Fiction uses the metanarrative of writing for its overarching theme, as it tests a web of reality and imagination, truth and deceit. From the title poem's first line, "None of this is true," to the poem "This," late in the volume, we are aware that writing begins with a "pencil," with the physical act of writing, while searching for an original voice, and ends haunted by the mimicry involved in perfecting the craft (in "darkness . . . littered with mockingbirds"). O'Callaghan highlights the self-referential process of creativity with great skill, and assures us of his maturation as a poet, one who is not only among the best of his generation, but increasingly among the best living. It is not surprising, then, that the art of poetry is central to Fiction. Art is not his only domain, however; there are also love poems, travelogues, poems to his children, on his time in the United States, on the growth of the self, philosophical meditations, political and historical essays where truth and fiction contest. This volume is fraught with the frisson of its own creation, as one would expect from a poet coming fully into his extraordinary powers, and keenly aware of the role voice and writing play in human consciousness.
Fiction uses the metanarrative of writing for its overarching theme, as it tests a web of reality and imagination, truth and deceit. From the title poem’s first line, “None of this is true,” to the poem “This,” late in the volume, we are aware that writing begins with a “pencil,” with the physical act of writing, while searching for an original voice, and ends haunted by the mimicry involved in perfecting the craft (in “darkness . . . littered with mockingbirds”). O’Callaghan highlights the self-referential process of creativity with great skill, and assures us of his maturation as a poet, one who is not only among the best of his generation, but increasingly among the best living. It is not surprising, then, that the art of poetry is central to Fiction. Art is not his only domain, however; there are also love poems, travelogues, poems to his children, on his time in the United States, on the growth of the self, philosophical meditations, political and historical essays where truth and fiction contest. This volume is fraught with the frisson of its own creation, as one would expect from a poet coming fully into his extraordinary powers, and keenly aware of the role voice and writing play in human consciousness.
