Le silence va plus vite à reculons

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit. My writing life is giving me whiplash. I spent the last several hours wrestling a poem that was upsetting me into shape, at the end of which time another poem (about which I feel much more cheerful) had come into print. I suppose I could survive if that's the pattern for May.

My poem "Mercury Retrograde Theatre" is now online at Through the Gate. It was written mostly during a pair of rehearsals for the Spring Sci-Fi Spectacular, thinking about Orphée and Cocteau and radio. (I still can't find out whether he heard Welles' 1938 War of the Worlds. Anybody in possession of this information should write that poem instead.) The rest of the issue is ridiculously good. Three of the poets I knew I liked already; the fourth is new to me and I hope for more.

Mat Joiner wrote "Navigations" for me. I love it dearly. I still want "A Wake for Tesla" to win something.

Comments

[sovay]

if Orphée had inspired the gag in Beetlejuice that suicides all have to work as civil servants in the Netherworld. I don't think Cocteau ever actually says so, but Heurtebise does mention that he killed himself.

Yes. I've never seen Beetlejuice, but I hope it's true. I would enjoy that kind of callback. And it's a better deterrent than the usual fires of hell.

I can't tell if the Princess was ever a living human or if she's some supernatural being like the Sphinx in La Machine Infernale.

I don't think she was ever human. She comes close in the course of the film, but not at the end; otherwise that time-winding trick of mirrors might never work.