Clouds

Orbis non sufficit. Long before the translation of this Latin motto became the title of a James Bond movie, it was said to be part of the epitaph of Alexander the Great: “A tomb now suffices for him for whom the world was not enough.” In the historical reference, that phrase speaks to humanity’s insatiable craving for existence, vitality, and all its diverse embodiments—even though we can never escape the knowledge that all experience is resolutely ephemeral. Still, those words came to mind when I was reading Kevin McLellan’s newest collection, Sky. Pond. Mouth.— selected by Alexandria Peary for the 2024 Granite State Poetry Contest (YAS Press). The speaker that drifts through these poems is alternately anchored in the pains and desires of the flesh—and then suddenly untethered: a thought-mist, capable of passing through the membrane of the material world, suffusing flower, water, cloud, or whatever this child going forth discovers in his day. Might the self be capable of dissolving so easily—abandoning the subject/object distinction, and experiencing what Walt Whitman imagined as a kind of soul-refuge? Could our burden of longing and grief be soothed by even such a momentary escape? Providing a beautiful complexity to his poems, Kevin treats thought itself and the grammar that governs the page with that same spirit of abandon. Once he senses where he needs to go, the poem-as-vehicle invents the very highway beneath its wheels.

An experimental poet and filmmaker, Kevin has authored a half-dozen books and ‘book-objects,’ and appeared in scores of anthologies and journals. In addition to the prize that prompted the publication of this collection, his work has received honors from the Hilary Tham Capital Collection and the Massachusetts Book Awards. His videos have been screened in numerous film expos including: the Berlin Short Film Festival;  Flickers’ Rhode Island Film Festival; and the LGBTQ+ Los Angeles Film Festival in which “Dick” won Best Short Form Short. And, in fact, there are many sections of Sky. Pond. Mouth. that almost have the feel of video montage—where the eye’s camera pivots, jump-cuts, and quickly refocuses, leaving our minds racing to match the velocity of the language.

Some of the most impressive pieces in this collection are also the most experimental and challenging—but they tend to be rather long, an impossible fit for my Red Letter format. Still, the book contains compelling short lyrics as well, like today’s “Cloud,” a kind of free-form sonnet which, early on in the book, sets the tone and announces the possibility of heartbreak. “I miss hearing/ him say we, yet I wasn’t/ the one.” Who’d have expected simple pronouns could be so devastating? “Yes, he was thinking// about someone else and/ I look to the sky.” Shifting gears, fractured syntax, sudden changes in direction—throughout the poems, we are given the feeling that older literary expectation only holds us back. There are references honoring many of Kevin’s prominent queer literary forebears—James Schuyler, Gertrude Stein, John Ashbery—but I kept having the feeling that these poems were a kind of 21^st century dialogue with the father of almost all contemporary poetry, Whitman himself. The language Kevin brings to bear is both sensuous and calamitous. And after all, loss, illness, and despair can’t help but make us keenly feel our own vulnerabilities. Still, poetry from artists like these inspires a sense of liberation: to embrace this whole ecosystem of nouns; to let every unbridled verb carry us back into the world. “Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from/your throat” urges the Good Gray Poet. Or (borrowing words from another of Kevin’s poems) simply welcome a new openness: “…because I am also/ in the lap of a meadow//with my mouth wide open.” Indeed, the world—or the inveterate self—may not be enough for some of us; but, fortunately, we contain multitudes.