McClure, an award-winning writer, Fulbright scholar and fellow poet, had never acted professionally before. She met Jackson at a poetry workshop in Brooklyn in 2013, and they continued to connect over the years. While working on the film, Jackson began to imagine McClure as the protagonist, Mack. She knew from McClure’s work that she could achieve depth. The casting for her was intuitive, like an unfolding poem.
“We were walking in Prospect Park one day and I saw it,” Jackson says. “I saw there was something there to discover. I trust my curiosity, I trust what moves me. … Charleen has this raw vulnerability, this quality that I thought the character needed.” Jackson gave McClure the script. “I read it and said, ‘Raven, you wrote a poem.’ (I thought) OK, so let’s do a poem.”
This shared love of poetry not only gave Jackson and McClure the skills to create this particular film—from establishing the cadence to discovering vulnerability—but it also served as a meeting point for the two creatives, giving them the language to communicate with each other in a way that is specific to their connection and liberating for their art.
“Poetry allows for many imaginative leaps, and anything is possible in a poem,” says McClure. “I use the word elastic or elasticity. Since we both come from poetry backgrounds, there were moments (on set) when Raven said, “Do you know this poem?” And I said, “Yeah.” And she said, “Yeah, like that.” Or when I told her that during the wedding scene, when Mack is standing at a church window, I was thinking of Lucille Clifton’s poem “The Lesson of the Falling Leaves.” It gave us a way to communicate without having to say too much. There was a moment that was particularly moving and beautiful for me when Raven could just look at me and say, “OK, I get it.”
