“Faun,” a play in verse, will be published by Plays Inverse in 2019. This manuscript is a monster, weighing in at 160 pages and 16,500 words (Don’t laugh, fiction writers–this is long for a poem!). After writing every day for six years, I managed to finish this book in the fall of 2016. At this point, I was only thinking of a book as an epic poem. I had low hopes of placing it somewhere due to the fact that almost all poetry book contests are limited to 80 pages (100 if you’re lucky). Angela Ball, one of the faculty members at USM where I was moonlighting as a VAP in 2016-17, suggested that I send it out as a play, and I’m lucky that I did! Tyler Crumrine (an excellent writer btw) from Plays Inverse was kind enough to give it a home.

The poem/play is composed of voices–human and nonhuman–that speak like the chorus of an ancient Greek play (rarely to each other, and always to the audience). One of the early problems with the piece was its ornate-ness. I tend to agree with Ezra Pound’s aphorism: “Beauty is aptness to purpose.” The manuscript was neither efficient nor lovely, which is why I decided to put it in a play format. At this point, I somehow didn’t register that the poem had become a play, only that I was making my manuscript more “apt.” So, in many respects “Faun” is still just a poem, although it sort of passes for a play, too. 

We’re still kicking around cover art ideas. I’m pretty bad at this, so I’m hoping Tyler comes through for me. I was thinking of something from Nijinsky’s “Afternoon of a Faun,” which was inspired by Debussy’s “Afternoon of a Faun” (Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune), which was inspired by the Mallarmé poem of the same name. My book brings the tradition full circle by making it a poem again (or so I hope), but from the nymphs’ perspectives. See (right), this really doesn’t work for a book cover. I need help!