Bianca Stone and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Forest Gander, look at the complexities of multiple selves, and the very DNA that shows our biologically mongrel being, informed constantly by the landscape in which it is situated. We continue our discussion of the inward-outward, and the material and immaterial reality we have been honing in on with Rilke. Challenging the idea of self as defined by one modality, we consider the self as it wrestles with landscape and language, nonsense and focus; experiences in the past which build the present moment, and our loss of our own identity, in order to allow room for the new; as ever, the poem supplies the continued opportunity to give form, enjoyment, music, beauty and solidarity to this investigation.
Gander’s stunning new collection Mojave Ghost, out this month (October, 2024) from New Directions, investigates loss and love, grief, history, landscape, pronouns, narrative and lyrical uncertainty–offering listeners inspiring philosophical insight into the poetic occasion they too can take up.
