Chris McCreary on “Haunt Tectonics”
“Haunt Tectonics” began as an exploration of the internal rules for spirits and other entities in the shows Mike Flanagan has made for Netflix, particularly his two Haunting series and the more recent The Fall of the House of Usher. Originally, “Haunt Tectonics” was meant to have three or four sections - I wasn’t at first sure if his Midnight Mass fit - but as often happens, the rigid system I’d created for generating my work loosened up during the revision phase, and the poem(s) became a broader contemplation of something akin to psychogeography, an idea that’s particularly fascinated me ever since I read Alan Moore’s massive novel Jerusalem, where I also wrangled with his idea of “eternalism.” Over the years, I have often returned to his attempts at portraying time’s echoes and recurrences in titles such as Watchmen while also drawing from the work of his peer / rival Grant Morrison, whose Doom Patrol, Invisibles, Seven Soldiers of Victory, and Batman titles probably continue to influence my writing even more than I realize.