As any fule kno, we do not cover the Beast That Is Poetry at greydogtales. Except when, occasionally, we do. Which is all very strange. However, we have two fine examples of this vexing animal in hand – Jessica McHugh’s Strange Nests, and Paul St John Mackintosh’s The Great Arcana, and they crept far enough into our kennel to deserve mentioning. These are two books of verse, but they’re as different as chalk and something which is definitely not chalk. Here’s a taste of them, both widely available now…
STRANGE NESTS by Jessica McHugh
Following her Bram Stoker and Elgin Award nominated collection, A Complex Accident of Life, Jessica McHugh draws this time on the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic, The Secret Garden, for a new collection of her blackout poetry*. What’s that, then? Essentially, blackout poetry is sculptural, carving away at an existing text until you’re left with the words you want.
A Complex Accident of Life, inspired by Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein, was our first extended exposure to the form, and we were sold – if not on everything about blackout poetry in general, certainly on McHugh’s remarkable ability to carve new and evocative meanings from literary monoliths. It’s a fascinating read, and now we have Strange Nests, which McHugh described to us as:
“A collection of horror blackout poetry exploring the consumptive and transformative power of grief.”
The Secret Garden is an interesting choice as a source text, and one of which we approve, as it is set in Yorkshire. We ourselves have a secret garden at the back of our Yorkshire hovel, but unlike that of Misselthwaite Manor, ours is a quagmire created by too many dogs digging and peeing on everything.
Here’s a sample of the unadorned text…
And here’s the graphic way in which McHugh works and presents the full form alongside the extracted core:
The venerable Ginger Nuts of Horror review site said of Strange Nests:
“A thought-provoking and powerful collection of short poems exploring a range of emotions and experiences that even a novice poetry reader can appreciate and learn from. It is worth a look, even if it is just to get a glimpse at the fascinating world of blackout poetry.”
https://gingernutsofhorror.com/fiction-reviews/book-review-strange-nests-by-jessica-mchugh
We agree. McHugh is a textual sculptress, and the reviewers are right, this one is definitely worth a look.
*If you’d like to know more about the form, there’s quite a lot of detail here:
the history of blackout poetry
And there’s an Amazon link here:
Given our second book of the week, mentioned below, we would like to have linked Frances Hodgson Burnett, and the tarot, but the chain is thin. Her own interest in the occult and spiritualism, which developed in later life, seems to have been more centred around theosophical concepts. She stated:
“I am not a Christian Scientist, I am not an advocate of New Thought, I am not a disciple of the Yogi teaching, I am not a Buddhist, I am not a Mohammedan, I am not a follower of Confucious. Yet I am all of these things” (New York Times, Oct. 12, 1913).
However, the Brink Literacy Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to changing the world through storytelling ran a campaign last year for The Literary Tarot, a project due in 2022 which includes both The Secret Garden and Frankenstein:
“We reached out to some of the greatest authors and cartoonists of our time and asked them to pair a tarot card with a seminal book that embodies the meaning of the arcana.”
Bestselling author Leigh Bardugo (Ninth House and Shadow and Bone) pairs the Ace of Parchment (Pentacles) with Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and Isaac Marion (Warm Bodies) brings Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to life in the iconic major arcana card The Hermit.
So maybe McHugh is onto something…
THE GREAT ARCANA by Paul St John Mackintosh
“A visionary cycle of 22 sonnets for the 22 trump cards of the traditional Tarot pack, with accompanying classic Tarot cards to illustrate them, delving into the symbolic, cultural and historical heritage of the Tarot.”
Our other rhythmic offering today is both ancient and modern, a set of sonnets based on the Major Arcana of the tarot.
The entire matter of the tarot is something which has been subject to an astonishing number of interpretations – considering that in the fifteenth century, it was merely a card game played by idle apprentice Italian builders when rain stopped yet another bout of civic piazza construction.
“ ‘Ere, Giovanni, how come this pack’s got more than one Pope in it?”
“Ecumenical schism, innit? And stop lookin’ up me sleeve.”
On the other hand, maybe the tarot does contain the hermetic, transcendental wisdom of Thoth. What would we know? The theosophist Helena Blavatsky said:
“The real Tarot, in its complete symbology, can be found only in the Babylonian cylinders, that anyone can inspect and study in the British Museum and elsewhere. Anyone can see these Chaldean antediluvian rhombs, or revolving cylinders, covered with sacred signs; the secrets of these divining ‘wheels,’ or, as de Mirville calls them, ‘the rotating globes of Hecate,’ have to be left untold for some time to come.”
Paul St John Mackintosh, accomplished writer, poet and journalist, knows more than we do about all sorts of stuff, and has written his sonnets in order to reflect on each of the tarot trump cards. He says of The Great Arcana:
“The Tarot I based these sonnets on, almost entirely, is the Tarot de Marseille, purely because it’s the oldest complete suite of designs and motifs for the Major Arcana. I was very concerned with authenticity and origins when working on this cycle, on the basis that, if the Tarot has anything to teach or reveal, it probably is found most authentically in its earliest forms, not in the later rewritings and interpretations of the system by A.E. Waite and his ilk. I’ve only drawn heavily on the Rider-Waite Tarot deck for one poem — II, The High Priestess — and I don’t particularly care for any of Waite’s readings of the cards. However, imaginative inspiration has been my real guide all the way through, pulling me away from being too much of a dogmatist in any particular direction.”
Here’s a sample – which does not do justice to the style and layout in the actual book:
The Magician
Charlatan, mountebank, you stand,
behind your table set out on the green,
minor arcana laid in your demesne;
cups, coins and swords ready under your wand,
answering to your oh so puissant hand,
your prestidigitation passed unseen,
and so arcane we can’t tell what they mean
and leave the spread for you to understand.
Yet is that rakish hat Infinity,
the cryptic symbol of Eternity,
and Ouroboros wrapped around your waist?
Your Moebius brim, your artfulness proclaim
the occult wisdom hid in your shell game,
as you divine from squares of pulp and paste.
(c) Paul StJohnMackintosh, 2022
It’s a stylish and thoughtful work which both informs and teases, with each sonnet set against a classic image of the card to which it relates.
Find it on Amazon here:
ALSO IN BOOKS NEWS…
The Kickstarter campaign for Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives volumes 3 & 4, and The Book of Carnacki, all three coming from Belanger Books and edited by John Linwood Grant, began on the 21st February. It greatly exceeded its initial goal within hours, but is a good way to pick any or all of the books concerned, singly or as bundles. E-book, paperback, and hardback formats are available. Lots of detail about the books themselves on the Kickstarter page:
The Book of Carnacki/Holmes & the Occult Detectives