To the Reader:
Tristan's poetry, with
very few exceptions, was spontaneous composition,
unrevised. He wrote verse only occasionally, and he
left scraps and pieces of it here and there: in
notebooks where he'd scribble poetry amongst the math
problems or lecture notes of a college course, or in
notepads that he'd take with him to the beach in the
middle of the day and night; sometimes he'd jot down
words on loose leaf paper, and rarely he would
compose at the computer. Scattered amid the verse,
drawings or musical chords can sometimes be found
(see examples below), the latter indicating that he
had perhaps been thinking of the phrasing for use as
lyrics.
During the summer after
Tristan's accident, I collected all of these bits,
carefully deciphering, typing and proofreading. Most,
if not all, of the work can be accurately dated by
the simple archaeology of rummaging through the
remnants of a life, and sometimes Tristan would note
dates marginally. By and large, I can narrow the
origin of a particular poem to a precise month and
year from the many accompanying clues. However, for
now, I have decided simply to append the year.
A few specifics notes
on editing should be offered:
- Titles --- not
too many of the poems had titles, but some
did. Those that didn't, I would use the first
line as the title.
- Wording --- I
never added any words, but sometimes (not
very often) I corrected spelling or deleted a
word or two.
- Punctuation ---
I didn't add much, but occasionally (for
consistency) I placed comma or period where
he had left one out; of course, these were
almost all first draft poems, so correcting
some punctuation seems appropriate.
- Form --- This
is where I took the most liberties. Since
these are almost all handwritten poems, how
Tristan might have prepared them for
publication is hard to say.
I doubt Tristan
considered himself much of a poet, although clearly
his stuff matures and intensifies through the brief
years of his scribbling words on paper. One such
notepad was found in the clutter of his bedroom a few
days after the accident. It opened with a brief
prologue followed by a dozen poems. He was eighteen
years old when he wrote this, living in Jupiter at
the Honors College of Florida Atlantic University:
[introductory page of
spring 2003 poetry notebook]
This seems an apt
prelude for all of Tristan's poetry, for in these
brief words we find release from the anxiety of
peering where we might not be welcomed. We hear the
tongue-in-cheek tone and know that even at his
gravest Tristan does not commit the cardinal sin of
taking himself too-seriously. And, lastly, we face
the reality that Tristan was haunted by a
presentiment of his own mortality, by a tendency to
think of self in the past tense.
While it is clear that
these writings were for Tristan merely a diversion
--- a stepping-back from and suspicious-eyeing of the
Sturm und Drang of everyday life rather than
a way of life itself --- I am confident that even the
casual reader will find a truly unique voice amid
these often-accidental words, a "beautiful
soul," an individuality so finely-tuned at so
young an age . . . and now lost, save for these
glimpses into who he was and what he might have
become.
Zachary Adrian Burks
