Alan Botsford's latest poetry collection, 'Borderlines: An Astral Experience in Poems', blends elements of poetry and memoir in a genre-straddling work. Drawing inspiration from Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy', it features 108 dramatic interior monologues that piece together moments in the life of Alan, an American poet living and teaching in Japan, from imagined viewpoints like colleagues, students, strangers, or social media connections.
This eighth collection by Botsford began as an experiment with what he calls 'unbidden' poetry. Each poem adopts the form of a dramatic interior monologue from an imagined viewpoint—such as a colleague, student, stranger, or social media connection—conversing with and assembling fragments of one man's life: Alan, the American poet residing and teaching in Japan.
Botsford told The Japan Times, 'The book is an attempt at bridging the conscious and unconscious worlds,' adding, 'in an age where the humanistic imagination is devalued in favor of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and AI.'
Using Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy' as a medium, the poet channels diverse personae to evoke a cacophony of memories. The result is a boundary-pushing exploration of personal history through 108 voices.