Melancholic Intimations

The next section in the Spectral Poetry Book is Melancholy. As I take pains to point out to anyone who’ll stop still long enough, melancholy isn’t an unremittingly negative state (but you’ve already noticed how I brought bitterness into joy and fun into anger, so you’re probably not entirely surprised by this statement). Melancholy is contemplative, quiet, and has a range of nuances attached, from deep-seated grief through to relief, and plenty between. Sadness is a natural – and useful – part of the sentient condition, which is probably why it features in so much art. Someone very dear to me once told me her theory that, past a certain level of perspicacity, some depression is inevitable. For my own part, I think the world contains as many things to be sad over as to be angry over, hence even the luckiest people should feel sad, at least for the plight of others Besides, we understand that depression is the final, vital stage before acceptance in the classic Grief Cycle. Compassion and empathy naturally have us feeling sorrowful at tragedy, and I think that can only be a good thing.

Some of the pieces in here are straight-up depressing, no two ways about it, and the themes range from touch starvation, though relationship break-ups (a classic for poetry, let’s face it!), to dealing with chronic pain and illness. They are also, I hope, as cathartic/ hopeful (in seeing that you are not alone) to read as they were to write. 🤞.

The section is started and represented by these hands here:

This was another one that defied easy gestural categorisation, and was yet again a reminder that I’d chosen an interesting approach in going for hands alone rather than, for example, hands-and-face, and finding one posture that would say melancholy by itself came after a lot of vacillation. Here it is, though, complete with a lot more detail on the accessories. (This is deliberate, incidentally.)