--but since Mead is a magazine of poetry, I'm giving it up to them. Someone could call it a lyric essay, too, I guess, though there's no identification of an "I." Or a story.
6 comments:
Wonderful--all those rich lacunae. Will need to spend more time with it...it reminds me of the world in Lewis's "The Magician's Nephew"...the world full of pools in which each one was a portal to another world.
[btw is there a typo in #19?]
Thanks, Christopher! I don't know that piece of Lewis, which I must look up now.
And, yes, that is definitely a type in #19--thanks for pointing that out. I'll have the editors fix that.
On reflection, it might seem like a very strange comparison to your story. But what I meant was:
If most fantasy books (and most stories in general) are about portals to other worlds, then the Magician's Nephew is a kind of story of stories: a story about a portal to a world full of portals. (It's my favorite in the Narnia series and a wonderful read--takes about 2 hours.)
The comparision is this: I love stories (like yours) where the ellipses are so evocative that you have to piece the whole picture of the narrative together largely through the use of negative space. So each of the ellipses has the possibility of opening upon another story/world althogether. The accretion of images gives weight to the story without ever circumscribing it. I find it so evocative as a reader...
...and later I see that this is listed as a "new poem" and not a new story. A funny distinction coming from you, as you use this trick in your stories all the time.
It's funny, just now I was reading a synopsis of "The Magician's Nephew" and felt a compulsion to go back to Narnia, which I haven't read since my twenties. So thank you.
And I love your description of the piece's form.
I actually call it a "piece" -- how's that for committing?--but since Mead is a magazine of poetry, I'm giving it up to them. Someone could call it a lyric essay, too, I guess, though there's no identification of an "I." Or a story.
'Piece' is about the only label which works for me too.
The fractured rawness of the fragments is powerful enough to have been written with a shard of glass on slate.
Powerful, Paul, thank-you
That's such an arresting image, David. Thank you for reading. Take care.
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