The Metaverse and the Vacuum
Crush and Supernatural came out at the same time. Obvious content overlap but no interaction between poet and show. What happened? Which came first? My question was: if they’re related, what came right before them? What are they responding to?
We make work inside a culture. We make culture inside a culture. No vacuum.
I remember reading poems full of allusions to Greek mythology and thinking, “This is too much work.” Having to go read stories (backstories) to understand a poem felt exhausting. And it made me feel stupid. And, soon enough, I was reading poems that had appropriated other text(s) to mash-up or to engage with. And I thought, “This is too easy.” We can, I can, get really judgmental when it comes to what we demand from art.
If we mention Mnemosyne, it’s labeled High Art. If we mention Sherlock, it’s labeled Low Art. But it’s the same thing. These references, these allusions, are landmarks. We use them to plant flags and share meaning.
Some poets demand original ideas and images from every poem. Some poets are fine with generic nouns. Gertrude Stein used a rose. Wallace Stevens used a blackbird.
I remember freaking out the first time I saw a fictional character leave her invented soap opera town and show up in another soap opera’s fictional town. I remember the cruel delight I felt when, in The Men Who Stare at Goats, George Clooney’s character tries to explain to Ewan McGregor’s character what a Jedi is. We get it and we expect it now. We are no longer dumfounded by cross-overs. Of course the Law & Orders share characters. And Alien can fight Predator. And Freddy/Jason. And Batman/Superman.
Now, instead of troubling the lines between fictional worlds, we are troubling the lines between authors. Sometimes we get imitation. Sometimes we get weird, recursive loops of reference. And sometimes: innovation.
Remix culture. Metamodernism. Fan fiction, screen caps, memes. That’s where our heads are right now.
I will never be able to come up with a satisfying answer when it comes to the relationship between Crush and Supernatural. I feel honored by the Wincest community but there’s no place for me there. The insistence that everything I’ve done so far is Wincest gives me no wiggle room. I take no offense, I’m proud they found the poems worthy enough to include, but still: no wiggle room.
My new poems are about war and they are very angry. There are a few moments of clarity between friends, but mostly they are about greed and hate and fear and the dream of possibly being useful. There’s not much overlap between johnlock and War of the Foxes. And I think my next book will be even darker, because I do not like the way the world is treating itself and I have things to say about it.
Reciprocal tenderness. That the draw here. I’m going to stop dumping praise on you and go finish my fics. This is all just to share some thoughts with you on what I’m doing here. And to confess that I don’t know why my work overlaps but I’m glad that it does. And to say that my goal as a poet is to make landmarks. If you find them at all useful, please use them. That was the point. And, of course, I’m going to use yours.
kaledo-art
titsay
vaporwave
izzy806
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
