I was blown away to receive this message of praise for Message from the Vessel in a Dream from Emma Krall, a talented student at Lewis & Clark College who I first met when she read her work with Amy Baskin and Alina Cruz at Birdhouse Books on October 4. I was very impressed with both Emma and Alina; meeting them reinvigorated my writing practice.
Later I was invited to visit Lewis & Clark's poetry club, and had a fantastic time leading a workshop for the poets there. Emma also presented me with a copy of Shards of God: a novel of the Yippies, a book by Ed Sanders which I do not own.
Thanks, Emma! You inspire me!
Emma's email begins:
"I have been carefully (admittedly slowly) reading your absolutely gorgeous book. I've made it to "The Continuing Adventures of Ecclesiastes Robinson," and can say that I have personally connected with every single poem up to this point. It almost feels like, and I mean this with complete sincerity, this book is a manifesto to the way I view the world as an artist.... You've put words to so many thoughts I never knew I'd had, and I am so grateful for your work in doing so. Of course, I could be reading everything all wrong, but even then, you made me have those thoughts, didn't you?
"Below is a shitty, unproofed, scratching-the-surface analysis of Message and one of my favorite poems so far in it. I wrote it today for my poetry class journal, and intend to continue using your book to ground my reflections for the class....Christopher, you are such a gift to all of us.
With overflowing appreciation and care,
Emma
Reading Journal 2
"I met Christopher Luna at my poetry reading with Amy Baskin a few weeks ago (I will reflect on that later), and he very generously gave me a copy of his book Message from the Vessel in the Dream. In an absolutely touching email following up on the event, Christopher asked me to read and think about his book and if I like it, to bring it to him to sign. He thought the book would resonate with my punkish view of the world, and also that I would appreciate it as a work of many media (verse poetry, prose poetry, prose and collage). All of the language in the book is borrowed and rearranged from outside quotes (which he carefully cites at the end of each poem), making use of what already exists to carve out a voice of his own. He also noted that if I do not end up liking it, I should give it to someone else to try out. How freaking modest is that????
"So, I have been reading Message from the Vessel in the Dream, and I must say, it has been absolutely delicious. The form is interesting and engaging, as each poem is shaped broadly by its cited (and rearranged) quotes, but more finitely in Luna’s thoughtful play with meter, rhyme, diction, and perspective. Much of the book draws its inspiration from other artists and the communities which support them, and most of its poems begin with an epigraph from another mind which Luna’s narrator clearly reveres. This feels so authentically Luna, as one of the biggest impressions I have gotten from Luna on a personal level is his emphasis on community. As the inaugural poet laureate of Clark County and the owner of an independent publishing company, Luna has contributed immensely to the revitalization of Vancouver’s literary and art scene; he even founded a monthly open mic, called Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic, for community members to share and learn from one another. Creative spacemaking is Luna’s business, and Message is no exception. The book explores how even the creation of something so small as a poem can take a village, reminding the reader that it is our communities and our artistic predecessors that offer experience, understanding, guidance, and inspiration for us to find the way to our voices. Message is composed of the shoulders on which Luna (and perhaps many other modern poets) stands.
"One particular poem that has stood out to me thus far is “Channel Z (circa 1989).” Written without capital letters, punctuation, or line breaks, this center-justified prose poem is the only one (so far in my reading) which does not explicitly reference or quote another person. Though it remains unclear to the reader if Luna actually wrote the piece in 1989, the unrestrained form and rambling diction conveys a certain youthful feeling that makes it feel like he wrote it in 1989. Contrasting the neat, intentional language used in Luna’s other poems, “Channel Z (circa 1989)” conveys a difference in the author’s writing/narrator’s speaking style that brings attention to the temporal themes underpinning the poem. It's as if Luna’s narrator in 2018 (when the book came out) is using this poem as a vehicle for time travel: "through the static in a moment and suddenly / too suddenly you are not wherever you are" (3-4). The narrator seems distressed about their place in the present, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the present with history by describing a fissure that has opened up in the space-time continuum: “suddenly static in my own time in your own / time beware a tear can appear a rip a slash” (1-2). As the narrator ecstatically longs for other times while reckoning with the reality of growing up and wanting more of their own time, they convey the nuance of their longing through a personified image of well-aged lavender shorts: “that garment that stuck around not wanting to / miss a moment of this crisis this chaos this” (7-8). The softness—perhaps innocence??— of the color lavender, paired with the cultural association of summer with shorts. grounds the poem in a concrete artifact of childhood. Though soft in their lavenderness, these autonomous shorts stuck around for the beauty and the pain of being alive. In line with my reading of this book as the shoulders on which Luna’s narrator stands, this poem gives space to the worry, lostness and existentialism he felt then, forgiving it and giving credit to his younger self for the growth. The poem ends on a hopeful note, bringing the reader to understand the narrator’s resilience that would eventually bring them to the present day: “believe do not believe in anything but love.” This, of course, all traces back to Luna’s notion of community as the center of everything, highlighting the power of his mission to serve the Vancouver and greater Washington & Oregon poetry communities. He is pretty rad."
The Continuing
Adventures of Ecclesiastes Robinson
world traveler, guru, & public servant
currently incarcerated for smuggling dope
in Federal Express packages
“I’m not named after the Antichrist in The Omen. I’m named after the priest in The Exorcist. I don’t know. I think
everybody in this society is angry. You’re angry, I’m angry, everybody in the
street is angry. That On the Road
stuff that almost got me killed is just for the boys. They’re all big tough
guys, but Jesus was a tough guy, too. There are
people alive today who are recognized as being prophets. I guess you can hang
out with them.”
I’m not named after the Antichrist in The Omen. I’m
named after the priest in The Exorcist.
Bubba, interviewed by Mark Schone for “An Awesome God” SPIN Magazine, September 1997.
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| Christopher Luna's original art for the back and front cover of Message from the Vessel in a Dream (Flowstone Press, 2018) |
