Part and Parcel: Kristina Marie Darling

 

Compendium + Correspondence (published by Scrambler Books) is a beautiful double book (!) of poems by the ever-prolific and rocking Kristina Marie Darling. That's right, a double book--you read it one way, which ends in the middle; then, you flip it around and there's a whole new book waiting for you on the other end.

Both halves are full of enigmatic and seemingly found text: snippets from love letters, partial journal entries, footnotes adjoined to white space. Over and over, this felt like a collection of clues and clippings. A locket and a jewelry box recur in the poems, and those images resonated with me when I finished the book.

A book is like a locket, isn't it, a box in which to lock away what we treasure. I asked Kristina for her thoughts about this.

NOTE: After the interview below, read "Notes to a History of the Locket" and an excerpt from "Appendix A: The Letters," both of which appear with the permission of the author. Order your copy of the book here.

Q: The idea of a prized, secret collection is certainly introduced through half of the book’s title (the Compendium portion). It’s funny that we call a book of poems (or stories, or essays) a “collection.” As a poet, how do you relate to the idea of collecting? What are you a collector of, and how does that show up in this book (and others)?

A: Thank you for the thoughtful (and truly fascinating) question. I've always conceived of poetry as being more than just an assemblage of language, but rather, a window into that person's mind, their conscious experience. In any given poem or a literary text, we are presented with the poet's literary and artistic influences, as well as the cultural symbols, myths, and fragments of narrative that haunt the darkest corners of their mind. 

In my opinion, consciousness itself is a curatorial endeavor. Memory has always housed a prized, secret collection, objects that have meaning only through the narratives that we spin around them. After all, we cling to the strangest, most incomprehensible things: a broken necklace, a single earring in a locked box.

For me, the poetry collection is a space where readers may have access to the narratives we spin around these fragmented mementoes, these sparkling trinkets that litter the corridors of memory. When crafting a longer collection or an extended sequence, I strive to show the multiplicity of narratives that can arise from the same experience, from the same ever-present artifacts left by a relationship or a memory.

Perhaps this is why I can't let go of books. For me, they have come to embody not only literary works, but people and relationships within the poetry community. They keep manifesting in the form of libraries, museums, and other curated collections that appear within my work.  Always this desire to document, still these efforts to preserve. Sometimes I wonder if this curatorial impulse merely feeds my desire for permanence and certainty, but that is a conversation for another day. 

***

 
Poems from Compendium + Correspondence 



NOTES TO A HISTORY OF THE LOCKET



She describes only the Norwegian variety, forgetting the French. Their intricate clasps and long silver chains. 

*

Again the milky-eyed beloved.  Her sense of etiquette revealing itself as innate, machine-like.  Would compare her heart to a the inside of a clock.  Its radium dials. 

*

Here Friedrich's presentation of the necklace, with its glass bells and tiny silver flute, departs significantly from Austrian custom.  And still the luminous buttons on her shirt.

*

Now the locket as palimpsest.  As Latin inscription. 

*

When she opened the box, a dancer twirled to the same Tchaikovsky suite.  A heap of charms and unsightly pearl earrings.

*

If the artisan were to realize.  Friedrich wandering the fields. 

*

It was then she considered the array of miniatures.  In all of them, a portrait.  And each of these an
 ode.

*

A circle of violets etched into the walls of the jewelry box.  Only when she lifted its lid would the gears in her heart begin to turn. 



AN EXCERPT FROM "APPENDIX A: THE LETTERS"



Dearest     ,
   


     you began as a fixed star



      
                        night & the ocean's farthest shore







Dearest    ,



            there was wind, ice, music & a hush

                  
  
                             your letters have become a wilderness

       







Dearest     ,


 
            I remember birds, ribbons, music, & the light catching 
               

                    a fire in every eyelash