Rob Mclennan's Blog, page 79

Mary Leader, The Distaff Side

 

PANEL F
My mother could not sewand neither
could she knit. I thinkshe’d have agreed
with Agatha Christie’sHercule Poirot:
“A woman did not look herbest
knitting: the absorption,the glassy eyes,
the restless busyfingers!” Similarly,
if my mother had evergotten to go
to Sewanee Writers’ Conference(which,
later on, I got to), I thinkshe’d have agreed
with a man’s commentabout how rude it is
when women in theaudience take out
their knitting and get towork on it while
listening to variouslong-winded readings.
Did he never know men tosit and whittle
while talking and,occasionally, spitting?

I’mfascinated by American poet and lawyer Mary Leader’s fifth full-lengthcollection, The Distaff Side (Shearsman Books, 2022), a curious blend ofa variety of threads: the needlepoint the women in her family held, dismissedas “women’s work”; her mother’s refusal to learn such a thing to focus onpoetry, and publishing in numerous journals yet never seeing a collection intoprint; and her own engagement with these two distinct skills, articulating themboth as attentive, precise crafts. “My mother couldn’t sew a lick.” she writes,to open the sequence “Toile [I],” offering her mother’s refusal to learn assomething defiant across the length and breadth of women across her family, “Butthat was a boast to her.” As the following poem reads: “1950, 1955, / 1960. Whatgirls and women got up to / with distaffs flax spindles standards / happlesand agoubilles was not called ‘their art.’ Not remotely. Needlework / wasno more ‘creative’ than / doing the dishes, and trust me, / doing the disheswas not marveled at, [.]” That particular poem ends: “And my / mother’s hobby morningafter / morning after morning, every morning, / every morning, was reading andwriting / poetry, smoking all the while.” There’s a defiance that Leader recountsin her narrative around her mother, and one of distinct pride, writing a womanwho engaged with poetry. A few poems further in the sequence: “I have / thetypescript of what, in my judgement, / should have been my mother’s first /published book, Whose Child? I have / here the cover letter she laboredover.” I’m charmed by these skilled, sharp and precise poems on the complexitiesof the craft of poems and needlework both, stitched with careful, patient ease.

Brandon Shimoda, Hydra Medusa

 

            These questions come to mind as I contemplate the intransigent,intractable void that hovers over the ruins of Japanese American incarceration.One element forming the void is the murders of Japanese and Japanese American meninside, outside, and on the perimeters of WWII prisons and concentration camps,murders that exist on and resonate through the continuum of the murder ofpeople of color by state operatives/law enforcement in the United States. The void(shadow) is earth, sky, everywhere in between.
            Kanesaburo Oshima was shot and killed by a guard in theprison camp in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Toshio Kobata and Hirota Isomura were shotand killed by a guard outside the prison camp in Lordsburg, New Mexico. JamesIto and Katsuji James Kanegawa were shot and killed by military police inManzanar. James Hatsuaki Wakasa was shot and killed by a guard in Topaz. ShoichiJames Okamoto was shot and killed by a guard at the entrance to Tule Lake. Thesemen are the most commonly cited, if they are cited at all. (An eighth man,Ichiro Shimoda, was also murdered, also in Fort Sill, but the circumstances ofhis murder are unclear. Shimoda’s friends suspected that because he witnessedthe murder of Oshima, he was detained by the military police, and died in theircustody.) There has been neither justice for nor legitimate reckoning withthese deaths. The murderers (both individuals and the systems to which they werereporting) reaped the benefit of passing into oblivion. (“THE DESCENDANT”)

LatelyI’ve been going through Brandon Shimoda’s most recent collection, Hydra Medusa (New York NY: Nightboat Books, 2023), a self-described continuationof his collection, The Desert (The Song Cave, 2018), a book I have onlyheard tell of. Hydra Medusa is a complex collection composed as a bookof dreams and death, ancestors, parenting and desert stretches through a blendof essays and poems. “Death is what it took for us to be in each other’scompany. But what kind of company was I?” he writes, two-thirds through thebook. He writes of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during and aroundthe Second World War, and of repeated murders and ancestors, and how lives can’thelp but connect to each other. Hydra Medusa is a book on the living andthe endless dead, seeking answers to questions that might be impossible toanswer, or too individual to fully articulate. As he writes, early on, as partof the essay “THE DESCENDANT”: “What is an ancestor? I have been asking thisquestion, the past few years, of descendants of Japanese Americanincarceration, many of whom are friends, some of whom are family, some of whom Ihave never met, but know through their answers. It is an ongoing question.” Hisis a book on ancestors and the dead and how and where responsibility lands; a cross-stitchof violence and memorialization, deserts and the spaces within which one notonly occupies, but lives. He offers this insight, which I think a central pointto anyone concerned with elements of extended family, genealogy or ancestors: “Ancestorworship is a process. The exact nature of the relationship between an ancestorand their descendant is always to be determined.” As he writes:

The ancestors, bedeckedin robes of night
occupy a pantheon

We see ourselves in,imagine
ourselves

in the shapes
of sparest humility,

Hang me in the alcove, I say,
to the future faction
that might draw me out ofthe well

Thereis something curious about the way the non-fiction prose aims for the heart of hissubject matter, while the poems write a bit more abstract, writing as a kind ofoutline around and occasionally through that same purpose. If the prose feelsmore direct, the poems write slant, attending as a kind of connector between andamid prose sections, comparable to the abstract sections of Terrance Malick’s filmThe Tree of Life (2011) (a narrative structure more recently put to filmeffect through Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, as well). One could alsocompare this to the work of American poet Susan Howe: the call-and-response ofher poetry collections that sit with opening essay and collage-poems ascounterpoint of a larger, singular, book-length work. The difference of form isn’tmerely used to open for another, or sit in opposition but through a sense of balancebetween. The structure allows for the possibility of pulling back to see a farlarger context, one that suggests itself far larger and ongoing than what ispossible within the bounds of even this single book.

The white cross on thehill of rocks
is a house without light
over the greenest fieldsin the valley

The virgin, embedded inrocks
prepared the white cross
with the attributes oflightlessness

that illuminate subterraneanlife

where the cross entersearth
children lay flowers

the cross turns at night
into snakes (“SAN XAVIER”)

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Daniel Goodwin

Daniel Goodwin is the author of twoprevious novels – Sons and Fathers and The Art of Being Lewis – and the award-winning poetry collection Catullus’sSoldiers. His new novel The Great Goldbergs is being published inSeptember 2023. He lives in Ottawa with his wife Kara and their lovely,rambunctious children.

1 - How did your firstbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?How does it feel different?

My first book proved that I couldwrite a novel. My new book is, I hope, better, in the sense that it’s deeperand more resonant and more skilled, but it shares some similarities to my firstand second books. All three are set in Montreal, take boys from childhood tomiddle age, and are about male friendship and relationships between fathers andsons. Most of all, like all my novels, the new one is about becoming who youare, or being true to yourself. It feels different in that I’m going in knowingthat the most important part of writing a book is not what comes after it’spublished but the journey that’s come before.

2 - How did you come topoetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I wrote – or dictated – my first poemwhen I was two. I was lying on my mother’s lap, we were somewhere above theAtlantic flying back from a family summer in Greece. I apparently recited apoem I made up and my mother wrote it down. It went like this: “Stars are inthe night / And snow is on top of the buildings / And between the pillars ofParthenon. / And sometimes it comes down in big balls / And lands on theground.” Sometimes I think it’s my best poem! Greece obviously made animpression on me.

Poetry was all around me growing up. Manyof my parents’ friends were writers – mostly poets – or visual artists. Nobody seemsto have heard of him anymore, but Irving Layton was a great uncle who was veryclose friends with his nephew, my father. Poetry felt natural from thebeginning.

3 - How long does it taketo start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

My writing comes both quickly andslow. It takes months to start. First drafts are very rough. I usually startwith a page or a chapter built around a character in a tough situation. Thenlots of notes. Then writing bits and pieces interspersed with lots of notes. Ittook me a while to be comfortable with the idea that making notes, writing downquestions, writing snippets, reading what I’d written the day or week before,revising, and so on, all qualified as writing. That was a revelation for me.

It takes me a long time to figure outwhat I’m really writing about. I’ve tried being one of those writers who does agreat outline and knows exactly what he or she is setting out to do. But itkills the spark of the thing for me. I also have to rewrite. A lot. If I startthinking about trying to write a perfect or close-to-perfect sentence orparagraph or page the first time around, it’s paralyzing. I have to spit it outas fast as I can type it, not worrying about spelling or grammar or sentencestructure or even always the right word.

Then I go back and revise many times.The whole process for me is like an oyster covering that grain of sand withnacre, the same substance that goes into making its shell, its home and protection,until it has a pearl to show for it.

4 - Where does a poem orwork of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces thatend up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book"from the very beginning?

It’s a cliché as most sports analogiesare, but writing a poem for me is like a hundred-yard dash. I sit down andfifteen minutes later I have a first draft. I can put it away and come back toit later and refine it. Writing a novel is like running a series of marathons everyday for three or four years. It’s a brutal, exhausting process. Fun of course,too.

Whenever I write a novel, I know I’mwriting a book. I’ve tried writing short stories but have never had onepublished. I assume because they’re not very good. But my novel writing isnever linear. In the early days, I started a novel and got stuck on a chapterfor months. I just didn’t know what came next. As I began to get better at itand understand myself and my process, I realized I could write novels the waymovies are filmed: out of sequence. Sometimes I’ll write the last line first,or the middle chapter second, or the first line last. And so on. Each day Iwork on what I’m passionate about.

5 - Are public readingspart of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer whoenjoys doing readings?

I don’t mind public speaking but reallyhate doing readings although I know I should feel more positive about them. ButI feel so self-conscious reading my own stuff. I’ve gotten to the point where Ilike talking about my book and other books in relation to it, about its themes,and even my process or journey as a writer, but I usually stay away fromreading directly from my work. I don’t know why this is. It might have to dowith the fact I think writing and reading is such a solitary, intimate act, itfeels strange to be doing it up in front of a crowd, even if that crowd is justa small group of people.

6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?

My poetry is about many things, oftenart, often relationships with my parents, my wife, my children. And the usualclichés: love and death.

In my fiction I am always trying toexplore one theme: how you become yourself. How you resist all the fears andtemptation – money, power, wanting to belong – and how you break free of allyour constraints – your upbringing, your past, your character – to become whoyou are, as Nietzsche says, and pursue your truth. This might not be the mostinteresting question to everyone but it is to me.

7 – What do you see thecurrent role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? Whatdo you think the role of the writer should be?

I think writing – and reading for thatmatter – are two of the most important and rebellious acts in this culture thatis too occupied with speed, technology, materialism, and everything that istrivial and superficial. Writing, like all real art, plays many roles. It bearswitness. It brings pleasure. But most importantly, art reminds us that humanbeings are not a means to an end – as may organizations and governments wouldhave us believe. We are an end in ourselves.

As our culture moves through a darkperiod, even with all the flashing screens, real writing becomes more importantthan ever before.

8 - Do you find the processof working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Always essential, difficult at first,now just essential and pleasurable. I’m very fortunate to have a superb editorin Marc Côté at Cormorant Books. He has taught me a lot. A good editor is likea very skilled reader who knows how to write. You always learn so much aboutyour writing from good readers and editors.

Marc once described the role of theeditor to me as being like a midwife: there at the delivery but not at theconception.

9 - What is the best pieceof advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Hands down, it’s Somerset Maugham’squip: “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knowswhat they are.”

This gets at the essentially creative,original, and individualistic nature of art. It also gets at the fact you arealways in undiscovered country. There are no paths to take. You’re literallymaking it up as you go along.

10 - How easy has it beenfor you to move between genres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as theappeal?

It’s getting harder as I get older.One of the best compliments someone ever paid me was that my fiction was likepoetry and my poetry was like fiction. I started off as a poet and it camenaturally to me. I had to teach myself how to write fiction. But the funnything is, I realized I was more suited to fiction because as I went along, Istarted to become more conscious of what I was doing and so was able to getbetter. Whereas poetry just came. I still have trouble knowing which poems ofmine are good vs. not so good.

Increasingly, I can only write poemsif I’m very moved to. I wrote one about the death of my mother last year. It’sone of my favourite poems. But fortunately (or unfortunately if you’re a poet) youdon’t lose a mother every week. It’s taken me a while, but I have come to theconclusion that the way I can best express myself is in fiction.

11 - What kind of writingroutine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day(for you) begin?

I wake up, meditate for about tenminutes, then I write. As noted above, writing for me can involve many things.Then I walk, come back home and shower, and go to work. I can only do thereally heavy lifting, the making up of stuff, in the morning when my mind isclear and fresh, and I haven’t become stressed or tired from the day. I almostnever write outside the morning.

12 - When your writinggets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?

I walk. I relax. I read. I try not toworry about it. I remind myself I’ve done it before, I will do it again, thatthis too shall pass.

13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?

Chicken soup reminds me of mychildhood home. The smell of my wife’s skin reminds me of my adult home.

14 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I’ve written a few poems describingpaintings. I think they are called ekphrastic poems. I find nature absolutelyessential to my happiness and creative life although I rarely write about it. McFaddenis obviously right in the sense that good books carry echoes of many other goodbooks. But for me, books come less out of books and more out of life.Experience.

15 - What other writers orwritings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Mordecai Richler. Kazuo Ishiguro.John le Carré. Churchill. Auden. The Old Testament. Shakespeare. Well-written mysteries.

16 - What would you liketo do that you haven't yet done?

I’m not sure. I’m either very contentor unambitious! I guess I’d like to keep doing more of what I’ve already done.Spending time with my family. Writing. Living. Understanding. Paying homage.

17 - If you could pick anyother occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I don’t know. I do have anotheroccupation. I think that unless you’re writing unabashedly commercial fiction,you don’t choose to be a writer. You just do it. It’s not a conscious choice. 

18 - What made you write,as opposed to doing something else?

I write to understand. Iwant to understand myself and others and the world. I want to pay homage tothat understanding. I can only ever truly understand something by writing aboutit.

19 - What was the lastgreat book you read? What was the last great film?

I recently read Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, about the US conflict that claimed 600,000lives. I never get tired of reading about Lincoln bringing his moral stature,courage, political instincts, thoughtfulness, and oratory to bear on combattingthe evil of slavery.

As for films, it wasn’t a great filmin the conventional understanding of the term, but I enjoyed The Lost King,the recent feature film about the improbable search by an amateur archaeologistfor the mortal remains of Richard III and the rehabilitation of his eternalreputation. I saw it at the lovely ByTowne Cinema here in Ottawa with my wifeand our two children who are still at home. I think I liked the film so much becausebooks featured so heavily in its story. I like it when books have roles inmovies.

20 - What are youcurrently working on?

My new novel. A very loose updating ofthe Adam and Eve story.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Kimberly Reyes, vanishing point

 

I know the misappropriation
of American gothic

how Blackness seeds
the bayou

humidity
of unburied fruit,

rice in the Carolinas
white-rife with grief.

I also know better—perhaps,
what it is to hold a man’sknives,

have the ancestors scareaway the vampires
reclaiming land overCalypso tunes,

Keaton’s zebra snake Hoodoo.(“Tim Burton says I’m not his aesthetic”)

Kimberly Reyes’ third poetry title, and second full-length, following Warning Coloration (dancing girl press, 2018) and the powerful Running to Stand Still (Oakland CA: Omnidawn, 2019), is vanishing point (Omnidawn,2023). I had attempted to make notes on Running to Stand Still when itappeared, but the timing of the book fell into the black hole of attentionduring caregiving weekends across my father’s decline, so a review never didactually happen. Just to say: Running to Stand Still was an impressivecollection, and you should completely read it. This latest book, vanishingpoint, was composed, as her author biography offers, “while splitting hertime between San Francisco, Ireland, and her hometown of New York City,” feelingout an articulation of layerings of a cultural sense of between-ness, includingher connection to multiple points but not feeling entirely at home in any one. Herwriting is staccato, precise. As she writes as part of “The Great Race Place”: “ourwildness / clutches the race card. // After hoof, / soot, utility / has caked /into a brown ‘U’ // a bulb dims over the pedigreed / in the waste plant //  an unassuming man / avoiding razed eyes //skins the bodies.” She writes of ghosts, and magpies; she writes of Atlantic crossings,and invisible distances. She writes of hypens, such as in the poem “A hyphen isa rejection of negative space,” that includes: “I am the construct of someunwinnable race / a DNA scar tissue / warning coloration // a who we are, tonguesout, / backs bent [.]” Reyes writes of disappearance, even as certain of thetext begins to fade, while simultaneously declaring herself present across suchslipperiness, situated in a space deemed incomplete, invisible or beyond. Thereis a way in which Reyes’ lyrics demand and declare, solidifying this perceived othernessinto a direct presence. “I worry mi gente will never see me if I don’t speak Spanish      but why / demonize dad,” she writes, toopen the poem “Upon the realization that I don’t have a natural habitat.” A fewlines further, adding: “why should he had             it’s not his people’slanguage             anyway, not /anymore than English is mine // 23&Me can’t make me pronounce an old world.”Reyes works to write her way back into view, or to write enough to be seen,before she completely disappears.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Joshua Mohr

Joshua Mohr is the author of five novels, including Damascus, which The NewYork Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Some Things that Meant theWorld to Me, one of O Magazine’s 10 Terrific reads of 2009, and All This Life, winner of theNorthern California Book Award. Termite Parade was an editor’s choice on theNew York Times Best Seller List. His memoir, Model Citizen was an Amazon Editors’ Pick.In his Hollywood life, he’s sold projects to AMC, ITV, and AmblinEntertainment.

1 - How did your firstbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?How does it feel different?

My first book made Oprah’s“10 Best of the Year” and it didn’t change my life at all! Sure, I sold morecopies, but the big literary lesson for me was to just be thankful and graciouswhen good things happen. I try not to take external success or failure veryseriously. That can poison a writer’s brain. For me, the important part is makingthe art, not marketplace “success.”

2 - How did you come tofiction first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

I write in both genres. Ifind there is always a fascinating juxtaposition. My new book FARSICKNESSis pure fiction, and yet it is having a conversation with my last book, amemoir called MODEL CITIZEN. Most authors have certain stables ofpreoccupations that we’ll examine from various angles during our careers.

3 - How long does it taketo start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially comequickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to theirfinal shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I’m a punk rocker, so Idon’t plan anything. I wrote the first draft of FARSICKNESS in threeweeks. Us punks like to Fail Fast. LOL.

4 - Where does a work ofprose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end upcombining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" fromthe very beginning?

I only want to know theopening image for a new project. I don’t want to know anything else, so I canfollow the wanton and clumsy process of discovery. To me, that’s one of thegreat pleasures of being an author. I feel very lucky to spend my life writingabout the confusions of being alive. So long as we bring an open heart to thebook, that will usually inspire a reader to bring her own open heart.

5 - Are public readingspart of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer whoenjoys doing readings?

I love readings! Being awriter requires us to spend so many hours sequestered away. Book tour is alwaysa treat for me. I like nerding out with my people.

6 - Do you have anytheoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are youtrying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questionsare?

I like to write aboutunanswerable questions. FARSICKNESS is a surrealist road trip story intothe human psyche. It sits in that sweet spot between ALICE IN WONDERLANDand APOCALYPSE NOW.

7 – What do you see thecurrent role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? Whatdo you think the role of the writer should be?

My job is to writehonestly and authentically about what it’s like being alive right now. My jobis to do that without thinking about reader responses, reviews, or social mediafollowers. Those things will impede your capacity to find truth on the page.

8 - Do you find theprocess of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Everyone needs an editor.The trick for the writer is to hone the muscle to tell the difference betweenhelpful versus unhelpful criticism. At the end of the day, it is our name thatwill be on the cover. It has to be our vision, and yet in order to fully realizeit, we need to listen to trusted voices, especially those who tell us thething(s) we don’t want to hear.

9 - What is the best pieceof advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Write what you know, butnever write what you understand.

10 - How easy has it beenfor you to move between genres (fiction to memoir)? What do you see as theappeal?

It’s not only easy in myworld, but it’s necessary. I super dig that “cross talk” between the genres.

11 - What kind of writingroutine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day(for you) begin?

I’m an insomniac. Themagic happens between midnight and five a.m. That is when my imagination is atits wildest.

12 - When your writinggets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word)inspiration?

I’ve never had writer’sblock. I’m always working on multiple projects at once, so if I need a breakfrom one, I just flop over to something else. Making art is a gift, and I do itevery day. I rarely ever miss one. It’s really the only thing that makes senseto me.

13 - What fragrancereminds you of home?

Box wine.

14 - David W. McFaddenonce said that books come from books, but are there any other forms thatinfluence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I’m also a musician, and Ialways listen to loud songs while I write. For last night’s session, it was The Melvins screaming at me. I also write for Hollywood, so I try and interact withas many films and TV shows as I can.

15 - What other writers orwritings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

James Baldwin, Amy Hempel,Denis Johnson. Those are my angels.

16 - What would you liketo do that you haven't yet done?

This new novella of mine, FARSICKNESS,is actually illustrated by my nine year old daughter, Ava. Making art with herwas one of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done—so I can’t wait to seewhat other artistic bursts of high jinks she and I get into…

17 - If you could pick anyother occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do youthink you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I would have made afantastic carnie.

18 - What made you write,as opposed to doing something else?

I came to writing inreaction to music. I was tired of playing in bands, relying on other people toexpress myself creatively. When I write, I don’t need anything except myimagination and my damage.

19 - What was the lastgreat book you read?

I just read Kevin Barry’s NIGHTBOAT TO TANGIER and had a blast with it. He is the real deal. His dialoguekills.

20 - What are youcurrently working on?

I sold a TV show to Steven Spielberg’s company Amblin, and I’m having a blast putting that pilot scripttogether. I can’t wait to share that work with everyone in next couple years.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Jahan Khajavi, Feast of the Ass

 

On the Eve of Our 31stBirthday

We were born to be served—notlike a king,
but Peking duck or a cakescribbled upon
with white frosting: thenumber 31.
Jerking Off to a Turk. Shortpoem in
sugar while a ballad onour beloved’s
sweetness would be a long& wordy one.
The great shame of thisworld is that it can
construct a billion atombombs but it can
not clone a drop of theiryouthful gusto.
They’re teenaged baklava—speakin honey!
Let us peck thepistachios from their
halvah face. Let us bethe old, dirty one.

I’mcharmed by the full-length debut, Feast of the Ass (Brooklyn NY: UglyDuckling Presse, 2023) by Fresno, California-born Iranian-American poet Jahan Khajavi, composed as a lyric collection of swagger, performative gestures and declarativesboth joyous and thoughtful. As the final poem in the sequence “Eve of the Feastof the Ass” offers: “If you were here, Jahan, you would adore the form / the treesin Autumn take. To watch their gold leaves dropping, / to witness in the stillafter a winter storm / a bough burdened with snow & how it heaves, dropping/ finally its load—a heap of white on white.” Described by Vogue (asincluded in Khajavi’s author biography) as composing “wildly amusing & explicitqueer poetry,” the poems in Feast of the Ass range from standalone shortpoems to extended sequences of short bursts that string through the collection,writing overtly queer and sexualized poems that also reference writingretreats, Persian lyrics and the Rubiyat, travel, love and magnolia. In manyways, these are meditative poems with elements of swagger and sex, allowing thewhole package to exist simultaneously, without contradiction. “Step into thisroom as if our confidence / to hear our messy arguments.” the sequence “ProfaneGeometry” offers, “Who cares about / the subjects—be they love or death orcommon sense.” There is such a sense of joyful play in Khajavi’s rhythms alone,providing a delightful cadence in poems such as the opening piece, “An OrganThat Vibrates for You.” The repetition of phrase and rhythm in this particularpoem exists as an anchor, which itself allows other elements their myriaddirections, knowing how grounded they remain, and playing off those two seeminglycontradictory narrative structures. There is something of the rhythm as wellthat provides calm, a comfort; something akin to prayer. As the poem begins:

Roughly everything’s toshare in this room.
Buried treasure here& there in this room.
Goldfish in vases toppingmirrors &
flowers in bowls on eachstair in this room.
A mattress not unlike apeacock throne
with all of its stainslaid bare in this room,
on the floor a rug thatwhen it farts lets
out a little Persian airin this room.
You could see thefurniture if it were
not covered with thickblack hair in this room.
Sitting on stiff wooden shelves,hardbacks by
Baraheni & Baudelairein this room.

 

Emma Wippermann, Joan of Arkansas

 

                HERE BEGIN THE
         PROCEEDINGS AGAINST A
             DEAD WOMANJEANNE

It has pleased divineProvidence
that                  thewoman known as Jeanne

should be taken                        apprehended
by famous warriors

The reputation of thiswoman
has already gone forth

and having thrown off
the bonds                                 of shame

she wore
with an astonishing      and monstrous
                                    brazenness
immodest garments
belonging to the malesex;        moreover

she was not afraid toperform  speak   and
disseminate
many things     she is

guilty               of no inconsiderable offense

LatelyI’ve been going through New York writer Emma Wippermann’s Joan of Arkansas(Brooklyn NY: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2023), a book the author self-describes ontheir website as “a queer drama about climate catastrophe, internet fame, and politicaldivinity.” The title alone is one of the more impressive and striking I’ve encounteredin some time, as the author reworks a contemporary reimagining of the facts andfictions of Joan of Arc and George Bernard Shaw’s 1923 play Saint Joan. Iwonder, also, if the author is aware of the television series Joan of Arcadia(2003-2005)? Structured in four sections—“The Legend of Petit Jean,” “Joan of Arkansas,”“Trial of Jeanne D’Arc: Some Excerpts” and “The Dove”—Wippermann reimagines thespace and time of Joan of Arc across a play script, prose and short lyrics,offering notes such as “PLACE: Domremy, Arkansas / in the increasing Heat / ofthe U.S.A.” and “TIME: The future, now— / or, Election Season / —but with theMedieval logic / of the Hundred Years’ War [.]” Immediately following, Wippermann’s“A NOTE ON STYLE” reads:

If performing, do it witha lot of speed; the spaces and line breaks are emphasis; talk as fast as youcan read. No one waits for anybody to finish speaking. Imagine a fifteenth-centurybrain on amphetamines will full knowledge that the earth is burning.

Wippermann’stext is sharp, smart, fast moving and urgent, cycling across elements ofclimate crisis and the crisis of faith itself, through this blend ofcontemporary and fifteenth-century France, an updated chronicle play on SaintJoan that is chillingly relevant to increased climate shifts. There is anelement of this particular work that feels akin to Wippermann blending SaintJoan with Don’t Look Up (2021), offering an urgency and religiousfervor that fights against a self-destruction that might almost be inevitable.

I woke one morning with asore throat. Smoke from the mountains had flooded down into the valley. The otherside of the river was shrouded and Domremy felt shrunken, diminished by itssudden lack of context. School was cancelled and I stayed in bed.

This feels like the endof the world, I texted Joan.

Except everyone will goback to school in a couple days and act like nothing happened.

As if the world wasn’t literallyon fire.

 

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Jendia Gammon

Jendia Gammon is the author of fantasy, science fiction, and horror novels and short stories. Jendia writes compelling characters within rich world-building.

Jendia conducts workshops and participates in panels on creative writing for international conventions. She holds a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Jendia is also a science writer and an artist. She has also written under the pen name J. Dianne Dotson.

Born in Southern Appalachia, Jendia now lives in Los Angeles with her family. She is married to British author Gareth L. Powell.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first published book, HELIOPAUSE , written under my alt pen name J. Dianne Dotson, was not my first actual book. I had written two novels by the time I was 14 years old. But I didn't submit them. I reused their ideas for THE QUESTRISON SAGA . HELIOPAUSE and its three sequels I published myself, learning a lot about the work involved in being a publisher and hiring contractors to edit and provide cover art for the book. That was great experience. I have two traditionally published books out this year, the cross-genre THE SHADOW GALAXY: A Collection of Short Stories and Poetry , and the upcoming Young Adult SFF adventure, THE INN AT THE AMETHYST LANTERN. Each is both similar and dissimilar to THE QUESTRISON SAGA, and all of them have elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I'm pleased I didn't have to publish those myself!

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I've written all three most of my life. I've always been a writer.
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I write incredibly fast because my work in science journalism was on deadline, so that fire tends to carry over to my fiction as well. I enter knowing exactly where I want to go and I simply write it. I don't have copious notes.
 
4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I work on novels as novels. I write short stories as short stories. But two of my published short stories are carrying forward as two novels.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy them; people usually ask me afterward if I was ever in theater (I wasn't).
 
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I just write stories I like to read. I interweave my life experience with fiction, and I like to speculate on what is possible...or not.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
We wouldn't have a lot of the things we enjoy without writers: songs, TV, books, instructions...humans are natural storytellers and that won't go away.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Oh I love working with editors. Absolutely essential and most welcome.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Carve out the time to write.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (short stories to novels; fantasy to horror to science fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
Very easy. I love to write what I love to read, and I love to read quite a few genres!

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I write whenever I can. I'm busy with a part-time science writing gig and parenting, so I just write in the margins, so to speak, as fast as I can.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
The only reason my writing would stall is something emotional or physical, not because of the story; never that. I never, ever run out of inspiration. My greatest enemy is time!

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Well, I've had a lot of homes. I grew up in East Tennessee, so sometimes I'm reminded by distant woodsmoke, or how the air smells before it snows, or the smell of the TVA lakes, or sawdust from Dad making things when I was a kid. In Los Angeles, I love the smell of a pinon log fire, of tacos, of jasmine everywhere, and of the ocean.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
I am always surrounded by inspiration in all those things and more.  

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Obviously I love the works of my husband (Gareth L. Powell). I'm a big fan of L. Frank Baum, Ray Bradbury, L.M. Montgomery, Robin McKinley, Philip Pullman, Adrian Tchaikovsky, the list goes on and on.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I'd like a massive book deal and a TV or film option!

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I mean, I've worked as a biologist both in ecology and clinical research. So I've been in science for decades. I also do artwork on the side.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I've written since I could hold a crayon. I also learned to make art alongside that. Then I learned science. I like to do many, many things.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I really enjoyed the heck out of Peter McLean's PRIEST OF BONES. I haven't seen a film I've loved in a very long time; mostly I stream TV shows.

20 - What are you currently working on?
Multiple books in multiple genres as well as several short stories.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Lisa Samuels, Livestream

 

Ligature

the water is eating thesun
  chomping it into tiny bits
sea or tune or new design
open tratten rock face
  wet with shadow this side
steel spray lings thecurve
and shaking it the boat
picks up the island fromher
  mouth cage loosening
halfway cross now
scatter opt her brow
  words come in back steel
like arithmetic it’s allover
for the water’s pride
  chomp chomp

Thelatest from poet Lisa Samuels, following titles such as Foreign Native (Black Radish Books, 2018) [see my review of such here] and Breach (Norwich England: Boiler House Press, 2021) [see my review of such here], is Livestream (2023), her seventh poetry book from UK publisher Shearsman Books. The collection is describedon the back cover as “digital capture thrown elsewhere, body fluids that chargebeing and planetary liquid flows. Livestream’s poetry entangles withthose phenomena. The poems erupt, stagger, hold, and reflect as they evokeevents and responses distributed through bodies and ethical borders.” The shortlyrics of Livestream are clustered into quarters: four sections, each ofwhich open with a black-and-white digital image, offering the suggestion thatthe poems within each section respond, or bounce of, said image. These images,according to the table of contents, are titled “floater,” “diorama,”“caliber” and “ganglion,” and the poems that follow suggest abook-length trajectory of responses, quartering this suite of short lyric burstsof rhythm, sound and meaning. “Scouring the planet’s nerve geometry / in thesame speak-shore out of which / some clods turn on the side to rest,” theopening poem, “Gorge time,” reads, “the double-touch veins umwelt / our ofwhich throbs the voice is / over-faint turns on its side to speak [.]”

Samuels’poems, however they might be shaped, begin at a moment and the rush forwardfrom that singular point, headlong into a lyric running across a myriad ofsound, rhythm and reference, very much in the vein of one thought or soundimmediately following another. “Even if a cold / statute really is curative youbelieve it,” the poem “Aquifer” offers, “its closeness to your feeling bearsrelief.” Hers is a lyric populated with physicality from starts and air tolimbs and nervous fictions, allowing meaning to emerge out of what might, atfirst, appear a jumble but is filled with purpose, akin to certain of thelanguage poets, whether Stephen Cain or Meredith Quartermain, allowing a waythrough the collision of sound and meaning into something far larger, just onthe other side. Or, as the poem “Pitch in the dark” ends:

        Living specific nervous fictions
we said    tall and beautiful withers
a long tail for a clearadvantage
airborn    sprecht

Jeannine Hall Gailey, Flare Corona

 

My Life Is an Accident

of DNA and radiation, amillion missed chances
for death to sweep me offmy feet.

Too much of this, notenough of that—
a witch’s spell fortrouble. Red-haired

and scarlet-fevered, bornwith wings and a tail,
an immune system weak asa kitten and a knack

for being in the wrongweeds at the wrong time.
Fascinated with systems,folders, and fossils,

tracking down eachdinosaur and later, delivery systems
for rare anti-virals.Government research into nuclear facilities,

conspiracy theorieslinked to aliens and solar flares.
I was never meant, notplanned, not absorbed into the mainstream,

never meant to survivethis long according to charts and scans.
She’s a miracle, they said,she’s a mutant, she’s a baby born

of a bad seed. Modernliving makes a body bitter, our blood
and flesh filled withhormone disrupters, flame retardants and false

positives. But I’m a hay-maker,a harbinger,
a fateful warning ofthings to come.

Thelatest from Redmond, Washington poet (and that city’s second official poetlaureate) Jeannine Hall Gailey is Flare Corona (Rochester NY: BOAEditions, 2023), a constellation of first-person narrative lyric portraits andself-portraits clustered into four sections—“Post-Life,” “Harbingers,” “BloodMoon” and “Corona”—as she articulates an uncertain future around the weather,ongoing fires and the opening months of the pandemic, and of living withMultiple sclerosis. “You were warned.” she writes, as part of the poem “ToSurvive So Many Disasters,” “You promised / never to return. You set out on ajourney / far from home. You looked out into darkness / and saw possibility.”Her poems explore layers of complication, both from within and surrounding,simultaneously burning out and refusing to fade away. There are moments inpoems that see powerful lines occasionally buried, but Gailey writes from the centreand frin all sides of each of these ongoing crises, offering her lyric as a wayto document what has happened, what is happening, what might still behappening. “Under the mountains,” she writes, as part of the short poem “ThatSummer,” “the earth tried to shake us off. / The oldest oak trees fell, /people sheltered and burned in swimming pools, / the screams of horses in theair.” She speaks of climate crisis and its ongoing traumas, as the poem ends: “Wewere tied to a troubled earth. / You said it was too late to leave anyway.”