“I want a life measured
in the places I haven’t gone,
short sleeps on long flights,
strange voices teaching me
new words to describe
the dawn.”
Tyler Knott Gregson is beloved for his typewriter series of poems scattered meaningfully upon found scraps of paper, makeshift canvases for simple, profound pieces of introspection. He writes of courage and love and wanderlust, and the picture he paints with his words becomes a representation of a life lived wholly, fearless of the dark places and brilliant in the light. Wildly into the Dark is his third outing in the publishing world – Gregson regularly shares his work on social media – and within the latest collection he goes on a journey into territory deeper still, sharing poetry and poetic wonderings as well as what the book’s subtitle charmingly calls, “rattlings of a curious mind.”
“There are no wrong answers here, no rules beyond this: be kind to everyone and everything, and give yourself away.”
Gregson is a master of romantic language in the traditional sense; he writes beautifully of nature, experience, truth, and vulnerability. While his subject ranges from love to philosophy with dips too into the political realm, all of his poems maintain a lyricism and whimsy that makes the reader feel as though a journey through the book is an open-hearted conversation with the author himself. He writes regularly on the insightful depths of our relationships, from the vulnerability and peace of intimacy to the burden of our imperfect struggles, but there are in particular many moments in this collection where the narrative of his poems becomes more subjective; a piece addressing missed opportunities could become an apology to oneself; uplifting words to a lover can become a love letter to spirit, a shift to a conversation with one’s own courageous nature. In this and many other ways, Wildly into the Dark harbors secret compartments for readers to discover hidden messages left by their own curious, wandering hearts.
“Poetry is taking an ache and making it sing,” Gregson writes in one piece, and the lines are true for every poem within the book. A gift of compassion and comfort to his readers, the poems in Wildly into the Dark encourage the reader to persevere and to thrive. One gets the sense that through his poems Gregson is wishing for his listener the courage to trust love, choose love, and know love in the same way that the beauty of the world has inspired him to live.
Wildly into the Dark publishes on March 28, and in anticipation of the release $1 from every pre-order is being donated to To Write Love on Her Arms, the wonderful charity devoted to providing hope for those overcoming struggles with depression, addiction, self-harm, and suicide. For details on pre-ordering visit tylerknott.com/wildly
