New essay at Literary Hub, and a reading list at Electric Literature
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Poetry is a trickster of a genre: not fiction, not nonfiction, but also not not them: both/and, either/or. Likely predating the written word, poetry in ancient times saved and circulated information worth remembering, facts and fictions: history, genealogy, myths, legends, declarations of love.
Somewhere along the line, the concept of “the speaker” emerged—a hybrid of nonfiction’s rule that the narrator is the author, and fiction’s rule that the narrator is not the author but an imagined character.
With “the speaker,” poetry’s narration occupies a flirty, winking middle space: Who’s to say if the narrator is the author? Even when a poem insists on its nonfictional nature, as “Come On All You Ghosts” by Matthew Zapruder does (“in this poem // every word means exactly / what it means / when we use it in every day life”), the rules of poetry dictate that the “I” is never exactly the author—but the author in a costume, or another voice entirely.
(thank you to Pine State Publicity for the awesome graphic)
Say what you will about Scorpio people (and I hope you’re saying nice things because I know and love many Scorpios), but Scorpio themes make for heart-wrenching, compelling, juicy literature. Astrologer Chani Nicholas writes of “Scorpio’s underworld qualities, as well as its powers of regeneration.” Lately I’m fascinated by books featuring literal and psychological underworlds—which have captured the interest of readers and listeners for thousands of years, judging by the ancient Greek myth of Persephone and Hades, and the Mesopotamian myth of Inanna that preceded it. A person might become lost in an underworld, or else journey through one to discover something previously hidden about our own strength and resilience, and what we actually value.
Along with underworlds, Scorpio is associated with death and rebirth, something I took to heart while working on my poetry collection, Cosmic Tantrum: I spent years writing an initial version that I later threw away, starting over from scratch to make something that feels darker and more complex, more me. My birth chart shows four planets in my eighth house, which is ruled by Scorpio. The eighth house encompasses some of the thorniest and most intense aspects of life: death, yes, but also sexuality, transformation, taboos, the occult, other people’s money, and letting go of attachments. Having multiple planets in one house is called a stellium—or, as my tarot teacher and astrologer Jeff Hinshaw likes to say, a house party. I wanted my book to feel like that—like a cast of big personalities walking through a haunted house. And in this new form, it does: Big and Little Edie exchange psychic barbs in their crumbling Hamptons mansion, a “local beast” minds its own business while townsfolk enact a strongly worded letter, and an Eldest Daughter awakens from the sleepwalk of automatic compliance.
Some of the books below percolated in the back of my mind while I wrote Cosmic Tantrum and some have come to me more recently. Each has inspired me with its willingness to plumb the depths of human experience, to sit companionably with mystery, and to find home and self-possession in and through the shadows. All of these qualities embody Scorpio energy, while the subjects and events of the books—taboos, inheritances, death, transformation—are aligned with the eighth house. Each book on the list feels kindred. I’m a Jill of all genres, so rather than narrow the list to just poetry, fiction, or nonfiction, this list is a mixer. A house party, if you will.