What happens when we expand our consciousness? Creative artists such as the late filmmaker David Lynch compared ideas to fish and argued that “the more your consciousness – your awareness – is expanded, the deeper you go toward this source, and the bigger fish you can catch.” This kind of “consciousness fishing” is on display in the book The Beast Inside: Collected Poems by Bill Cushing (Southern Arizona Press, 2025). In his latest poetry collection, Cushing delves deep into his own consciousness as well as the “universal” consciousness (if there is such a thing). The author draws on his experiences as a husband, father, and Navy veteran, as well as a plethora of 21st-century concerns (ranging from Hurricane Katrina to Vladimir Putin) to fuel the 77 pieces in this book.
After reading this collection, the reader comes away with greater insight into the poet’s story as well as the human story.
Almost every piece in The Beast Inside was previously published in a periodical or a collection. Cushing derived the book’s provocative title from the central theme he addresses here, which is the dual nature of the self. As Cushing indicates in his book’s introduction, human beings are “creatures of duality.” The book’s cover art, a 1920 sketch by animator and cartoonist Winslow McCay, depicts a demonic creature crouching inside the head of a distinguished gentleman. The man’s necktie is imprinted with the word, “VIRTUE.” This illustration is not only an apt metaphor for this book’s theme (which Cushing explores in detail in the book’s final piece, “Restraining the Beast Within”), but also for the human dilemma.
How much of our lives are spent convincing the world of our virtues while trying to hide our vices from others? As Shakespeare writes, “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” Lindsey Buckingham expressed this sentiment more recently in his song “Bwana”: “We all have our demons / and sometimes they escape.” The personal demons that Cushing unleashes in this collection are hardly demonic, but he is to be commended for the levels of human emotion he reveals here.
Cushing divides The Beast Inside into three parts: “The Reminiscent Self,” “The Formal Self,” and “The Dream-State Self.” The poems in “The Reminiscent Self” (which is subtitled “Remembrances, recollections, and reflections from life”) call to mind a likely reason why Cushing’s University of Central Florida classmates nicknamed him “the blue-collar poet.” His poems are accessible and relatable to the average reader, meaning those who do not identify with the “intelligentsia.” As a teacher, I do not consider myself a blue-collar worker. However, as a person who serves my community, I feel that I can relate to the issues Cushing addresses in his book (especially in the first part). These poems address themes such as the love between a father and a son and the devastating effects of natural disasters on the individual. In “At Mrs. Gannett’s,” Cushing reflects on a childhood visit to the home of an elderly neighbor:
It was the only time I saw a bike horn
mounted on a wheelchair. She preferred candles,
disdained lightbulbs . . .
These lines remind me of the times I visited elderly friends, neighbors, and family members: Their living spaces contained sights, textures, and smells that were simultaneously delightful and mysterious. In another piece from this section, “Re: Joyce,” Cushing reminiscences on a brief relationship with “an ebony / woman of primal beauty” who
moved me to a place
of serenity,
giving me the ability
to ignore life’s pallor
Poems such as “Re: Joyce” are refreshing because they focus on the happy moments in life while also lamenting the often too brief nature of these moments.
The second part of Cushing’s book (“The Formal Self”) is subtitled “Poems that follow certain rules.” Those of us who have taken poetry classes and/or have taught poetry will be familiar with the numerous forms of poetry, ranging from the English sonnet to the Japanese tanka. Cushing even includes a helpful glossary of the forms he uses in this part of the book. Cushing demonstrates his skill in thirteen such forms but never lets the dictates of the form overshadow the importance of the theme is exploring. In “A Haibun for Gunner’s Mate Styles,” Cushing paints a portrait of a fellow working-class sailor:
With a cigarette in one hand, in the other a broken-in ceramic
mug – at the ready and emblazoned with crossed cannons, he’d
squint as if to contemplate tangents, azimuths, windage,
elevation. . .
Thanks to Cushing’s deft use of words, not only can we form an image of Styles in our minds, but we can also learn how this seaman’s work helped to define him as a person:
his eyes pierced a line
with sight more true than the times
he’d bleed saltwater
Meditations on subjects ranging from war to cigarette smoking round out this middle part of the book, further displaying Cushing’s ability to express the essence of concerns that sometimes seem commonplace, but – upon closer inspection – represent universal slices of life.
The book’s third and final part (“The Dream-State Self”) is subtitled “Imaginings, either good or bad.” As a fan of speculative (science fiction and fantasy) literature, this part of Cushing’s book drew my attention. Returning to Lynch’s idea of “consciousness fishing” as a way for creative people “catch” ideas, the poems in this section do indeed project images of dystopia and near-utopia: Cushing’s visions of possible “good” and “bad” worlds are like brief fever dreams. (In fact, he titled one poem is this section “Fever Dream.”)
In “Where are the Dragons When We Need Them?,” Cushing channels William Butler Yeats to envision our world as a nightmarish dystopia where the close-minded mental rigidity of fundamentalism reigns supreme:
We dip oars into waters of delicate daring,
stroke to the universal pulse, use echolocation
to slouch our way into the New Stone Age, burning
coals of devotion. . .
Cushing continues with a dystopian vision worthy of Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison in his next poem, “A New Metropolis.” This piece acts as a warning about the misuse of technology as well as homage to director Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis and director James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator before Skynet injected
intelligence into the machines,
Fritz Lang gave us the catacombs,
where proles lived under the thumbs
of those above and used games
to dazzle, distract, and hypnotize. . .
Later in the poem, Cushing completes his portrait of a bleak future by reminding the reader that war is a profitable situation for the wealthy leaders who pull the world’s strings: “Forget the peace dividend. / The fruits of war come from contracts.”
This vision of an apocalyptic world driven by technology and profit is vivid, but Cushing’s optimistic visions are just as well-realized. One example from this part of the book is “Catching the World in Collage with a 35 mm SLR,” which contain happy images: “A puppy peers through the gap between / a patio door and its frame. . .” The puppy observes
. . .two owls, perhaps
mother and daughter? They stand
at the curb waiting for the light
to turn green and let them
cross the street in safety. . .
Does the puppy represent innocence? Do the owls represent wisdom? Does the young man named Eli, who we observe in a later stanza standing in a library “waiting to be able / to reach high enough / to learn what others know,” represent the human hunger for knowledge? It is tempting for readers to use these ancient interpretations as keys to unlock meaning in Cushing’s poems. However, like the work of all good poets, Cushing’s poems are not so tidily dismembered.
This quality of Cushing’s work is not vagueness. Instead, it is a delightful complexity merged paradoxically with the kind of directness that only a “blue-collar poet” can deliver. This unique merger gives readers something to look forward to when they begin to read a Bill Cushing poem.
