Goety

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Written primarily in heptametric lines with a novelistic arc, Goety follows Illyana and Meir (aka Let), a cult of two whose actions lead to their destruction and the destruction of those around them.

At its core Goety is about divorce—from a loved one, from loved ones at large, and, finally, from life and that which is life-affirming. A certainty—Schopenhaueresque, quantum-based, mystically experienced—that nothing is real informs or is informed by this anomic decadence, its only mitigatory action being the cultivation of alterity, awe, and praise—a triumvirate or even a circumincession. A last ditch. It is on this antinomic tightrope that both the characters and the poems either find balance or not. Yiyun Li defines melodrama as follows: “If a tragedy makes us weep out of compassion and a comedy makes us laugh out of appreciation, a melodrama alienates and discomfits…Melodrama is absolute loyalty to the original moment.” Based strictly on this definition, Goety is a melodrama, an honest attempt (doomed to failure) at what Ben Lerner (via Allen Grossman) calls poetry with a capital P.

Joseph Harms was a finalist for the National Poetry Series Award for Bel (Expat Press), as well as a finalist for the Sexton Prize for Poetry for Goety. He is the author of the poetry collection Nous (IFSF Publishing) and the novels Ades, Baal, Cant and Wyrd, which have been collected in Evil (Expat Press). Harms’ work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Boulevard, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The North American Review, The International Poetry Review, Crazyhorse, The Opiate and Bayou Magazine. He holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program.