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Square Dancing at the Asylum
This collection of Kafkaesque miniatures offers a terrifying vision of the Worcester asylum where the writer's uncle spent most of his adult life. The asylum theme zips into overdrive in a series of sometimes darkly comic flashes threaded throughout the book. Dadio and June Spoon have created their own asylum in the burbs, one in which they 'incarcerate' their children within the confines of the home through guilt control, paternal manipulation, money, and demands bordering on the insane.
146 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2013
About the author
Kirby Michael Wright
96 books12 followersKirby Wright is an American writer best known for his coming of age island novel PUNAHOU BLUES and the epic novel MOLOKA'I NUI AHINA, which is based on the life and times of Wright's paniolo grandmother. Both novels deal with the racial tensions between haoles (whites) and the indigenous Hawaiians, and illustrate the challenge for characters who, as the product of mixed-race marriages, must try to bridge the two cultures and overcome prejudice from both camps.
Wright's work is primarily concerned with the complexities of multicultural Hawaii, Killahaole Day, prejudices against (and within) island high schools, and the tricky matter of interracial dating. He incorporates the local creole language into his novels and was the first author to document the pidgin English spoken by the paniolo cowboys on the east end of Molokai.
Wright's work is primarily concerned with the complexities of multicultural Hawaii, Killahaole Day, prejudices against (and within) island high schools, and the tricky matter of interracial dating. He incorporates the local creole language into his novels and was the first author to document the pidgin English spoken by the paniolo cowboys on the east end of Molokai.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 13, 2013
I don’t always know from watching what is gymnastics and what is dance. Listening doesn’t always tell me which tunes are country and which are rock or even pop. All the same, as sure as Gymnopedies is ballet, I know what is beautiful. I know what reaches me, and what changes me. Square Dancing at the Asylum is beautiful even when it turns angular and confrontative. It reaches me like fog through open windows, inescapably. And I don’t even try to resist the change in myself Wright effects with these bolts of flashing literature.
Why would I expose myself to art if I were going to reject its constructive power?
Kirby Wright calls his pieces “flash fiction.” Would any reader feel differently about them if he called them poems, prose poetry, or just very short stories? I think serious readers would not. The pieces are poetry because they are aesthetically whole and they depend on all the significant qualities of language, not just the defined meanings of the words. They are very short stories, since that only means each one can be read in basically no time. Are they prose poetry or flash fiction?
Easy question. Yes!
What is far less easy is to keep yourself from being entirely consumed by the seven “books” in the volume. Even the names of the books recited in order suggest something more than the naming of “sections” in a collection: Desire, The Burbs, Confinement, Creature Comforts, Slaughterhouse Flies, Notes From the Front Line, and Nothing Ever Changes.
The major characters—all gunning for you—include a lifelong mental patient, cannibals, an abusive father, a narcissist mother, a possessive big brother, and a helpless kid sister. There are countless other characters that will haunt and taunt you ever after too, including one who will make you think twice about any poems you ever try to write yourself: “The Queen of Above Average Poetry.”
Prose poems have been around for at least 150 years. Oscar Wilde was a master of the form. Flash fiction, more than anything, seems to be a newish (1990 or so) name for the same form, probably meant to place fewer demands on the writer about the intense, poetic use of those higher and more subtle qualities of language. Wright didn’t need the softer definition. Throughout Square Dancing, there is rhythm and multiplication of possible meaning, words provide color, and sounds convey emotions. Nonetheless, Wright is smart enough to use the newer name for his work: flash fiction.
It is not possible to know and probably not reasonable to guess what a writer “thinks he is doing,” ever. We cannot see what he is looking at, know what he is thinking, or sense the feelings that move the creator of art in any form, especially literature. We can, however, be moved by his language. Here’s an example: in “Earthquake Weather” you’ll read, “humming Iran’s National Anthem at intersections.” That plugs into my heartbeat, and gives it a new rhythm. Even completely out of context, the syllables stun. Or, try this one from “New Jersey” as both an intense use of language and an ultra-sharp image: “Neighbors laugh, cough, conduct seizures of sneezes during family reunions.”
There are, all through Square Dancing at the Asylum, endings that surprise (or even shock) the reader, but they never feel contrived. Before you even read the book—I know you’ll want to read it—try to think how this ending of “Hurricane Irene” is a direction-changing surprise: “The breeze makes him feel he as though he’s really there. He sees a woman standing at the water’s edge, searching for something in the waves.”
Heart-stoppers can crop up anywhere in this collection. You won’t understand why this is so important until you read your way to it, but burn this “Messages From the West” line into memory: “After crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, the man adjusts his rearview mirror while speeding home to Michigan, his convertible top down.”
Whole novels blossom in your thoughts or dreams after you read a few hundred words. The pieces do not appear as Cliff notes. Instead, each piece is clearly the crystallized result of powerfully and passionately compressing every meaningful thought and syllable into almost no space, giving meaning so concentrated it is dizzying.
There are echoes throughout Square Dancing at the Asylum to remind you of Wright’s memoirs, his earlier poetry, and even his speculative fiction (The End, My Friend). You don’t have to be familiar with these earlier works to enjoy the new volume, but this is a collection that—if it is your introduction to Wright—will send you in search of his other works. First, though, stop and enjoy the prose here, or the poems, or flash fictions. Doesn’t matter. Turn the pages slowly. Give yourself time to think and care about what you’re experiencing as you read. The meaning and value will grow to fill all the time you are willing to give them.
Why would I expose myself to art if I were going to reject its constructive power?
Kirby Wright calls his pieces “flash fiction.” Would any reader feel differently about them if he called them poems, prose poetry, or just very short stories? I think serious readers would not. The pieces are poetry because they are aesthetically whole and they depend on all the significant qualities of language, not just the defined meanings of the words. They are very short stories, since that only means each one can be read in basically no time. Are they prose poetry or flash fiction?
Easy question. Yes!
What is far less easy is to keep yourself from being entirely consumed by the seven “books” in the volume. Even the names of the books recited in order suggest something more than the naming of “sections” in a collection: Desire, The Burbs, Confinement, Creature Comforts, Slaughterhouse Flies, Notes From the Front Line, and Nothing Ever Changes.
The major characters—all gunning for you—include a lifelong mental patient, cannibals, an abusive father, a narcissist mother, a possessive big brother, and a helpless kid sister. There are countless other characters that will haunt and taunt you ever after too, including one who will make you think twice about any poems you ever try to write yourself: “The Queen of Above Average Poetry.”
Prose poems have been around for at least 150 years. Oscar Wilde was a master of the form. Flash fiction, more than anything, seems to be a newish (1990 or so) name for the same form, probably meant to place fewer demands on the writer about the intense, poetic use of those higher and more subtle qualities of language. Wright didn’t need the softer definition. Throughout Square Dancing, there is rhythm and multiplication of possible meaning, words provide color, and sounds convey emotions. Nonetheless, Wright is smart enough to use the newer name for his work: flash fiction.
It is not possible to know and probably not reasonable to guess what a writer “thinks he is doing,” ever. We cannot see what he is looking at, know what he is thinking, or sense the feelings that move the creator of art in any form, especially literature. We can, however, be moved by his language. Here’s an example: in “Earthquake Weather” you’ll read, “humming Iran’s National Anthem at intersections.” That plugs into my heartbeat, and gives it a new rhythm. Even completely out of context, the syllables stun. Or, try this one from “New Jersey” as both an intense use of language and an ultra-sharp image: “Neighbors laugh, cough, conduct seizures of sneezes during family reunions.”
There are, all through Square Dancing at the Asylum, endings that surprise (or even shock) the reader, but they never feel contrived. Before you even read the book—I know you’ll want to read it—try to think how this ending of “Hurricane Irene” is a direction-changing surprise: “The breeze makes him feel he as though he’s really there. He sees a woman standing at the water’s edge, searching for something in the waves.”
Heart-stoppers can crop up anywhere in this collection. You won’t understand why this is so important until you read your way to it, but burn this “Messages From the West” line into memory: “After crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, the man adjusts his rearview mirror while speeding home to Michigan, his convertible top down.”
Whole novels blossom in your thoughts or dreams after you read a few hundred words. The pieces do not appear as Cliff notes. Instead, each piece is clearly the crystallized result of powerfully and passionately compressing every meaningful thought and syllable into almost no space, giving meaning so concentrated it is dizzying.
There are echoes throughout Square Dancing at the Asylum to remind you of Wright’s memoirs, his earlier poetry, and even his speculative fiction (The End, My Friend). You don’t have to be familiar with these earlier works to enjoy the new volume, but this is a collection that—if it is your introduction to Wright—will send you in search of his other works. First, though, stop and enjoy the prose here, or the poems, or flash fictions. Doesn’t matter. Turn the pages slowly. Give yourself time to think and care about what you’re experiencing as you read. The meaning and value will grow to fill all the time you are willing to give them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review