July Westhale “The Cavalcade” (Finishing Line Press, 2016)

Where personal history and shared history intersect, we are left with the figures of memory and myth. These poems seek to reclaim the portions of personal history where we were mere spectators of our lives and the parts of cultural history that define us, even now, without our consent.

But what about the figures of myth that once walked the earth? What right do we have to ownership, what bond can be formed through reclamation and fictionalizing of their lives?

Westhale claims the right to make art of, from, about our legends–whether they be people or the stories passed down from nation to family and to child.

This “cavalcade” marches us to the intersection of “ours” and “theirs,” of “real” and “imagined,” but most importantly, this cavalcade is a procession of history that puts us on the sidelines. From here, we see how our individual waking, breathing, and moving interacts with every history we were born from and into.

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