Her poems “ENTERING THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE IN ONE SENTENCE,” “ALMOST SYMMETRIC TANKA,” “WHEN AN ANGEL BECOMES A POEM,” “INSOMNIA” and “AFTER MORANDI” appear in the fiftieth issue of Touch the Donkey.
Q: Tell me about the poems “ENTERING THE FIRST DAY OF FIRST GRADE IN ONE SENTENCE,” “ALMOST SYMMETRIC TANKA,” “WHEN AN ANGEL BECOMES A POEM,” “INSOMNIA” and “AFTER MORANDI.”
A: Most, if not all, of these poems were drafted several years ago in a writing exchange with my friend John Levy. At the time, I was struggling to shift out of habituated conceptual and metrical patterns that had accumulated from years of writing extremely short (1 to 5 line) poems. Meanwhile we were in the midst of the pandemic and, like so many others, I was overwhelmed by the extraordinary circumstances of loss upon loss, both in my personal and professional life. Being in a rather humorless and disillusioned place, it was a gift to fill the ruts in my ear with John’s lighthearted conversational tone and unobtrusive craftwork. I committed myself to replying as quickly as possible out of respect for the dialogue, even though I was typically less than satisfied with what I had to offer. And since we most often directly responded to what the other had written, there was this curious voice singing back to me through the endless dark allies and dead ends I wandered into. Recently I decided to revisit those earlier sketches because I am once again in a transitional space after finally escorting Signal to Noise into the world, a book that was achingly difficult to write. It’s always fascinating to trace the connective tissue in work over the years.
Q: How do these poems compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing?
A: At this moment I am mainly scribbling observations, making notes and image sketches, poking around in some inchoate and slippery musings I didn’t have time to fully pursue while working on Signal to Noise. I am in deep listening mode, reading mode, follow-the-glimmer mode— a winged juncture in no hurry to ground. I am beginning to sense a slight stirring in the body that through the years I’ve come to reliably recognize as the creative force of something new; it has a physicality that gradually increases in pressure, demanding more and more focused and disciplined attention until it can start spilling into some kind of tangible and comprehensible form. It takes it own course in its own time.
Q: Is the process of “making notes and image sketches, poking around in some inchoate and slippery musings” the usual way poems, or poem-clusters, or even manuscripts, tend to begin for you? How do you get from such notes and sketches to finished pieces?
A: Individual poems begin in a multitude of ways. Often a line or two or three arrive in the midst of day-to-day encounters or a memory or a dream or while reading and experiencing art made by others. If possible, I follow the impetus right then and there, though more often than not I need to attend to something else in the moment; and so I try to scribble down what I hear and then return to it later (often while walking) to conjure up the initial impulse again and see where it goes. Much of the time it only goes so far before I let it go. For those lines that have staying power it usually takes me several drafts to figure out where they might ultimately lead and then lots of revising to get to a finished piece. For those experiences that feel especially compelling, but hover beyond language, I return to them regularly until the words arrive… or don’t! The bodily sensations I described in my reply to the previous question are related to this “waiting for words” period, as well as the larger process of envisioning a manuscript—I love imagining what can be constructed using the whole of a book as a structural scaffolding. Lately I’m thinking about the particular scale of chapbooks.
Q: Scale in what way?
A: Primarily in terms of length, though there is a broader range of size and shape in published chapbooks which also offers potential to play in different ways with the page.
Q: Do you have any models for the kinds of work you’ve been attempting?
A: Not yet, no. I am roaming right now. When I wrote Signal to Noise, C.D. Wright’s DeepStep Come Shining and Anne Carson’s Plainwater became helpful models in terms of figuring out structure.
Q: With two published collections-to-date, as well as your current works-in-progress, how do you feel your work has progressed? Where do you see your work heading?
A: I wish I could tell you where my work is heading, rob. I feel such fundamental structural shifts in the larger forces of culture right now that I’m a bit of a deer in the headlights. One thing that’s been on my mind for a long time is the way generative Ai, for about a decade or so now, has been developing its own languages indecipherable to human beings, rendering its behavior beyond our comprehension (and ability to control.) As Ai increasingly explores all the things language can do when it is not tied to “packages of meat walking around on planet earth,” as historian Yuval Hariri puts it, I think even more about how I use language. Since Ai is not sentient (and thus incapable of emotions) Hariri suggests that one of the most important discussions for humans now is to dig deeper into the ongoing question of the relationship between language and feelings; and I would add, between the visceral language of complex emotions and their manifestations in behavior. Poets and philosophers have been exploring this interplay for eons now, so one question to myself is how can I reach further into what I’ve already been investigating. And with Ai’s critical relationship to the surveillance state, I am thinking about the formal structures of camouflage, inscrutability, nonsense, and erraticism. I have no idea how, if at all, this might manifest.
Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What particular works can’t you help but return to?
A: Currently the writers and artists I’m engaged with/re-visiting include Agha Shahid Ali, Laurie Anderson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Fanny Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Joyelle McSweeney, Ozaki Hōsai, Graciela Iturbide, Cornelia Parker, Noah Purifoy, Doris Salcedo, Dianne Seuss, Richard Siken, Kara Walker…
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