Stay: threads, conversations, collaborations

Nick Flynn


Reviewed by Ali Hintz

Nick Flynn is, among many other things, a collagist. It should be no surprise then that his latest book is a collage of sorts— a selection of his poetry, memoir excerpts, interviews, essays, photographs, collaborations, and, yes, collages— from the last twenty or so years. In Stay, the reader gets as close as one possibly can to Flynn’s goal of “trying to know what [is] essentially unknowable— what it is like to be someone else.” When his words aren’t enough, he works in short pieces by other artist-friends such as Josh Neufeld’s comics and Zoe Leonard’s photographs.

 Flynn’s nonlinear narrative spans the themes of family, time, torture, death, birth, race, capitalism, becoming, war, and creation. The front half of the book gives the reader all the necessary information to begin to understand Flynn— his relationship to his mother, his father, his childhood, and his growing up. The sections that come after are the glue of the book, particularly “Ark/Hive.” Here, the tension running through the book is distilled:

…everything

is something else. This is the story

we’ve been telling ourselves

since we could speak. Possess

 

nothing, Francis says. Do good

everywhere. No one believes

those wings will lift you.

As a disclaimer, I have been meaning for years to (but have not) read Flynn’s work before Stay. Perhaps people more familiar with his writings would find this rehashing of his prior works redundant, but I doubt it. Personally, this book came to me when I needed it and detangled some of the loose threads balled up in my mind. This book is a self-portrait, a collaboration, and a piece of art. This book is essential.

 

 
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