C. Dale Young's most recent collection of poetry is Torn (Four Way Books 2011). He is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry and lives in San Francisco.
His poems "What is Revealed" and "The Ninth Metal" appear in Issue Thirty-Three of The Collagist.
In the following interview with Amber L. Cook, C. Dale Young explores his fascination with the Hawkman and the hidden.
1. What inspired you to write poems about the Pietà sculpture and Hawkman respectively?
The poem “What Is Revealed” is, for me, more about perceptions of mental and emotional stability than actually about the Pieta. But reading about how Michelangelo chiseled his name across the sash of the sculpture, something he had never done with any of his other work, is really what prompted me to start the poem. That behavior could be seen as either quite normal or completely mad. As for Hawkman, I always found the fact he had wings but didn’t really use them to fly a fascinating thing.
2. In “What is Revealed,” I enjoyed the meditation on Michaelangelo’s Pietà sculpture which shifts into the discussion of themes like modernism vs. tradition and skepticism vs. belief. How do you see these themes in conversation with one another? How did the Pietà spark this conversation for you?
I don’t really see the modernism vs. tradition in the poem. And though I can understand the notion of skepticism, I am not sure that such a dialogic as skepticism and belief exist in the poem either. I really think the poem is about how ideas of what is “crazy” are always shifting and are affected by who makes that judgment. The story of the man attacking the Pieta with a pick-axe is 100% true, and it why the sculpture resides behind bullet-proof glass today. But it made me think about all the things we hide in order to give them value, in order to show them.
3. “The Ninth Metal” hinges on a speaker who is juxtaposed with the fantastical comic book character, Hawkman. The speaker goes through moments of clarity contrasted with moments of insanity and repeats phrases like “I’m not crazy” and “Men aren’t supposed to fly.” How was Hawkman a catalyst in helping to guide the speaker through these moments?
I liked the idea of writing a rant against a comic book hero. As I mentioned, Hawkman has wings but cannot use them to fly. I found that so shocking. Like “What Is Revealed,” this poem plays with perceptions and the same character, a man who has wings.
4. What is something that you’re currently reading that you can’t put down?
I am not currently reading a book. I work full-time as a physician, so time is limited. I did re-read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness last weekend. It was the 22nd time I read it, and I found things, once again, I had never noticed before.
5. Are these poems part of larger projects? If not, is there a larger project that you’re working on?
Since 2008, I have been writing these poems, poems I refer to as the Halo poems. They seem to be of one mind. Other poems in this group have appeared in The Collagist previously. They all seem to circle this charcater who is both dreadfully ordinary and mythic at the same time, mythic because he has wings he cannot understand. The poems are odd. I have had friends suggest to me these are all sections of one long poem, but I am still resisting that notion. I keep thinking I am done with these poems, and then a new one arrives. Sometimes, I have gotten excited as I think through a poem because I think it is a new break, a shift. And then when the draft is down on paper I see it is another of these poems. Time will tell the story, I guess.