Wizard of Odd
The house came whirling
out of the sky.
It landed on me like
a promise. When I
peered through its windows,
eyes like a soul,
and orgasmed up its
chimney,
I awoke to a world
so full of color
I thought I was a traveler
from the stars, necromantic
and as sexy as your gorgeous
cousin. I was larger
than life. Larger than the
ones who came out to
worry and worship me. I had
survived a falling house, you see.
It didn’t matter if I was a bastard.
Corey Mesler
COREY MESLER has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Poetry, Gargoyle, Five Points, Lunch Ticket, Good Poems American Places, and New Stories from the South. He has published over 45 books of fiction and poetry. His newest book, The World is Neither Stacked for Nor Against You: Selected Short Stories, is from Livingston Press. He also wrote the screenplay for We Go On, which won The Memphis Film Prize in 2017. With his wife he runs Burke’s Book Store (est. 1875) in Memphis.
Why these poems knocked Martheaus out:
The poem's oddness comes from how well you twist our familiarity. Not only does the poem fun-house mirror Wizard of Oz imagery, but there are amazing lines that wait for just the right moment to flip the script: "landed on me like / a promise," and "I thought I was a traveler / from the stars, necromantic / and as sexy as your gorgeous / cousin." <— I especially love that last example because it starts with this whimsy, lovey-dovey star image, which is made strange by necromancy, and--before we have the time to catch our breath--there's our hot cousin.
I hope y’all will appreciate the really tight and honed craft holding up the fun subject. No word seems unnecessary, the enjambments fall right at those moments of surprise, and there's really delicate prosody happening to; my favorite example of this sound work comes with the assonance in "I was larger / than life. Larger than the / ones who came out to / worry and worship me." Just look at those long O sounds.
Lastly, I'd just like to say it was a joyful--and successfully odd--experience. There's a “what did I just” read feeling that washes over me, and I'm a fan of something that can compel that much reaction.
Interview:
This is a question I try to stay away from, but with a poem like this, I can't help myself. Where did this idea (this strange duck) sprout from?
I am a cinema junky. Movies, music, books. These are the stepping stones to the godhead. The Wizard of Oz has always seemed to me to be the perfect fantasy, and the perfect metaphor for any artistic endeavor. Tolstoy said “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.” This movie is both stories and it is tinged with magic like writing is. I want to travel the yellow brick road and, at the end, find that we can go back home again because home is always with us.
You're quite prolific. Do you have advice for writers on ways to push yourself into new places and stay creative within writing?
Any advice I could offer wouldn’t be worth spit. What do I know? Except the age-old precepts: read, write, read, write, repeat. I was a poor writer indeed for decades before my metaphorical balls dropped and I found some footing. If you wanna write you gotta really commit yourselves to it, of course. Every. Damn. Day.
If "Wizard of Odd" were a criminal, what would its crimes be? And how long should we sentence it?
Possession of a phantasmagorical substance. Sentenced to five years hard labor at Anya-Taylor Joy’s house.