Abstract
Sync is a collection of poems that asks what it means to be “in sync” or “out of sync” with others. Calling upon, at times, Carl Jung’s theory of “synchronicity” or Dolly Parton’s glitter, the speaker tries to make sense of their identity as an identical twin from rural, impoverished Missouri. Iterations of self are built, defined, and redefined throughout the collection as the speaker considers their relationships to others: an abusive ex-boyfriend, a bipolar father, an abused mother dealing with chronic pain, an enmeshed twinship, sisters, a risk-taking brother, country music stars, and more. These poems utilize form, repetition, and rhyme to communicate to the reader that being “identical” is impossible, in language and in life. As poet Natalie Diaz said in an interview in The Rumpus, “A word is everything it is now and all the things it has ever been, neither of which cancels out what the word might yet become.”
Ultimately, Sync inquires: are the people in our lives reflections of ourselves? How much of our identity is influenced by factors beyond our control? If the same face looks back at us in the mirror every day, then how do we become infinitely renewing versions of ourselves?