Dual Realms, Samara Garfinkle
Catcus
Press, 2022
How do you know who you are when you’re in the process of becoming yourself? Dual Realms, the debut collection by Samara Garfinkle, dives into the psyche to explore the mind within a symbolic framework. It would be misleading to say these poems are “multi-faceted.” While they are richly varied, it’s more accurate to call them “dual-faceted” or as Garfinkle herself puts it, “Janus-faced.” Dichotomies reveal themselves throughout: investigating the “I” and the “us,” the benevolent and the dark, the conscious and the unconscious.
And this duality illuminates. Garfinkle’s writing take the form of fables—compositions which, though they bear features that distinguish them as poems, carry narrative in a way more akin to a fable. “The Boy Who Became God” for instance, tells the story of a child named Jacob who has “a wandering mind.” It has more visible plot to it than what’s typical of poetry nowadays and a keen straightforwardness—we are told plainly that “This was a child who indeed believed/ in the transformative power/ of smaller tales—and yet Garfinkle compromises none of the abstract beauty or wordplay associated with the poetic pole. The writing itself is compelling: she makes use of percussive alliteration, such as in “[Love] Language Acquisition:” “…angular gyrus (—cue mystical image of gyrating gurus—)”. Whether informed by Garfinkle’s background in music or love of fables, this incantational quality will remain for readers to wonder at.
In fact, there’s a psychic goldmine of material to interpret in Dual Realms. A careful reader will discover certain lines are intentionally italicized and brackets or hyphens used to create dual associations. It could be “clock(un)wise” to move in one direction. Risks might come with leaving a place “When(ce) I have since / Never been able /To return.” Even words like “I,” “One,” “Will,” and “Ourselves” are curiously capitalized at times, encouraging an archetypal or allegorical reading of each poem in relation to the others. And the sections do inform each other. Two definitions for “psyche” grace the opening pages: one from psychology and the other, philosophy. This is a book about both.
The characters encountered are Jungian. Powerful female figures such as “Mother” or the questing Wordwitch from “Dream Forest Fable” find their voices and wield them. But while these characters are benevolent—seeking to nurture or inform the reader—one might say “dreamer”—they are only one side of the coin. On the flip side: the cautionary tale. “The Minotaur Mind” is the mind of a coward; someone unwilling to face the maze. A minotaur is a hybrid creature, a human and a monster. “So many routes this minotaur could take […] his sunken heart is the only way/ to be safe, in shadow.” If we’re not willing to face our own darkness, how can we ever truly know ourselves?
We could dive into the Unknown, but at what cost? What risk? “What a deadly, deep way down: / what if - I – drown?” the narrator wonders in “The Rift.” (Note the “I” in bold font.)
But while the risk may be great, Garfinkle’s poems suggest potential reward renders the pursuit worthwhile. For although self-reflection requires a willingness to admit one’s failures, shortcomings, and flaws, you don’t get there without first making a choice. And as she writes in the closing lines of the collection, “I know your Will/ will be your own.”
Fables are short, digestible stories which convey morals. In keeping with its trademark duality, these poems are fables and yet defy the category: they are short yet vast; digestible, yet whet the appetite; convey morals, but are neither bald nor didactic. Dual Realms is a chapbook that will thrill lovers of Aesop, mysticism, and psychology. And, anyone ready to remove their mask and dive in.
Willow Loveday Little is a British-Canadian writer whose work has appeared in places such as The Dalhousie Review, The Selkie's Very Much Alive: Stories of Resilience anthology, HAL, The League of Canadian Poets chapbook series, yolk literary, and On Spec. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University and is the author of a chapbook, Xenia, and a full-length poetry collection, (Vice) Viscera, both out with Cactus Press.
