Order CELEBRATIONS IN THE OSSUARY here
We lived alone on the banks of heaven
I usually don't read poetry. Nothing against the art form, but the beauty of it operates on a level of consciousness and symbolism that's unavailable to plebeians like me. Long story short, I don't ''get'' in. Like for all things forbidden, I have been longing for an exemple that'll unlock its otherworldly secrets to me. I don't know if Kyle J. Knapp's CELEBRATIONS IN THE OSSUARY is the breakthrough I was looking for, but I was moved by the collection. When you know the story behihnd it, the book is even more haunting.
The title CELEBRATIONS IN THE OSSUARY bears some meaning here. Unlike what the pop culture patterns would suggest, it's not a shoddy attempt at creating gothic imagery and celebrate death as the antithesis of life. Knapp's artistic process went way further than that. Several poems in the collection actually celebrate life and are an attempt by Kyle J. Knapp to find scraps of eternity and immortality in his daily contacts with earthly things. Some of his poems are about tangible things, like the memories of a camping trip of just lying on his back one morning and letting the sun light wash over him.
So why the title, right? Why does Kyle J. Knapp feels the need to celebrate in the ossuary again? Well, he also wrote poems about death and the afterlife, which are both as chaotic and full of life (sometimes even festive) as his poems about nature and wonder. It becomes clear then that Knapp's project is to reapproriate himself the idea of death as a part of life. I can appreciate the issue. Why would the end have to be something you should be afraid of. Does the end of a song frightens you? And why would death be an ending and not simply one part of a process? Kyle J. Knapp's questionning echoes my own sometimes and I thought his way of illustrating immortality in everything was genuinely moving.
I'm sorry I can't be
The Shaman Prince
Philosopher-God
Of the graveyard-
Sunset.
Walking off
Into the sky
-For You
Kyle J. Knapp passed away very little time before the publication of CELEBRATIONS IN THE OSSUARY. To be honest, I don't know how much knowing this from the get-go affected my reading. Is it possible to listen to a Nirvana song today without reading subtext about addiction and depression? Mysticism was a part of the process and Knapp's passing added a good dose of it. It made the object of his longings clearer, to some extent? Anyway, I loved CELEBRATIONS IN THE OSSUARY. It's beautiful, singular and asks pertinent questions about our nature as human beings.
