I’ve been reading Condition Ahuman by Meadow Wyand of Fourth Dominion, a gothic metal band from Rochester, NY. Their lyrics tend toward the pagan and esoteric, and the verse in Wyand’s first collection is little different. Many of the poems would make good songs if set to music.
Despite its tenebrous beauty, it isn’t a collection I would recommend to everybody. Ms. Wyand has been through a lot, and she’s writing from the heart. Each of these poems is a sacrament of defiance, an odinic offering herself to herself.
As Ms. Wyand notes, if readers found the likes of Sylvia Plath, Arthur Rimbaud, or Audre Lorde too much they will find Condition Ahuman difficult reading. It took me about a month to read it. Part of it was my desire to pace myself, not rush through it, and give Ms. Wyand’s work due respect. I had also wanted to sit with my feelings as I read each poem, many of which resonated despite not being transgender myself.
It is not a collection that I merely enjoyed. Enjoy is the word you might use for Shel Silverstein. Condition Ahuman is a work to be savored, appreciated, meditated upon and (hopefully) eventually understood.
Since I haven’t lived Meadow Wyand’s life, I can’t claim to fully understand the struggles she faced to become herself. But reading Condition Ahuman let me get a little closer than I might otherwise have been.