Corey Mesler seems to have literary works in every stage of production. A list of his published works has 33 volumes of poetry and 21 prose books. He’s got other works accepted for publication but not yet printed. And he’s working on a novel now, which probably actually means he’s got several going on at various stages in the creative process.
But let’s just focus on this week when he’s having a reading and book signing for two that are fresh off the presses. Vitamins for Ygdrasil and Other Poems is in the verse category and The World is Neither Stacked For You nor Against You: Selected Stories is the prose offering. (The event is at Burke’s Book Store July 25th from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.).
So, no novel? We just have to be a bit patient — one is coming next year, but it’ll happen since Mesler says he now only writes poems or novels. “I’d rather be writing a novel than anything else in the world,” he says. “And poems I write in between on days that I don’t work on the novel. They just sort of come.”
He’s not even that much into short stories these days, despite his new selected stories book. “I got a little tired of the form, and it takes such precision,” he allows. That’s why there are only a couple of new stories in the book; mostly it’s previously published but hard-to-find tales. But if you haven’t read ’em, they’re now in this neat package for your delectation.
Despite Mesler’s current view of the short story form, he was encouraged to assemble the works by Steve Stern, the acclaimed author from Memphis. “He said, ‘You ought to take the strongest stories and put ’em together.’ And I said, ‘Okay, that’s a great idea. Will you do an introduction for them?’” That’s some literary horse-trading there.
There’s much to appreciate in the titles alone. Try these: “The Slim Harpo Blues,” “Any Day is a Good Day that Doesn’t Start with Killing a Rat with a Hammer,” “God and the Devil: The Exit Interview.” Irresistible. As Mesler says, “I love titling things. I love titling poems. In stories and in novels, I often will have a musician character so I can make up song titles.”
He’s also got the title mojo working in Vitamins for Ygdrasil: “Franny and Zooey Deschanel,” “World Full of Spooky,” “Learn to Love Your Narcotics.” The poems are not tied together thematically, which Mesler regrets a little bit. “My poetry collections always come when all of a sudden, I realized that I published a bunch of poems that I probably should gather. I wish I was one of those poets that worked thematically.”
The volume is not entirely random, though. There are several poems that refer to Ygdrasil, a giant oak in Mesler’s yard that provides acorns of inspiration. And there is inspiration there as well in the form of Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory. “I fell in love with his idea of the forest as a creature itself. Everything’s connected in a forest and it’s fascinating — the symbiosis that goes on in a forest. Trees talk to each other; they save each other. It’s all a design.”
So expect two volumes at Thursday’s event, thematically unconnected but both with content that is funny, profound, thoughtful, and very likely to make you stop and think. It’s also worth noting that the two books of literary art also have fascinating fine art on the covers. Vitamins for Ygdrasil has a splendid work of a tree (as you might imagine) by local artist Martha Kelly. And for The World is Neither Stacked, Mesler is using a work by noted illustrator Edward Carey that — like a good short story — will make you think.