12 or 20 (second series) questions with Matthew James Jones
Matthew James Jones is apoet, novelist, storyteller and veteran who has published in Arc, F(r)iction,and many other places. His novel, Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures,is forthcoming from Double Dagger Books. Today, Matt writes and teaches inParis: leadership at the Écolemilitaire and creative writing at SciencesPo. He edits prose at TheWrath Bearing Tree, co-hosts the WriteTime workshop, and organizes fitnessenthusiasts who use trees as barbells: the Log Club. Subscribe for a free wordgiftand track his path.
1 - How did your first book or chapbook changeyour life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does itfeel different?
I remember my chapbook, White Flowers and Landmines,which I published at In/Words Press back in 2014. Like every early publicationor reading, the chapbook was a green light from the universe to keep creating.I was still in the military then – stable job, good pension, despite the oddchance of dying in a fireball. Even after coming home from war, it requiredcourage to transition into writing, so precarious.
It took me a decade, years of therapy, countless poems, a fewkilometres of journalling, to process what I’d seen, and distil it into myupcoming book. In both works, I wanted to write to write something that washalf light and half shadow. Like then, I’m still an old garment, well-worn,stained.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposedto, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Easier to write a poem on long watches at sea, than to keep awhole book straight in the mind. But these lines have always been blurry forme, since I like a poem with a story, and prose that sparkles. Zoom out –everything is storytelling: a dress, a painting, a body. Especially a body.
3 - How long does it take to start any particularwriting project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slowprocess? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or doesyour work come out of copious notes?
The only time I’ve written an entire book, without discarding50,000 words and mashing my face on the keyboard, was when I planned eachscene, systematically. Then it was a question of discipline.
Sometimes the poems came near fully formed – I was the meremidwife. Other times I edited until they were either fixed or irrevocablybroken.
I read; I research; I sing in the shower. Writers are justmagpies building nests. I remember on basic training polishing boots. Withprose, after ten or more coats of polish, you can finally see your smilereflected.
4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usuallybegin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into alarger project, or are you working on a "book" from the verybeginning?
A poem begins with a feeling. Sometimes there’s an imageconnected. Sometimes that image is captured in words, one line that circlesround with the addictive quality of a television jingle, or crack. Pull theearworm out with tweezers. Splatter it.
A book begins with themes. Since every character is a puppetof the psyche, universal themes connect us to others, bring us beyond the ego.We may not know the themes at first. We may confuse trauma for themes. On onelevel I believe that writing is a path to healing the self. On another level, Iknow a lot of broken writers, caught in their own mazes.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter toyour creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Public readings were how I reminded myself I wasn’t justscreaming into a hole in the sand. I was an extrovert caught in an introvert’spassion. On the stage, you can see when a line works, or when a piece flops.Starved for attention, you might like the backrubs that come after a strongperformance. In time you’ll learn to bluff lines that don’t work, with thestrength of your voice alone – like a pop musician. Finally, you’ll be teachingpublic speaking to business professionals, and you’ll move an entire classroomto tears by reading a recipe for pizza dough. Accept at last the voice is justanother lie, but it’s one you’ll keep on telling.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behindyour writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?What do you even think the current questions are?
For Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures it was alwaysthe theme of dehumanization that drove me. Not only the dehumanizing quality ofthe drones themselves (the technological distance, the blurry cameras, the wayit all felt like a video game) but a hierarchy that deliberately blurredresponsibility for “strikes” and watered down the language itself. That’s howhuman beings became “targets.” Unlike the many victims of drone warfare, thewords we killed could be brought back to life. I wasn’t actually a machine theway they said; the language spills off the page because it must.
7 – What do you see the current role of thewriter being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think therole of the writer should be?
Canary in the mine. A sensitive satellite, pointed at outerspace. Jeremiads. Someone to scream “the sky is falling” when the sky isfalling. People who dream hard, who grew imagination like a muscle. People whodance on the rooftops as the meteors crash. Tricksters, pranksters, healers,wizards, fools.
8 - Do you find the process of working with anoutside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Some of my favourite published pieces achieved their finalstate through the help of insightful editors who pushed me. My best editorswill not be bluffed by half-assed efforts, even as I bluff myself. Working asan editor was one of the ways I sought to grow in craft – I think it’s beennearly ten years now. Currently editing prose at Wrath, I deal with manyveterans seeking to cross the same bridge I did. Mostly the game is ego management,like teaching, like learning a language, like marriage. I ask questions thatare actually statements: a bit more showing here? For grammar, I allowsarcasm to do its work: are these two hyphens masquerading as a dash?Writers wonder how I got like this: your quotation marks are not curlyenough. Or, you’ve added a double space here when a single suffices.They say I’m pedantic; I say every religion needs priests.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard(not necessarily given to you directly)?
“Don’t be ashamed of your monster.” CM Taylor, at a writingconference in York.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move betweengenres (poetry to fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
I co-host The WriteTimeWorkshop with an American writer, GraceBialeckie, held monthly on Zoom. Here, and in the creative-writing classesI teach in Parisian universities, I prescribe poetry to prose writers, andprose to poets, like medicine. In terms of the study of craft, one has much tolearn from the other, on the level of the line and beyond.
Pragmatically? In terms of writing for the marketplace?Sometimes, it chafes. Looking for blurbs for my novel, I quickly realized Imostly knew poets in Canada, though there were a stalwart few who helped me. Interms of grant applications, it can be problematic to cut a wide swathe throughart: some grants will only consider you a poet, for example, if you’vepublished ten paid poems, but what if you’ve published eight, and a handful offiction short stories, two chapbooks, and a few creative non-fiction?
Awkwardly, there is usually someone behind a desk who gets tochoose which one of us is an artist. Grant writing is where the rubber meetsthe road. Still, being awarded a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for Predators, Reapers and Deadlier Creatures, was a life-changing, maybelife-saving moment that arrived just as I giving up on art, on the cusp oftrading in my fountain pen for an ugly tie, and grinding my way towardscubicle-death.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend tokeep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Writing is one of several daily disciplines that alsoincludes cardio, weights, French training, reading, and wrestling Clawdia. Itry to write every day for at least an hour, though a book will occupy morethan this, particularly in the editing phase. Sometimes I’ll work on a poem, orwrite a beautiful spam for my mailing list. Other times I’ll journal. Whateverwe can do to preserve sanity will help us make art in the long run. Tragically,these daily disciplines have to contend with a full workday, editing, a sociallife, a love life, making healthy food, visa drama, and domestic chores. I usedto say, “A writer is someone who writes every day.” Now I say, “Do your best.”
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do youturn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Usually the biggest issue for me is too much money-work orlife drama. For example, this term I’ve refused a few teaching gigs, knowingI’d need more time for marketing the book and writing the follow-up. Burnout,heartbreak, death in the family: all provoke a return to self care. Therapy.Reading for pleasure. Walking in nature. A return to the garden of friendshipswith roots of trust, mutual respect, and laughter. Slide into the tub andscrape the callouses from your heels with a stone.
It’s normal to turn inward when we’re in pain. Sometimes weuse our skills to entertain others, but it’s OK to use them to frantically holdonto ourselves. Stop running from the shame, and feel it, I’d say. Or, thisdry spell is nothing a little loneliness won’t fix.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Boiled cabbage
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books comefrom books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whethernature, music, science or visual art?
All of these, definitely, and add television, movies, videogames, bodybuilding, conversations with artists, bathtub stains in the shape ofJesus, the sound of a cat chasing a pen lid at three in the morning when youdesperately need to sleep. No matter your inspiration, the key is watchingclosely, with an aware mind, not distracted, not anaesthetized, to be presentin a full and honest way, even if excruciating.
15 - What other writers or writings are importantfor your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Constantly exploring in prose: just read Percival Everett’s Erasure. Working on Nafkote Tamirat’s The Parking Lot Attendant. I’d liketo read the latest Rushdie, after the stabbing. Salman, if you’re reading this,let’s get a coffee.
I meet multi-disciplinary artists in Paris through a varietyof not-for-profit associations. Sometimes I read books on craft. Sometimes afamous writer. More and more frequently, people I know. I take inspirationwatching writers develop in workshop. I take inspiration from the many veteranswith whom I interact, at the ecole militaire, at The Wrath-Bearing Tree,or my publisher, Double Dagger Books. Every writer must find his/her people.And while we veterans might all be murderous scum, even among killers there isan underlying honour code, and shared principles of leadership, that invoketrust. We also always show up on time.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven'tyet done?
Take if from someone who spent his twenties well overthree-hundred pounds: part of us will always be ruled by the unlived life. Iwanted so hard to be beautiful, desired. That’s how I became the magician whoseonly trick was to transform. I’ve been all over the world and I’ve drank asmuch of the cup of life as I could without drowning. Seems like everything Ilearned was the hard way. Seems like I was always a train stuck on the tracksof trauma, or a ping pong batted back and forth from one unlived life toanother. Peter Pan’s crocodile ticks because it ate the clock – an easymetaphor of mortality – but perhaps we have finite heartbreaks, too. So long aswe are ruled by internal forces we don’t understand, we will bruise ourselvesand those around us. The next journey is inward; all I need is peace.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation toattempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would haveended up doing had you not been a writer?
Even in the military, bosses would eventually figure out thatI had certain skills and would shape the job to exploit them – this is how Ibecame the personal editor/ass-wiper of several high-ranking officials. Wecan’t escape who we are. Moving forward, beyond books, perhaps I’ll chase amore perfect artform, a Gesamtkunstwerk,that incorporates visual art, fashion, dance, architecture, music, writing,poetry. Add tactics, strategy, avant-garde forms of storytelling… looks like myfuture will be to write video games. Any why not? I’m not snobby about themedia, and it might lend some stability; see my above answer about peace.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doingsomething else?
I did do something else. Many other things. But the boomerangkept coming back to my hand, as it does for everyone: “what do I do with mybrain?”
19 - What was the last great book you read? Whatwas the last great film?
It seems a good time for a shout out to Ottawa’s own, DavidO’Meara, newly embarked into the world of prose after writing and publishing alot of exquisite poetry. His book, Chandelier,will make you cry and hug your parents.
For films, let me recommend a French classic that I watchevery Christmas: Le Pere Noel est une ordure,” translating to “Santa Claus isgarbage,” but named for English audiences: “Santa Claus is a stinker.” This isthe only true story written about Christmas: depression, loneliness, suicide,alcoholism, murder.
20 - What are you currently working on?
After teaching leadership for five years in France’s ecolemilitiare, I’d like to assemble my thoughts (and thousands of conversationswith some extremely impressive meta-humans) into a book on leadership. Set inthe Parisian bohemia. Rooted deeply in the body, with the edges blurring intoFrench. Long-suffering English-Second-Language students lay siege to anentrenched bureaucracy. Soldiers become artists and artists become soldiers.Golden glints the rooftops in fair Paris; the rats gorge on day-old croissantand cheese. Skeleton armies animate and crawl from the catacombs. A cynicalParisian smokes a cigarette that never burns low.
