"Ultimately, the collection, and our ideals, are shams."
We have recently released a new edition of Monuments & Other Poems. Some of the poems in this new edition include contextual footnotes. Of the collection, I have this to say:
Monuments is a collection of poems where each poem acts as a landmark of an important moment or realisation in my life. It is made up of two parts: degeneracy and purity. The former part is composed of, what you might call "beautiful poems" - poems about ideals, love, divinity, and spirituality. There is, however, something slightly untrue in each of them - untrue in the sense that they aspire to their ideals but never actually hit the mark.
In the section that follows - purity - many of the poems are about low points, disgusting things, poor states of mind, vices and a poetic essay (an overview of my life up to that point) that reveals the things that shaped me in my formative years.
In a way, these "purity" poems, for all the faults they explore and their thematic inferiority, are purer than those of the section that precedes them. Ultimately, the collection, and our ideals, are shams. I hope you enjoy them.
Comentarios