Walter Mackey: Portrait of the Young Artist as a Kindergartner

                We explore portraits of young male artists. Walter Mackey is quite young. But in order to truly understand an artist we need to go further back. A young man isn’t young enough. No, I say we need younger. May I ask what is younger than Kindergarten? That’s as young as you’re going to get. The Portrait of the Young Artist as a Kindergartner begins now!

                Some artists are born. Others struggle with genius. Right from the beginning we can tell we are staring genius right in the face. You can tell from the cover that Walter is bilingual at age six. I feel useless compared to Walter’s expertise, his power not only with words, but with images.  

                The first page brought me to literal tears. A crudely drawn figure walked out of its house. Even from such an early age, Walter looked up towards the heavens for inspiration. Beneath this awe-inspiring image is the simple caption ‘Geraldine was watching for the big snow’. Obviously the big snow is a metaphor for Geraldine’s eventual death. 

                Next we see the main character standing outside, walking alone. His expression has changed. The character has a half-smile. Clearly he is upset at the ghost coming at him from the upper left hand corner, to take him away to the afterlife. 

                Walter says ‘I love to have hot chocolate and cookies.’ Clearly he is trying to ease the pain of knowing someday he will die. A cross looms in the left-side of the picture. What appears to be his mother minus a torso represents the physical anguish he will face before his demise. Hearts in the right-hand corner are blue, representing the lack of oxygen his body will receive when he dies. 

                ‘I like to sled in the snow’ shows how Walter will die. Sledding kills thousands of people every year. Why should it be any different for young Walter? The slope of the hill indicates the peril Walter knowingly puts himself in, aware of the inevitable fact that all of us, at some point, must die. 

                ‘Froggy forgot to put on his boots’ offers a tragic insight into Froggy’s tortured mind. Since it is winter Froggy should be hibernating. But like Walter, he is indifferent to his ultimate fate. Froggy knows he will die. Froggy appears to choose his own death by failing to wear proper foot ware. Lacking boots Froggy will freeze to death in the unforgiving Canadian tundra. 

                Part of me wanted to continue, hoping I was wrong about this, but the next page ended the book for me: ‘I love my dad’ and ‘I love my dog’. In this Walter says goodbye to all those he knew in this celestial plane. Now he is going off to die on his sled. The next few pages deal with Walter first in purgatory ‘the mud’ and eventually re-living moments when he was happier.

               

                Overall this is a dark and disturbing chapbook. I had a hard time reading it. Though I must admit I am fascinated by how such a young child can be tortured with such deep, dark thoughts. Click here to download the disturbing and bleak first chapbook ever put out by Walter Mackey.