Review: Dreams Submerged in Broad Daylight
Words by Daniel Lyas
In his seminal essay ‘The Hatred of Poetry’, Ben Lerner suggests that the collective contempt of ‘poetry’ by the non-poet seemingly defines our view of the form: “What kind of art is defined…by such a rhythm of denunciation and defense? Many more agree they hate poetry than can agree what poetry is”. Yet the Poet—someone who can ruminate on an idea that seems perfect as it bounces around inside their head, extract it in all its imperfection and somehow reshape it into a form of logical expression—walks among us.
Lachlan King’s debut anthology, Dreams Submerged in Broad Daylight, invites us to descend into a realm until now, only King himself visits. As Lerner states, “whatever we think of particular poems, ‘poetry’ is a word for the meeting place of the private and the public, the internal and the external.”
The book is divided into three sections that make up the title; dreams, submersion and broad daylight. The reader follows the Poet finding his feet in a new city; one where idling insecurities are pushed to full throttle as a new city slaps you across the face. How do I know when I am confident?
In Submersion, its obvious poetry is a tool for King’s individual sensemaking and to extricate thoughts and feelings deeply grounded in his surroundings. Indeed place influences King’s writing in two ways; the reader joins him bounding across Europe, succumbing to hedonistic and explorative endeavours, to mundane weekday musings informed by his burgeoning sense of ‘home’ in Sydney. Observant readers will correctly place individual poems to places in Sydney’s inner west, from the streets of Erskineville to the hills of Sydney Park.
Whether intentional or not, the places that inform the work are the scaffold and a key device for King’s introspection. Ironically, in order to explore inwards, he continually searches physically outward: Dandelions wishing / cobblestone roads winding / summer’s kiss lingers / as I take the scenic route home. This paradox is seemingly at play throughout most of the text and fictitious or hyperbolic moments extend on the core theme of dreaming: I remember how my friends gripped my hands tightly / as I stood on the board for the first time.
A number of subjects appear within the poems, either as unnamed characters or explicit dedications and King intensifies the readers’ confusion of the various characters through the interchanging of I and you. Well, I is always the poet, and you could be a stranger caught in the Poet’s gaze, a lover or a friend. Reading each poem from a different perspective of you changes their meaning: Where are you / if not here with me? Is King talking to me?
At the launch of the anthology, King describes how he was drawn to writing at a youne age. At age seven, he felt called upon to write a story and a habit, with time, emerged. When asked ‘why poetry?’ over prose or long form fiction, he retorts that attention-span plays a disproportionate role in his process. It would be easy to mistake speed for a lack of quality of King’s writing yet it is surprising to learn more often than not, he does not revisit or rewrite poems once the ink is dry. Finding the appropriate words to best represent the deepest of musings—in line with our established definition of the poet—is a difficult enough task for any writer; to learn that much of the work is perhaps, impulsive, makes it all the more admirable.
King undoubtedly succeeds in his craft. Even against the cacophony of emotion King faces, good or bad, the writing always feels stable. Many of the same motifs appear throughout the book—notably dandelions—which some readers may see as repetitive. But then again, musings on everyday life are going reflect the oft suffocating sameness of our experience.
It is hard to deny that to write poetry is a measure of our humanity, and perhaps the solace King finds with his pen, real or unreal, above or below the surface, we could all benefit from. One thing is clear—King will continue to dream, and long as he moves through the world, public or private, new revelations, experiences of pain or moments of everyday beauty will call him to sing, and no worthy observations will be lost to the next thought.
