Designer Alexander McQueen once said:
“I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.”
He excited and illuminated the world of fashion for more than two decades until his suicide in 2010. Poet Valerie Wallace has seamlessly woven together his rebellious spirit and her own poetic gifts with quotes and moments from his life in her first full length book of poetry “House of McQueen.”
In the unconventional way Wallace has placed some of her words on the page, she’s made design itself a character in her book that is distinctly reflective of McQueen’s own work. In our interview with Wallace she explained:
“Creating forms for these poems became extremely important to me as I learned more about McQueen through my research: form was extremely important to McQueen. It was exciting to make a language represent what I was learning. I made poems in his voice and others in the voice of the designs and fabrics. I tried to create a body of poems to tell an emotional truth; something that McQueen’s family and friends would recognize as being true to him.”
When McQueen was 3 years old he drew a Cinderella dress on a wall; Wallace transforms this memory into enchanting lines:
“I got caught wondering, how to draw that color — seacoast changing to dawn. There was trouble, but I didn’t care.I knew it was the dress that saved her. All the rest was just a story.”
Wallace invites us to visit McQueen’s work by animating the elements and tools of the designer. Even scissors have a voice in House of McQueen
“…:It’s only cloth whisper shears in my ears.”
Fabric illustrates itself as
“…..Wool of untroubled sleep, drafted, cut, bundled”
“……diamond dusted with rain drop fragments” and garments are agleam in
“……a bodice of rock crystal”
“….. a metallic skirt etched with gothic scrolls”.
The passion of Wallace’s voice in House of McQueen vividly evokes the passion of McQueen’s inventive genius.
House of McQueen was selected by Vievee Francis for they Four Way Books Intro Prize in Poetry, and is available on Amazon and in bookstores around the country. Author Valerie Wallace received an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award, the Atty Award from Margaret Atwood, and the San Miguel de Allende Writer’s Conference Award for Poetry. Her work has been supported by various grants and fellowships. She earned her Masters of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She can be reached at: valeriewallace.net.
Creative credits
- Written by
- Elaine Madsen
- Images courtesy of
- Valerie Wallace
