It’s true that we very slightly butcher the plot of Brigadoon in this episode of Multi-Verse. But, with apologies to theatre buffs, that’s kind of the idea.
An oasis, as poet Philip Metres points out in Episode 15, is evanescent by nature. There, and then not there. What does it mean to seek refuge when the oasis is impermanent? And what does it mean, years later, to remember a mirage?
Metres lingers on in these mysteries in his poem “Fugitive,” writing:
How could it be I never saw this street
before, I wondered, searching for the contours of the familiar
I navigate, eyes closed.
This poem invites close attention to those things that are, by definition, hard to nail down: missed connections, dream-time, the longing for home. The sense of being lost on a street you thought you knew.
Philip Metres's latest poetry collection is Fugitive/Refuge (Copper Canyon Press, 2024).
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Multi-Verse is a poetry podcast hosted and produced by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. To hear more poets share and discuss the poems they don’t usually read aloud, subscribe for free on Substack, Soundcloud, Apple, Spotify, or the Multi-Verse website.
Episode 15: Philip Metres's nostalgia