Over the past year and a half, I’ve published/worked on three books (Monsters of Utopia, The Far Shores of Saucerland and an as yet unpublished work in progress) that started out as completely separate from each other but have (kinda, sorta) developed into a trilogy. Not your traditional type of trilogy by any means. There is no over-arching story that continues from one book to the next. There are no recurring characters (with one, possible exception). But there is a certain thematic similarity and a structural element that they share in common.
This Unexpected Trilogy starts with Monsters of Utopia. I like to think of Monsters as a somewhat off-kilter, amusing, slightly surreal take on the alien invasion trope. The aliens this time are giant, flying jellyfish (there are other aliens and the jellyfish may not be, in fact, alien to this planet but you have to read the book to get the details). At a certain point in the story one of the characters switches up his verbal style. It was that section and the fun I had in writing it plus the visit by two of the main characters to a place referred to simply as “The City” that (this is all obvious in hindsight but I was not consciously aware of it at the time) led me to writing Saucerland and to do so in what I call “stanza format,” which is the same format that I am using for my work in progress. I don’t consider myself a poet (I really don’t pay attention to rhyme scheme, meter, etc.) but being that I am in the middle of my second long-form, narrative poem(ish) work I might have to reassess that assessment.
So, parts of Monsters led me to write Saucerland which is a riff on epic poems such as the Iliad, De Rerum Natura and the Aeneid. I did take seven years of Latin in high school and college and that part of my education is leaking through into my creative output. Why now? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the alignment of the planets.
Saucerland led me to my current work (in progress, have I noted that before?). I found writing in the short lines of the stanza format to be liberating. This is where I start to sound like a a pretentious artist. I hate that. But it’s hard to discuss my work without coming off that way. That’s why I don’t discuss my work that much. I’ll need to get over that. Anyway, the stanza format has for me a “spoken word performance” element to it. I sent a copy of Saucerland to my best friend from college (he’s a Theater professor) to get some feedback. He noted the choral/spoken word element, too, so I know that I’m not going crazy. The Iliad was (as far as scholars can tell) part of an ancient, oral tradition before it was put into written format. I tried to capture that sense of sitting around a campfire listening to a great storyteller. I think I succeeded.
Along with the stanza format/rhythm of speaking structural element, all three of the books (Monsters, Saucerland and Untitled Unpublished, look for it in the next couple of months) concern themselves in one way or another with the fairy world. The fairy world, to me, is a general term used to refer to the place(s) that we as humans have had encounters with throughout our recorded history (and, I suspect, long before we invented writing). Fairy World is, according to the tales told by people who have encountered some of its denizens and/or had the good/terrifying luck to visit it, magical, mysterious and confounding as well as essential to our human nature and vital to our well-being as a species. Is fairy world the source of creativity and genius? I don’t know for certain but it sure seems like it. To answer your question, yes, I have had some, minor experiences with fairy world. More on those some other time.
What does this all mean? I haven’t the slightest. But I am intrigued that a pattern has emerged from these three books that I had no intention of designing. So, something’s going on. I just don’t know what.
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