{"id":10937,"date":"2021-12-07T16:12:38","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T11:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/recovery-community-conor-mcdonnell\/"},"modified":"2023-02-14T01:32:16","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T20:32:16","slug":"recovery-community-conor-mcdonnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/recovery-community-conor-mcdonnell\/","title":{"rendered":"Inevitable Redemption: Recovery Community<\/em> by Conor McDonnell"},"content":{"rendered":"

McDonnell\u2019s speakers describe addiction and disaster with \u201can uneasy calm\u201d defined by equal parts detachment and appreciation, as in \u201cThe Lady Waits\u201d: \u201cDoomed the fire burns slowly\u2026 It is quite gorgeous and I want to photograph it\u2026 How soon \/ before the floor collapses? How long is left to capture this?\u201d There is also a prominent presence of vicarious trauma, watching the downward spiral occurring, yet being able to prevent its progress: \u201can ecstasy held up by pressure and pain \/ I am in the eye of an emergency & I haven\u2019t saved a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speakers cope with this exposure to illness and trauma by fixating on details, reflected in frequent list poems, exemplified by \u201cI am waiting for a terrible sentence to begin\u201d (excluding the title, 12 repetitions of \u201cI am waiting for\u2026\u201d), \u201cWe are Shine\u201d (112 repetitions of \u201cwe are\u2026\u201d), and \u201cThirty-three rants per minute (33 rpm)\u201d (33 repetitions of \u201cAs if\u2026\u201d).<\/p>\n

Similarly, choral refrains appear and reappear throughout different sections of the collection, lending a sense of cohesion and consistency to the worldview of speakers who weave between ekphrastic poems, Hollywood movies, album titles, media broadcasts, overwhelmed hospitals, burning hotels, and undefined emergencies with easy and fluency. \u201cI am a brittle flower beaten softly,\u201d \u201cEarthquakes echo in my jaw,\u201d \u201cAs if Heaven\u2019s antennae could receive my skinny little fists,\u201d and \u201cTo everything add one\u201d are lines that cross between the dimensions of individual scenes to illustrate underlying efforts to prepare for disasters that cannot be anticipated.<\/p>\n

Anticipation is also rampant in Recovery Community<\/em>, whether waiting for illness to claim a life as in \u201cLewy-body Diary\u201d (\u201cI thought I was at an earlier stage but it turns out I am not\u201d), addiction to re-assert its hold as in \u201c\/\/911\/\/9\/11\/\/\u201d (\u201cDelay it a while there\u2019s always another signpost to hell \u2018case you lose your bearings while we\u2019re all busy killing ourselves\u201d), or the broader collapse of society as in \u201cIn the event of an emergency\u201d (\u201cWhen all else fails, terminate and dispose\u201d). Throughout the collection, the event horizon gradually shifts closer and closer to the reader, imposing an increasing sense of urgency and candour.<\/p>\n

Redemption from this anxiety is ultimately found in connection, where mutual bonds form the titular community required to face the inevitable loss and destruction of these challenges. The most personal, and therefore most revealing, poem in the collection, \u201cI\u2019ll be there when you die,\u201d describes a dream where the speaker witnesses the death of a partner. The initial reaction is \u201cto call in sick today \/ to never leave you in case this might be true \/ knowing one day it will be, if our luck continues.\u201d However, despite this temptation, the speaker finds the resolve to confront the inevitable tragedy: \u201cI wash and dress for work, calming myself \/\/ not today <\/em>\/ not tomorrow.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

This deeper resolve is where Recovery Community<\/em> discovers its salvation, in appreciation of the beauty that lingers even while ugly realities assert themselves.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Josh Stewart<\/strong> is the author of two poetry chapbooks,\u00a0Temptation as a Technical Difficulty\u00a0<\/em>(Anstruther Press, 2015) and\u00a0Invention of the Curveball\u00a0<\/em>(Cactus Press, 2008). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in\u00a0Arc Poetry<\/em>, NoD Magazine<\/em>, Canadian Literature<\/em>, Pandemic Publications,<\/em> Vallum<\/em>, The New Quarterly<\/em>, Grain<\/em>, The Antigonish Review<\/em>, Into The Void<\/em>, Carousel<\/em>, Prairie Fire<\/em>, CV2<\/em>, Existere<\/em>, Clover & White<\/em>,\u00a0and others. He also writes a blog called The Martial Poet.<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

ARC<\/a> HITS THE HEART HARD.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conor McDonnell\u2019s debut collection, Recovery Community<\/em>, portrays a powerful sense of empathy that is \u201cheld down \/ by stones in pockets\u201d (The Scalded Sea). In cycles of addiction, obsession, and recovery, there is both cause for optimism and a sense of impending doom, knowing that even when the afflicted are on the way to breaking the cycle, \u201cThis will never end \/\/ There is always \/ more to come\u201d (Rebar).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3537,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"10537","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,1664],"tags":[],"genre":[21],"publisher":[195],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[3133],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=10937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}