An epic narrative poem, written in Brussels by American poet Reagan M. Sova, took a step towards the screen last week when the script was presented at a reading at the Madnani Theater in Los Angeles, with a full cast and live musical accompaniment.
The reading featured Jamie McShane (HBO's Task, Netflix's Wednesday), E.J. Marcus (HBO's I Love LA), and other professional actors.
Sova wrote his 80,000-word poem Wildcat Dreams in the Dead Light from 2019 to 2021 when he lived in a quiet corner of Ixelles. As the poem draws on Belgium’s dramatic World War I history, he also wrote an article for The Brussels Times Magazine about the destruction of the university library in Leuven during the war.
The poem follows a classical tradition dating from antiquity that combines poetry and storytelling. An epic narrative poem often describes the extraordinary adventures, courageous deeds, and journeys of a legendary or historical hero.
Brussels provides poetic inspiration
“My years living in Brussels were central to inspiring this epic poem and its subsequent screenplay,” Reagan M. Sova told The Brussels Times. “The idea crystallised after my poetic mentor passed away in late 2019. Several months later, I was unexpectedly pulled from the crowd to perform with the clowns of the Bougloine Circus at Place Flagey.”
“With that experience still buzzing in me the next day, I began sketching the work that became Wildcat Dreams in the Death Light – the story of a young man who turns to the spectacle and wonder of the circus to honour the dead.”
“Brussels, with its layers of history and its position at a crossroads of cultures, helped shape the atmosphere of wandering, memory, and aftermath that runs through both the poem and the screenplay adaptation,” he added.
The work also draws on Jewish storytelling traditions. “The protagonist, Mort Sloman, is a Jewish troubadour figure – something in the spirit of a young, tall-tale-spinning Bob Dylan – whose journey is shaped by ideas of diaspora and spiritual inheritance.”
First step towards the screen
The poem was originally presented on a 12-stop international tour in 2022, with readings in London, Paris, and Seattle, among other cities, as well as at Librebook bookshop in Ixelles. Published by First to Knock, the poem has been sold in independent bookshops across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Israel, and Australia.
It has now taken a first step towards the screen with a staged reading of a feature-film screenplay adapted from the poem. Sova collaborated with Los Angeles–based filmmaker and writer August Gladstone, who initiated the project after finding Sova's poem at an LA bookshop. Gladstone wrote the screenplay, developing it closely with Sova from the original book-length poem.
“I’m told everything in the film industry is a long shot until it happens,” Sova said, “but for now, it’s been a big honor for me just to collaborate with August and to hear the work spoken aloud by actors, accompanied by music, inhabiting a theater – another wildcat dream in the journey of a poem that has traveled far beyond anything I ever expected.”
While the project is in early stages of development, the Los Angeles reading marked the first presentation of the screenplay as the collaborators explore potential next steps for bringing the adaptation to the screen.
