tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2788727720906682582024-03-14T02:39:40.640-07:00STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIASTARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-12522382567343276432011-10-05T20:21:00.000-07:002011-10-05T20:23:58.983-07:00FEATURE: JENMARIE DAVIS, SPACETIME<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwq3J2xrLSrr-B7VIxsC3yK0TI02Xm8XWkcBacyFXN_le71cqUYJRpWqzc3ddFxzfkF5Zs7K4ZNK6X5n3TePx7D31WUOy93ZZPgzprcxG9fCqtUn4JYH5y-jaohyphenhyphenejOZa4zFJb4F6a20/s1600/jenmariestar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwq3J2xrLSrr-B7VIxsC3yK0TI02Xm8XWkcBacyFXN_le71cqUYJRpWqzc3ddFxzfkF5Zs7K4ZNK6X5n3TePx7D31WUOy93ZZPgzprcxG9fCqtUn4JYH5y-jaohyphenhyphenejOZa4zFJb4F6a20/s1600/jenmariestar.jpg" /> </a></div> JenMarie Davis is co-founder of Fact-Simile Editions<br />
& Press, & an amazing visionary.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">from <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Origin's Glow</span></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">by JenMarie Davis</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In outer space, there’s a fabric</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">of sympathetic atoms some-</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">when. This is the homeward wander.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The whole cosmos contracts within</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">your insides. Consciousness twists towards</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">a phenomenal point. Unwind</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">it. The universe rests here, in you.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Your body begins to black hole. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Deutch Garamond SSi; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Deutch Garamond SSi","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">I have been thrilled ever since learning from fellow Philadelphia poet Kim Gek Lin Short that JenMarie Davis & Travis Macdonald were moving to our fair city. In my opinion, these two stellar poets have it right on the mark with their amazing Fact-Simile Editions Magazine & Press. They have created a space for poetry of this millennium to shine & breathe. They continually feature some of the best poets writing today – thus, they contribute widely to contemporary poetry. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Deutch Garamond SSi; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Deutch Garamond SSi","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Beyond the magazine & press, they also create Poetry Trading cards, which are lovely, portable, hand-held objects depicting some of today’s most cherished poets. Recently, they created a trading card of one of my favorite living humans, CAConrad. These trading cards, along with their magazine & the beautiful chapbooks they create, make poetic art a lovely thing that one can hold in the hand, pass around, share, & admire.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Deutch Garamond SSi; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Deutch Garamond SSi","serif"; font-size: 11pt;">Recently it has also come to my attention that the mind of JenMarie Davis seems to bear the hallmark of stellar genius. I think you will agree with me after you read this interview with her. I hope you enjoy it!!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Debrah: JenMarie, after reading your poem, from <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Origin's Glow, </span></i>I am left with a moment of fantasizing about my own self's connection to the greater cosmos -- something I love to think about all day. Thank you for sharing this piece. My day will be better off today now that I've read it. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That this poem is entitled "from" <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Origin's Glow</span></i> makes me surmise that this is a piece from a longer work. Is this the case? If so, what is your longer piece like? What does it do? What are your thoughts about it? I take from the title & much in the piece that it deals with metaphysical concerns -- <i><span style="font-style: italic;">origins -- </span></i>is this the case? Do you have a particular notion about <i><span style="font-style: italic;">origins </span></i>that you are imparting to us? This poem seems so full of <i><span style="font-style: italic;">vision. </span></i>Do you believe in the visionary, &, if so, how do you use the process of vision in your writing of poems?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">JenMarie: First, thank you so very much for including me in Starlight, Philadelphia. I'm delighted and honored and glad that you enjoyed the poem!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This piece is from a suite of poems that I began as an exercise to escape a recursive pattern I'd fallen into with a stuck manuscript. I decided to write one self-contained poem a day with eight lines and eight syllables per line. Why eight? Eight has always been an auspicious number for me--when I imagine this number, it's always pearlescent and seems to contain the entire universe within it--it's an infinity sign standing up. After re-reading the "self-contained" poems and seeing thematic resonance, I've recently decided to swell the suite into a full collection, but by changing the form slightly, from eight lines per poem to ten, which will result in 108 syllables. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This number will probably stick out for anyone with knowledge of Eastern philosophy, as 108 is considered a sacred number. Before I go on, I should admit that I work as the operations manager at an ashram. Although I mostly deal with the same kinds of projects and tasks with which most managers deal, mine come entrenched in a metaphysical atmosphere of ancient yogic tradition. That said, I am often in conversation with others about their metaphysical concerns and relationship of self/Self to the greater cosmos. At the same time, I am also fascinated by physical science and read a lot of science publications, listen to a lot of physics-based podcasts and watch a lot of documentaries about physics. So both of these cosmologies are part of my quotidian thinking and deeply influence my poetics, currently manifesting as these poems. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To be more specific, the collection is an investigation of the spaces where Eastern philosophy and theories and discoveries in physical science parallel, intersect or resonate. In my engagement with these sciences of yoga and physics, I began to notice that yogis can often find parallels to many physics theories and discoveries in the last hundred years in ancient yogic texts. In fact, the Indian government gave a statue of Nataraja, the embodiment of the Hindu god Shiva's cosmic dance of creation and destruction, to CERN, in recognition of the metaphor between Shiva's cosmic dance and the cosmic dance of subatomic particles, a parallel first attributed to physicist Fritjof Capra, author of <i><span style="font-style: italic;">The Tao of Physics,</span></i> which has become a great source text for this project. The concept of origin and human preoccupation with it found its way organically into all the poems, too, as both sciences explore universal origin. The collection also investigates how language mediates the human relationship with out-of-scale objects--the super-small or super-large, the immaterial and phenomenal. As for the repetition of form? It is born from the necessity of repetition within both yogic tradition and physical science as a path to some revelation or a kind of "attainment" of origin: mantra repetition as a path to enlightenment and repetition of exact experiments to definitive universal truths. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I am drawn to your question of visionary and vision. But I must admit that I immediately think of David Bowie's song in which he sings "waiting for the gift of sound and vision." Every time I hear it, I think of poems, little gifts of sound and vision. This idea of poems as gifts made of these two components tends to stick with me when I write, too. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In short, I do believe in the visionary. Your phrase "process of vision" at once imparts mysticism and procedure, and "visionary" calls forth fancy, imagination, revelation and premonition. I would use all of these to describe my writing process and the atmosphere that I experience when I write. Vision extends beyond sight and into other sensations--as a detection and manifestation of both the phenomenal and immaterial realms, the immaterial realms being the supernatural, which is the immaterial but mentally "seen." Experiencing and being open to all these kinds of vision, for me, provides a richer world in which to translate into poems. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Debrah: I am definitely intrigued by the material of your piece/manuscript. I think poetry-writing along these lines is extremely important, so I am always happy to encounter a poet who works with things like numerology & investigations into the "spaces where Eastern Philosophy & theories/discoveries in physical science parallel." I love especially how this poem begins in outer space, & then ends with the body beginning to "black hole." How, would you say, does the body black hole? What are the connections between the cosmos & one's insides? What is the "homeward wander"?</span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">JenMarie: Thanks so very much, Debrah. I love that you are attracted to the subversion of scale that happens within the poem and the paths of inquiry that manifest. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Why I chose to construct a functional shift with the line "Your body begins to black hole" is, one, to use language that straddles mystical and scientific, and so that the reader asks the question "how does <i><span style="font-style: italic;">my</span></i> (the reader's) body black hole?" So, it's purposefully vague. Yet, there are markers here--"your," "body," and "black hole"--which suggest a phenomenal personal relationship with an extreme and relentless gravitational force that culminates in a supreme and perhaps terminal density. Any "how" that evokes such an effect is, then, how the body may "black hole." For me, my body/mind begins to "black hole" when I enter a very deep level of meditation. Some other experience may evoke that effect for another person. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The "homeward wander" is also somewhat purposefully vague so that its meaning can expand for each reader to develop his or her own path of inquiry. For me, any quests for origin, metaphysical or scientific, are "homeward wanders." Also, to reference the preceding line in the poem, there is a consciousness-theory that states there exists a "fabric of sympathetic atoms" in outer space to where a person's consciousness travels during death and near-death experiences. It's a really attractive idea, this one of a deep space consciousness vault, a kind of "home base" where consciousness waits for its next incarnation. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When relating to the lines beneath it, however, "homeward wander" points towards a speculated effect of understanding primordial universal laws or to enlightenment. What happens when you "arrive home" and realize the hidden truths of the universe, either through a metaphysical or scientific lens? What happens to your body and mind when you internalize that information? How are you different? How is the world around you different? I am interested in these questions because the only <i><span style="font-style: italic;">anticipated</span></i> variable is knowledge and understanding. I say anticipated because of the shocking occurrences in physical science in which observation affects the nature of subatomic particles. But now I am getting off track... </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The cosmos and your insides, on the subatomic level, are made from the exact same stuff, matter from which both are formed would have been compacted and exploded outward during the Big Bang. Your guts and stars are made from the exact same energy and particles and are just arranged differently, compressed to different densities, enacting different properties. The same energy flows through both, yet each expresses that energy differently. And in order to continue to maintain your body, you must take into it matter from the external world--water, air, energy--a process through which these things condense to form your body. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Debrah: I love that your language "straddles the mystic & scientific." My good friend, poet/writer Holly Jean Buck, visited me from Baltimore this past weekend, & she was speaking a lot about just this -- how the quest to make visible the invisible forces of the world ("homeward wanders") led to modern science as we now know it, & how many of the early scientists were like magicians -- identifying invisible things like the periodic table of elements -- how invisible are things like nitrogen & carbon! Yet how much they impact the daily lives of us all! & how we are composed of them! </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">After reading this wonderful poem & discussing with you so many angles of inquiry, I am very interested to know what you are reading that has perhaps inspired this straddling of science & mysticism in your writing. Do you have any particular inspirations of note? I am certainly interested in engaging with a reading list of this nature.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Also, I like your positing of "some-when." Sounds a bit like "somewhere" but also seems like a minute thingness attached to temporality. Tell me more about this very interesting "some-when." </span></span><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">JenMarie: What a gift your conversation with Holly Jean Buck must have been! Yes, the quest to make visible the invisible forces of human perception--isn't that what language is all about? I would love to study the evolution of language as it compares to the evolution of science, philosophy and religion (as these attempt to explain the invisibles). That will be the next round of books to read...</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I'm reading or have recently read <i><span style="font-style: italic;">The Tao of Physics</span></i> by Fritjof Capra, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">The Science of Yoga</span></i> by IK Taimni, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Cosmos</span></i> by Carl Sagan, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">The New Scientific Spirit </span></i>by Gaston Bachelard, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Yann Andrea Steiner</span></i> by Marguerite Duras, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">A Cordiall Water</span></i> by MFK Fisher and lots and lots of physics articles and websites (</span></span><a href="http://physics.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">physics.org</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> has a great database of physics web pages that it hand-picks for you based on your age and knowledge level). Also contemplation articles by Nirmalananda Saraswati (</span></span><a href="http://svaroopavidya.org/Contemplation_Articles.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">http://svaroopavidya.org/Contemplation_Articles.html</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">). And I've been listening to lots of science podcasts. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I love your extrapolation of "some-when." It is mental concept used to evoke temporality and spacetime. I first heard the term used by Carl Sagan to discuss wormholes. There is something wistful in its sound to me that I love, a sorrow and longing to reach a specific place/time in spacetime that exists but is inaccessible to the human body and mind. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
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Debrah: JenMarie, thanks so much for participating in this interview for Starlight, Philadelphia. It has been a delight to speak with you about poems & process, science & imagination. Now for our last question... As this interview is, of course, for Starlight, Philadelphia, could you speak a bit about how you've found your experiences in the Philadelphia Poetry Community so far? It is so wonderful to have you here. I have also enjoyed frequenting the readings that you & Travis have put on so far in Philadelphia. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us here. Do you find the landscape of Philadelphia inspirational? If so, how? If not, what could be done to improve this?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">JenMarie: Thank you so very much again for inviting me to participate in Starlight, Philadelphia, Debrah, and for your kind and loving words! It's been very sweet to engage with you and your marvelous questions! And on to the last one...</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I loved the Philadelphia poetry community for a long time, before I even really knew it. When I lived in New Mexico, I would receive Facebook event invites for all these jaw-droppingly great readings, and nine times out of ten, they were in Philadelphia. Then, Travis and I decided to move to Philadelphia. While the actual move was still several months away, I received very thoughtful welcoming emails from you and many other Philadelphia poets. And once we did move, we continued to be very warmly welcomed and included. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It's this inclusivity that I really love about the poetry community here. And this inclusivity manifests as readings and literary journals and other projects: every member makes spaces for poetry and for one another, such as Starlight, Philadelphia. It's one of the most supportive and sustainable communities I've encountered. There are so many outstanding poets living and working here! Truly amazing, innovative and hard-working writers. I'm blessed to be in the right place at the right time. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">While the writers here provide a massive supply of inspiration, the city inspires, too. All these rivers and bridges! There's a lot of connective tissue here, and circulation, which I appreciate. I journal and diagram a lot, and I think that I've begun to model the movement and architecture of these daily practices after such structures. I'm meditative and a natural lingerer; the city keeps me moving. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">JenMarie Davis co-edits Fact-Simile Editions and builds books from recycled and reclaimed material. She is the author of <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Sometime Soon Ago</span></i> (Shadow Mountain, 2009) and her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Glitterpony</span></i>, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Court Green</span></i>, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Little Red Leaves</span></i>, <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Interim </span></i>and <i><span style="font-style: italic;">Gargoyle</span></i>. </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div>STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-54046884691327870842011-08-30T13:04:00.000-07:002011-08-30T13:05:22.699-07:00FEATURE: TRAVIS MACDONALD, 333333333333333333333333333333<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMOV81YHuhq1lz3wwOjvdZeNUnpgQh0RY6_YCaNdSan7GlngaCHTACra2v-OdQscbFamWtgZOhBPA7gZW3IWHSn-81gCGn8FZIbJOzgtwxP3Cyw0THcvKDd8LXskL2PE1ZsREUu2qhf8/s1600/travis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisMOV81YHuhq1lz3wwOjvdZeNUnpgQh0RY6_YCaNdSan7GlngaCHTACra2v-OdQscbFamWtgZOhBPA7gZW3IWHSn-81gCGn8FZIbJOzgtwxP3Cyw0THcvKDd8LXskL2PE1ZsREUu2qhf8/s1600/travis.jpg" /></a></div> Travis Macdonald co-founded Fact-Simile Press & is an<br />
amazing poet & proceduralist.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">06286208998628034825<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">by Travis Macdonald<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">To have descended from common parents,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">the relation<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">of the ideas involved in it to objects<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">is, on my theory, of equal<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">the stars.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Of these ideas among themselves? It is not<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">of the heaven to give light upon the earth,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">feel constrained to call the propositions of geometry “true,”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">and of their hybrid offspring it is impossible.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Objects in nature, and these last<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">works of<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">“And” (the evening <i>and</i> the morning) were the<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">ideas. <i>Geometry ought</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">God said, <i>Let the<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature, that<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">high generality,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">and fowl that may fly.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">About a year ago, the founders/editors of Fact-Simile Editions Magazine & Press, Travis Macdonald & JenMarie Davis, moved to Philadelphia, much to the delight of the community here. Travis & JenMarie contribute much to poetry through their endeavors, both with the press/magazine, & with their poems. Look for a Starlight, Philadelphia feature on JenMarie Davis soon -- & while you’re waiting for that, I hope you enjoy this interview with Travis Macdonald. We are lucky to have him among the many talented poets here in Philadelphia. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Travis, I am very excited to engage with you about your poem 06286208998628034825. I suppose for me it's important, before really engaging the text, to ask if this is a conceptual piece, or a mathematical piece, or a piece in which you engage experiments with appropriation. If so, what was your method, & which texts did you use in the creation of this poem? What moved you to use these texts, & to use this type of experimentation? Is there anything akin to alchemy or magic in this process?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Travis: Thanks for inviting me to participate in Starlight Philadelphia. You've gathered a really wonderful and inspiring group of writers so far and I am honored to be in such company. The short answer to this first round of questions is: yes! 3... is a conceptual mathematical experiment in appropriation. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">The long answer goes more like this: I tend to think of my own work in terms of procedure rather than concept. I see conceptual art and literature as existing alongside, if not independent from, its actual enactment or execution. Conceptual writing, it has been said, is in search of a thinkership rather than a readership. The procedural work, on the other hand, is characterized by and entirely dependent on the process of creation that it sets forth. While, like any good literature, it should arise from and engender thought, poetry has the ability to contain so much more than just ideas. Logopoeia, after all, is only one third of the poetic elemental equation. In fact, I would venture to say that the other two thirds, music (melopoeia) and form (phanopoeia) are more important for my particular poetic tendencies and proceduralism at large.</span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">As an avid reader, I guess it comes down to the fact that I have little to no interest in a book that can’t, won’t or shouldn’t be “read.” For instance, while I can appreciate the literary and artistic conceptual gestures of Kenneth Goldsmith’s “uncreative writing”, in my own work, I labor under the assumption that the words I write, compose and compile will somehow find their way (today, tomorrow or someday in the distant future) into one or more human eyes, ears and/or mouths. If only for the fact that I very much enjoy holding the words of others in this way. </span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">But back to the piece at hand: <i>3...</i> is composed solely of language borrowed in direct numerical sequence from <i>The Book of Genesis</i>, Charles Darwin’s <i>On the Origin of Species </i>(Chapter 8 - Hybridism) and Albert Einstein’s <i>Special and General Theory of Relativity</i>. Each poem is comprised of individual lines whose word count corresponds precisely with the relative decimal point of pi (3.14159265 etc.) to its first one thousand places. When drawing from each source, I made a point of never exceeding 3 consecutive lines from any given text and, even then, only in cases where the process of natural selection demanded. While the original language of each line is preserved, each selection was re-punctuated for the purposes of the new narrative I was working to create.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">I think there is most definitely an alchemical, transformative process at play in this piece. As is the case with much of my work, the form/procedure came first or, at least it was the seed from which the idea grew. I had an idea that I would like to write a poetic series structured around the decimal places of pi. At first, I tried composing using these numerals as syllabic counts but soon abandoned this method as overly restrictive. I began working, instead, using the numerals as a line-by-line word count restraint, composing my own “original” poetry into the vessel that pi provided. However, this process too soon felt hollow and unfulfilling. It wasn’t until I read a poetic play of Elizabeth Guthrie’s called <i>Dub - Notes - to Refrain (from Condition) </i>written in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that the form I was after began to take a more definite shape. [Ms. Guthrie’s text was later published in <i><a href="http://requitedjournal.com/index.php?/projects/elizabeth-guthrie/">Requited</a></i> though you can’t necessarily tell that it was written in Excel by looking at the final version.]<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">This piece got me thinking about the possibilities of the spreadsheet as poetic vessel. The mechanical organizing structure presented by the spreadsheet seemed to beg to be filled with something pre-existing. Looking back to the “3” that precedes the decimals I was dealing with, I felt the need to braid or merge three disparate or conflicting texts into a single document. After this basic form had coalesced, it was almost as if the necessary texts chose themselves...After all, what could be more seemingly disparate or conflicting than the oppositional creation myths of Darwin and Genesis? As for Einstein, I felt that there needed to be a textual referee of sorts mediating between these two fiery polemics. And what better connective/disruptive tissue than the cold hard math of <i>The Special and General Theory of Relativity</i>? Of course, as disparate as these three texts may seem at the surface, at their core they are each actually approaching the same task of explaining creation...just from very different angles.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">I feel as if this is an already long-winded answer and we’re just getting started so I will try to tie up with the question of magic with the following excerpt from the Author’s Note: </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">π</span><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;"> (pi or 3.141593) is a transcendental number, which suggests, among other things, that no finite sequence of algebraic operations on integers (powers, roots, sums, etc.) can be equal to its value. Consequently, its decimal representation never ends or repeats. It divides in endless variation.</span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">That, to me, is just about as magic as it gets.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Very interesting procedure. You are definitely using texts that have inspired & created avenues of debate regarding existence & human life for many. I notice the repetition of the term "geometry" in this poem. Does your mathematical procedure present a sort of poetic geometry? Also, I greatly enjoyed your discussion of how conceptual writing is "in search of a thinkership rather than a readership," & that you note that you hope that your work "will somehow find their way...into one or more human eyes, ears, &/or mouths." How do you anticipate that this poem might enter someone's mouth?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Travis: I work as a copywriter for a marketing agency just north of Philadelphia. A colleague of mine asked me recently about the best way to explain a 3-frame rotating website concept to a particularly difficult client with no appreciable sense of humor or creativity. This conversation inevitably turned to “the rule of 3,” a principle of pattern recognition commonly utilized by poets, politicians and comedians alike. </span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">The rule of 3 essentially states that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying or more effective than any other number of things. There are examples of this basic geometry extending back throughout the history of western storytelling and literature (the holy trinity, three blind mice, three little pigs, etc.). I think it stems from the fact that our brains are somehow hardwired to more easily consume information written in groups of threes. If I were to examine this phenomenon further, I would venture the explanation that a series of 3 is the absolute minimum number of elements necessary to illustrate a narrative progression in which tension is created, a pattern is established and the reader/audience’s expectations are either reinforced or subverted. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">In geometric terms, of course, a triangle is the most basic shape, containing the fewest number of lines necessary to enclose an area of any size. Is it a coincidence that it is also the sturdiest, most structurally sound two-dimensional object?</span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">The word “geometry” in 3... is taken entirely from Einstein’s contribution to the project. It seems fitting to me that this organizing theme or concept should come from The Special and General Theory of Relativity since it was this text that, to my mind, was necessary for connecting the rather divergent angles of the other two and enclosing the resulting combinatorial narrative.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">I think the rule of 3 can also be applied, albeit in a somewhat different manner, to the second part of your question. While I hesitate to make any generalized assumptions about the internal experience of others, for me the act of reading takes place entirely in the interaction between the those three primary sense-orifices listed above (eyes, ears and mouth). This interplay of the senses is most obvious, of course, when reading aloud: one takes information from the page through one’s eyes, translates that information internally and channels it out through the mouth in the form of speech. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">On the surface, it may seem as if the act of hearing or listening takes place passively on the part of the audience and falls outside of the domain of the poet or speaker. But if you’ve ever heard a deaf person speak or read aloud then you know full well that our ears are responsible for controlling all sorts of modulations in tone and volume that result in the basic music of the human voice. (Side note: The poet Ilya Kaminsky is a beautiful living example of this phenomenon. I encourage anyone who has not heard him read his poetry aloud to seek out a recording or, better yet, a live performance!) For my own part, even when reading silently to myself, I am fully aware not only of the sound of the words in my mind’s ear but the taste or feel of every letter and phrase as it rolls around the echo chamber of my mouth. It is my goal as a writer and arranger of words to enter the sensory-corporeal forms of other human beings in this way. In fact, I can think of no greater honor or privilege.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Travis, these are such marvelous lines of thought. To encounter "3" does seem like a sacred positioning. We say that so many things happen in threes -- deaths, births, marriages -- these rites of passage of lives & culture. There is the magical Three-fold Law, Gurdjieff's triune nature of Endlessness, & Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Plato said that the four elements were composed of triangles, & his triangles were akin to atoms. Such power in this numeral. Is this also why your poem has three stanzas?</span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">In this poem, as the words are taken from your three source texts using mathematical experimentation, would you say that you, the poet, Travis Macdonald, find yourself in the actual synapses and/or ideas that a reader might garner from this poem? Or would you say that you, Travis Macdonald, the person & poet, exist only in the process? For instance, do you believe that we have descended from common parents? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Travis: I really like Plato’s concept of triangular atoms! I had never heard that before. We’ve been raised on this idea that the universe is made up of spheres, (from the macro to the micro) but it’s not as if any of us has ever seen an atom up close...so why not triangles? In any case, yes, 3 does seem to be a powerful presence in the human consciousness experience. The alleged center of that consciousness is, of course, made up of three parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the brain stem...maybe that has something to do with it? However, I’m afraid the fact that this particular poem has 3 stanzas is merely a cosmic coincidence in the decimal places of pi as this selection of twenty places just so happened to contain 3 zeros.</span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Despite the constraint of the form and process of appropriation that created these poems, there is most certainly an authorial presence at work. The nature of that presence is a little bit more difficult to pinpoint within the binary you’ve presented: I’m not sure that I could make any definite distinction between whether it is contained in the poems or the process that gave rise to them. In fact, for me (and perhaps this is a tenet of proceduralism itself) the process and its results are co-creational forces. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">However, in an effort to avoid being completely vague and evasive, let me say that I think your characterization of that presence as synaptic is particularly apt since the first level of authorial control or manipulation took place in the space between each individual line. At each of these intertextual junctures, I was presented with a choice between 3 predetermined outcomes. The challenge in composing these poems then became finding the new thought that wound through and between each text to formulate a narrative that was both composed of and completely separate from each individual thread. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">The second level of authorial control came in the form of re-punctuating the resulting text to further draw out and claim ownership of that new narrative. The third and final level was in the curation of each individual poem in the series: In order to provide some much needed variance while honoring the 10 numeral nature of the decimal places themselves, each poem was arranged in a series of lines divisible by 10.</span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">All procedure aside, by repeating it over and over again to myself, I’ve learned to believe in everything I’ve ever written. Especially the contradictions. If Travis Macdonald the person and poet can be said to exist anywhere, it’s probably there.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Travis, thanks for this response. I believe in all you've written as well, & am happy that it's on the earth for us all to enjoy & learn from. I am also happy that you & JenMarie moved to Philadelphia roughly a year ago, & for all that both of you have contributed to the Philadelphia Poetry Community thus far. Which brings me to the final question. As this interview is for Starlight, Philadelphia, what are your thoughts & feelings about the Poetry Community here so far? What brought you to Philadelphia? Do you feel your poetry or thoughts on poetry have been influenced at all yet by the city's cultural influences? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Travis: Thank you! I’ve been putting together some notes toward a proceduralist manifesto of sorts and this dialogue has really helped me formulate some new and unexpected avenues of thought in that pursuit. As for Philadelphia, I know for a fact that I speak for both JenMarie and myself when I say we are incredibly happy to be here. Hard to believe it’s almost been a year already! </span><span style="font-family: LucidaGrande; font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Somewhere around July 4th of 2010 we were sitting in our little adobe home in Santa Fe...missing family, feeling poetically isolated and really fed up with our respective jobs. We decided it was time to make a change. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Philadelphia just seemed like the obvious choice. Jen’s family lives a little bit west of the city and mine is a short drive away (compared to NM) in upstate NY. More importantly, we’d been hearing a lot of really great things about the amazing poetry scene developing here and that was something we never really found in Santa Fe. It seems like the writers who go to the desert do so to be alone and we were craving contact and exchange. Not only have we discovered that thriving community we were searching for here in Philadelphia, we’ve also found really great jobs that we love and a cozy little twin up in Mt. Airy. All in all, it feels like home in ways that the west never did. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">That said, I don’t know if the city has really found its way into my poetry just yet. I’m not really a “poet of place” in the tradition of Olson or WCW to begin with...but more than that, I almost don’t feel as if the city’s given me its permission just yet. I’ve encountered so many great writers here who do a truly superb job of speaking for, through and into her streets and secret spaces (CAConrad, Frank Sherlock, Ryan Eckes, Kevin Varrone and Jacob Russell to name just a few) that I don’t think I could ever really add to that communal body of work...at least not until I’ve lived here for another decade or more. Or maybe the right form just hasn’t found me yet. I’ll keep you posted…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Thanks, Travis, for these insights & thoughts. We are lucky to have you in Philadelphia.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: DeutchGaramondSSi; font-size: 11pt;">Recent books by Travis Macdonald include: <i>BAR/koans </i>(Erg Arts 2011), <i>Hoop Cores </i>(Knives, Forks and Spoons Press 2011), <i>Sight & Sigh </i>(Beard of Bees 2011), <i>N7ostradamus</i> (BlazeVox Books 2010), <i>Basho's Phonebook </i>(E-ratio 2009) and <i>The O Mission Repo [vol. 1] </i>(Fact-Simile Editions 2008). Other poetry and prose has appeared in print, online and elsewhere. He works long hours in advertising and lives happily in the Mt. Airy area of Philadelphia with fellow Fact-Simile Editions co-founder JenMarie Davis.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 5.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: -.5in; margin-top: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
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</div>STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-79746142012644971242011-08-20T11:10:00.000-07:002011-08-20T11:27:45.095-07:00FEATURE: JACOB RUSSELL, SPIRIT STICK!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbObBCNGSDDd9jJ2JlIb132ZTUKTzTmVRCv0Y0WhcMOqsFOSWE8kf4QQSVGyuyYHr4_TfuvPt7Or6bPY-Ubd6NomW8T1LxhrCY39OTbRxbCNr2c6KthUXkvusypCuo1SOs9SF8i2jXkqo/s1600/jacobrus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbObBCNGSDDd9jJ2JlIb132ZTUKTzTmVRCv0Y0WhcMOqsFOSWE8kf4QQSVGyuyYHr4_TfuvPt7Or6bPY-Ubd6NomW8T1LxhrCY39OTbRxbCNr2c6KthUXkvusypCuo1SOs9SF8i2jXkqo/s320/jacobrus.jpg" width="184" /></a></div> Jacob Russell stands with his Spirit Stick.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">As music (is)</span></b> ...</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">By Jacob Russell<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">the organization of sound in space <i>dance</i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"> a single leaf</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">turning on a winter branch or motionless</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">the arrangement of Things</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"> on a kitchen shelf</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">white beans in a glass jar, rice</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">basket of onions -- three of them, brown</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"> skins peeling</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">whole wheat penne, rigatoni</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">boxes </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">yellow & green, oatmeal, raisins</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"> spices -- <i>name them, name them</i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">taste touch see</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">listen</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">the cats tongue</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">circles</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">the water in a white clay dish</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">Yes, there are those moments</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">waking, not quite awake the world unreal but for the cat at your feet</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">sexual dreams unfurl like flags on a windless midnight</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">he lets you know he needs to be fed</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">uncurl the dream from the dream</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">body & mind are not two</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">things you leave behind will find you</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">another day another night</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">feed the cat</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">feed the cat</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">In Philadelphia, we are lucky enough to be graced by the presence of the esteemed Jacob Russell, who enacts a kind of shamanism whenever he enters the room. He carries with him a spirit stick – a walking stick he decorates with found materials – you can see it in the above image of him. He blesses poetry readings with his spirit stick at request, & you can feel an ancient energy enter the room when he does this. It sends a positive charge for the reading that can be felt in the surrounding air. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Not every poetry community has a shaman with a spirit stick. We are very fortunate.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Beyond this, Jacob writes amazing poems, & a long one that is a poem to the end of his days. This is an inspiring gesture – to write poems until the air & the breath & the world around us… This is a sacred act, a political act, an act of self-respect, a spiritual act. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Jacob also invigorates the landscape of Our City by creating what he calls “Poem Trees.” His Poem Trees can be found in South Philadelphia, literal street-trees decorated with poems & beautiful objects he finds along the way. Thus, he breathes a human poetic spirit into these beautiful trees that line Passyunk Avenue, & as people pass the trees, they come into contact with the poetic – inviting people to participate in the realms of the poetic while they are taking a casual stroll is much needed, & Jacob has accomplished just this.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I hope you enjoy this interview with Jacob Russell, the Shaman of the Philadelphia Poetry Community, whose energy & vitality inspires all he meets.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Jacob, I am excited to discuss your poem "As music (is)..." & your ideas/thoughts about poetry in general. This is a very intriguing piece of poetry, as your work tends to be. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I am interested in your title. Does the title "As music (is)..." suggest that one should engage with the musicality/sonic quality of this piece? Do you feel that poetry ought to engage a certain rhythm? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Jacob: “As music (is)” This isn’t really a title. It’s a convention I’ve adopted for what I envision as a work-in-progress without closure: think of Bach’s Art of the Fugue, which he worked on till his death… how it ends mid-contrapunctus, the voices trailing off one by one, like a last breath of life . I don’t even think of it as a poem, but rather a single entry in a longer poem, “Chloe,” itself but one chapter or ‘rondo’ in the second book of <i>Poem to the End of My Day</i>. Because I find it easier to let the poems explain themselves, here’s the first & fourth entry of book one: <i>Chronic, Chronos, Kairos.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Sunday, February 6, 201<a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=278872772090668258&postID=7974614201264497124" name="593960039151516231"></a>1</span><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Every poet worthy of the title</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 1.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">…writes but one poem in a lifetime. Not little framed verbal icons to inscribe in the margins of soon to be forgotten books, but a single tottering edifice of found things held precariously together with spit and sperm and shit and blood--inviting readers to enter, at the risk of contagion--an unholy order of life without rule or law, but that which it creates for itself<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">February 7, 2011<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">As all time past is present… <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 1.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">... the date of origin of any of these pieces is of no matter in determining the sequential order which is to say <i>immaterial</i> & such significance as one may find by the assignment of any one occasion to a place on the calendar is paradoxically a-temporal as are all days of <br />
celebration <br />
mourning <br />
carnival <br />
commemorations of births & deaths<br />
the numbers assigned to these being entirely <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 1.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">beside the point</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"> & without meaning outside the delusional waking dream we have come to accept as <i>history</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 1.5in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Kairos/Chronos</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Each entry is on a single page. The first line in bold & in a larger font, followed by the rest of the poem indented 5 spaces. The dates may indicate the time of initial composition, a remembered incident or both. Where there is no date, and the first line doesn’t begin upper case, it’s either a critical insertion (usually in prose block format) or, as above, to indicate a more intimate continuation from the preceding thought &/or point in time.. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">If you’ll indulge me here—there are some key ideas in the two pages proceeding ‘as music (is) that I’d like to follow up on.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">January 2011<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I’ve been thinking a lot about sparrows</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"> ...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">so many sparrows in my poems there’s really a lot of them<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I could do a book -- a book of sparrows<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">they’re not real, of course <i>word-sparrows</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">real<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">in the way words are<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">---------------<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">how words need sparrows</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"> ...</span><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">... sparrow-words, singular or plural<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">in a way sparrows don’t <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">a one-way street<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">strictly unrequited<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">is this what happens when we<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">fall in love<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">----------------<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">with the world</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"> ...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Things</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">of the world<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">go on about their business<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">with or without us<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">another winter searching for seeds<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">another spring<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">fledglings spreading begging <o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">for everything we cannot give<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">for all <i>Things</i> lost<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><i><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Word-Things</span></i></b><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">… but let me get back to your question: “… Does the title "As music (is)..." suggest that one should engage with the musicality/sonic quality of this piece? Do you feel that poetry ought to engage a certain rhythm? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">First thing… ‘should’ & ‘ought’ are gatekeeper words—a language I’m allergic to! … but an interesting question. I think I have a pretty good sense of verbal rhythm & I used to indulge this—open metrical patterns, internal rhyme, assonance, alliteration—and that still sneaks in, but it’s something I tend to resist. Rhythm is enchanting… & though I like enchantment, I want to avoid the sort that lulls the brain to sleep—that replaces or submerges the inclination to think. There are many kinds of verbal rhythm, of course. I love what Ryan Eckes does with natural speech—how his poems keep you awake, full of little surprises. That’s something I’ll remember when I feel the lines falling too easily into metrical ebb and flow—jerk myself back into something closer to conversational speech, or deliberately awkward lurches… like a Twyla Tharp dance piece! I’m more attuned to tempi—alternating allegro adagio largo, controlling the reading speed, easing & impeding the flow… so yes, I guess music <i>is</i> important to me, and structurally as well. I think of the sections or chapters in <i>Poem to the End of My Days</i> as ‘rondos,’ a musical form of at least three iterations on a major theme, interspersed with subordinate themes and motifs—each of which is progressively developed as contrapuntal ideas or themes, each rondo introducing new ‘voices’ or taking up old ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: I am also drawn to what this poem does to the senses. Towards the middle of the poem, after describing some lavish kitchen items, you say “taste touch see / listen,” which almost feels like an invitation to the reader to pay attention to the senses. Do you think poetry can improve the use of one’s senses?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Jacob: Here’s where we get to <b><i>Word-Things! </i></b>I’ve thrown some chum on the water with the quoted entries above… so ask me about <i>word-Things! <o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Okay! Was your response saying asking me about word-things your response to the question about the senses? I am confused...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Jacob: I’m confused too, but I never let that get in my way. This question was more difficult to answer than I anticipated. You asked about the shift from a list of concrete nouns, stuff on the shelf over the counter where I work, to a line made up of words of sense “<i>taste touch see/ listen</i>, words that might be read either as nouns, or verbs in the imperative mood (exclamation marks implied… another reason I prefer to do without punctuation of closure: periods, question marks, exclamation marks, the better to compound ambiguiation)—so that’s a good place to start. What I think happens there, what I had in mind—was to jar the reader out of any sense they might have that this list was about <i>image making</i>, that it was a list of words, not a description, not meant to conjure a picture—and if it did, to shatter the picture-window—a call to pay attention, maybe—to whatever happens to be around <i>them</i> at the time (the imperative)—so in that way, this is a call, an invitation to sensual awareness—to attention, without <i>IN</i>tention, as I like to put it. The extended list, then, is a kind of reminder of how full the least incidental glance can be—full of <i>Things</i>, as the poem is full of <i>Word-Things</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Here I find myself on the cusp of something I find deeply fascinating, and have no better way to explore than through writing poetry. I recognize that the voice in the poem has been acting as a sort of tour-guide for me as I wrote the poem, and by extension, for the reader—a tour of the intersection of sense & mind… though they’re not really two things, so “intersection isn’t the best word. <i>Mind</i> has a way of fooling itself, into believing in its own independent existence—seducing Philosophers of a certain stripe--since Plato--into an idealist ontology irreconcilable with our place in the material world, bedeviled as a consequence with an epistemological conundrum—that if you can only know what you hold in mind, you can never affirm the reality of anything <i>outside</i> the mind… the <i>ding an sich </i>that Kant can’t touch (say that with a high-tone Brit accent!). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I feel myself, in my animal life, as a person, in my thinking, in my poetry, so deeply embedded in the material world (& happy to be there!) that I instinctually resist idealist metaphysical claims of any sort--or of the supernatural—which are really a variant form of idealist belief. And yet… by temperament, I’m on the side of the mystics. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I think any poetry worth reading—& certainly, any poetry worth <i>thinking</i> about, begins in contradiction. Not merely <i>logical</i>, but a contradiction at the core of one’s being-in-the- world. …and I still haven’t gotten to <i>Word-Things</i>! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Jacob, please tell me about Word-Things. I would love to learn about these. Also, I am curious about your origination & conceptualization of the Poet Trees. What inspired you to begin making Poet Trees? Are you still making Poet Trees? Where can people find them if so?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Jacob: I call them Poem Trees… but maybe I should think about them as <i>Poet </i>Trees… the tree isn’t merely a passive recipient of the poems that dangle from its branches, is it? I saw the tree, felt the possibility <i>with</i> it—of its being a poem tree—& that power to become a Poem Tree wasn’t mine, but was of the tree itself, its own creative power. So why not, <i>Poet Tree</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">How did the Poem Tree happen? This is a good question. It leads to an idea for me, about the power of Things. It wasn’t like I had this idea, something in my head—“I’m going to tie poems to a tree & call it a Poem Tree”… like it was my invention. To become a Poem Tree, the tree has to <i>participate</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I mean, I couldn’t say to the air conditioner in the window, “I’m going to make a poem tree of you!” Every object presents you with certain possibilities in how you engage with it—but those possibilities aren’t limitless. The object resists becoming just anything. This is something both obvious, and mysterious, & it goes both ways. As you bring about change in a Thing, you yourself are changed. A mutual transformation. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I can’t say this idea was entirely new to me, but it took on a profoundly new reality, material, embodied … on May Day, 2010. That was the moment the branch of tulip poplar I was carrying on the streets of Baltimore was transformed into a Spirit Stick. I had picked up a blue sash and feather left from a street performance in support of low wage harbor workers. There was this branch in my one hand, and the feather & sash in the other, & there was an affinity between them—you see, I wasn’t the inventor, but the agent of that affinity, putting them together—and it was only after the feather & sash and branch were together that I saw how they had become a New Thing… Spirit Stick! & this New Thing had powers of becoming. I began more to feel more deeply the affinity of Things I found… can tabs, wires, ribbons… Other people when they saw the Spirit Stick, they felt this too & gave me Things to add to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">That’s how the Poem Tree happened. A poor little dead tree on Passyunk, like the dead three branch I had carried—that wasn’t dead at all, like a poem, how Things have this affinity for other Things, have powers all their own to become New Things together… like words reveal their affinity when you write & they come together & become a Poem. It’s so obvious, isn’t it? Spirit Stick. Poem Tree… & it happened with me too—the way I see myself, a felt attraction to Things…& it seemed mutual. Feathers. Can tabs. A kind of marriage… that I was like them, part of them… Spirit Stick, Poem Tree… I was agent to their becoming, my gift to them, & theirs to me… to show me more truly to myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">You do stuff. & if the stuff you do is a Poem… you are … ?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Does that make sense? The idea of Word-Things? Thinking about 'naming' in poems--what almost all description is. You write, 'tree,' and readers will call to mind their own associations, their relationship to what that word names. Further elaborations guide those associations, but at the core, there’s something in common, not the thing named, not the word, but the fact of its having a name, a word <i>shared</i>...with the Thing it names. Word-Tree. In a poem, the reader enters its field of power, or is caressed by it, or sliced, or struck dumb, or sent off with a terrible need to <i>do</i> something with what has happened… like the need to find other words… mates to engender yet more words. <br />
<br />
There is the feel of magic about names, names of things, names of persons. I ask, what is around me? Now, at this moment, in this place. What is it that most impresses itself on my senses? And I write that down--without elaboration. Without decoration. A statement. And in naming the thing I become something more--something else: I become a reader. THE reader. Every reader, and what has been named calls out to me, wakens in me--as myself, and as a Reader, a need to find words for what the name... the Word-Thing has summoned.<br />
<br />
Let the mind follow. <br />
<br />
It's like meditation. Where you focus on one thing, and this becomes a guide, opens a path that wasn't there before--or wasn't seen or recognized as a path. <br />
<br />
The name is the gate. The reader is on the other side, but it's the same gate to the same path... at least, to the first step. From there, the divergent branches are without number. Another word. Another step. And each step loses the reader, and finds him again, her again. Until you reach a point of realized failure. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Observe. Write what impresses<br />
the senses<br />
let the mind follow<br />
<br />
It's in naming common things<br />
we draw the reader in<br />
<br />
A kind of touch<br />
you see<br />
I see<br />
intimate<br />
<br />
where every conversation<br />
wants to go<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">The first poem tree—having survived a hard winter… was uprooted by the City this spring, replaced by a living sapling. But soon after, a tree a few yards down the block—the leaves grew brown, the branches brittle, & it said, <i>If you want me to, I will be the Poem Tree. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">And it was so. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Jacob, this was such a lovely & living explanation of word-things & the poem-tree, and how closely the two are linked, & how interconnected we all are to each other & to the objects around us – this idea of “mutual transformation” really resonates for me & feels quite important. I love, also, how the trees seem to speak to you & how things speak to all of us – “every object brings to you certain possibilities of how to engage with it….” & thus to my final question. As this interview is for Starlight, Philadelphia, I would like to know how the city of Philadelphia brings to you certain possibilities of how to engage with it poetically? What strikes you most profoundly about our community here? What sorts of poetry do you think engaging with this city & its lore & people & sounds & smells brings to you &/or to all of us?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Jacob: I came to Philly in 1964. I’ve probably lived here longer now than most of those who were born here. 47 years. But that I wasn’t. And that I bring with me childhood memories from elsewhere, Chicago, Kansas City, means that even after almost half a century—still not a “native.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I think that we discover <i>place</i> in childhood—a magical bond of wonder & fear, & there is no <i>re-placing</i> that, no matter how long we’ve been away, or how much we’ve come to love where we find ourselves—& I have come to love--to truly love this city.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">It’s like a marriage, isn’t it? We leave our fathers and mothers to cleave to the body and soul of a stranger… who gives us nourishment we could not find in the heart of our own family. This is probably true of most of us now in a time of great mobility. It’s rare when a poet remains, or returns to their first home… the lake country of Lorine Niedecker’s Wisconsin, Wendell Berry turning the soil of Kentucky. Even for them, it seems that this return was only possible because “home” had become as strange as it was familiar. Learning to love where we are <i>not</i> at home is a work of a lifetime—a work made for a poet—a work that is perhaps the making of a poet. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">What is it about Philly? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I love that it doesn’t sound like the voice in my head—that for all my years here (& I’m pretty good at picking up dialects… ‘accents’), I can’t for the life of me imitate someone who grew up in Kensington, or South Philly… or Mayfair. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I love the Mummers—a celebration of working class neighborhoods, not Corporate sponsored made-for-TV extravaganzas like the Rose Bowl parade. Philly’s a big city that never feels near as big as it is when you live in one of its neighborhoods. There are wealthy and powerful people here, movers and shakers on the national and international scene, big corporations—this is an international city—but its more than that, & other—and that’s what I love. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">I would hate it if it weren’t so, if I didn’t feel when I’m riding the Broad Street subway, walking the streets of South Philly, under the el on Front Street on the way home from a reading on Frankford, the tower of Episcopal Hospital poking out over the row houses of Kensington (where I worked as an orderly in the ER 40 years ago) .. that this city and its people—here in the Belly of the Beast, the fucking American Empire—the greatest killing & looting machine in the history of the world… that <i>we</i> (yeah… WE) are more and different & better & worse & not just worker cells in that fucking beast.. but something <i>else</i>, living and <i>good</i> … good. We’re good. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Look at me, world. Look at <i>us</i>… we’re GOOD! You hear that? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Zoe Strauss… she <i>sees</i> it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Ryan Eckes… he <i>hears</i> it. Frank Sherlock hears it. A fucking perfect ear for this city, the LIVING city.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">And I wanna be part of that. I see it too. I hear it. And I want it to be in my poems. I’ll always be a stranger anyplace I am in this world. But I love this place. And that’s what I want to write… not <i>about</i> … but the thing itself… to drive the soldiers from the garden of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">& when they’re all gone, Philly will still be here. <i>OUR</i> Philly. Not theirs. Not theirs anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 1.0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Just ours. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif; font-size: 11pt;">Debrah: Jacob, thank you for this interview. You have so lovingly described many of the important aspects of our dynamic city, Philadelphia, and your inspiring thoughts about poetry & Poem Trees.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">JACOB RUSSELL'S FIRST PERSON BIO:</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">I was born in Chicago a long time ago, came to Philadelphia in 1964 from Wichita on a Vespa motor scooter & never found the exit. In the 50's & 60's I studied art, in the 70's I was a potter. My last gainful employment, 12 years teaching English comp at Saint Joseph's University, ended in 2008. Having retired from worldly occupations, I walk the streets with Spirit Stick in search of poems & Found Things.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">I've written poetry since I learned to form letters on a page, & finally accepted this as my calling one morning in April, 1987, standing in a kitchen in Northeast Philadelphia. It was another twenty years -- enriched by the wonderful community of poets I've met since moving to South Philly, that I feel like I've begun to write in the fullness of my own voice.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">Found Things... having been set loose from the mesh of relationships that define (& confine) their manifest Being, they are free to reveal powers previously withdrawn & hidden. In a poem, names, ideas, linguistic structures -- along with cultural & verbal fields of reference, constitute the aesthetic 'regime of attraction' of the poem -- which in turn, becomes a new Thing, pried loose from the prison of its context in the world. For me, writing a poem is a struggle to keep the emerging mesh of the new regime of attraction fluid & open for as long as possible -- like Tantric sex, withholding consummation till the strength to resist it is exhausted.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Deutch Garamond SSi', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">In the past year I've published work in Big Bridge II, decomP, Criiphoria 2, Conversational Magazine, Connotations, BlazeVox, Scythe, Battered Suitcase, Clockwise Cat, Apiary, Fox Chase Journal, & Pedestal. Links to published poetry & fiction can be found on my blog: Jacob Russell's Barking Dog.</span></span></div></div>STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-12334566833549928692011-08-05T11:08:00.000-07:002011-08-12T17:56:16.583-07:00FEATURE: NICHOLAS DEBOER, SPIDERS & LAMPLIGHT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhYiA5ny9HJzqU3PieHh0RuWAOEMjXW58Kg4s8lYixSJGq1dxa_8tNgRX2VPKHnmsRB2HiC5r3c8nDNU1-LXsuyfZffpS3pyJGfCWjJy3Wmie_n_8g28n53Z3w0uZH3fPD6-bibu4Ek8/s1600/DeBoer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhYiA5ny9HJzqU3PieHh0RuWAOEMjXW58Kg4s8lYixSJGq1dxa_8tNgRX2VPKHnmsRB2HiC5r3c8nDNU1-LXsuyfZffpS3pyJGfCWjJy3Wmie_n_8g28n53Z3w0uZH3fPD6-bibu4Ek8/s320/DeBoer.jpg" width="257" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Nicholas DeBoer invokes & evokes.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Whither (Fortune Lines of Palm)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By Nicholas DeBoer<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">1.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">abraded ice cap<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">streaks our courthouse<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">lamplight<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">crushed rock<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">with burnt lime<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">whither<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">fortune lines of palm<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> lifts to<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> fly ash<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">assimilate ----out of an age of tailspins<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> as if to remove<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> downed<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> islands of<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> self<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">stretch our eulogy<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in harmonic signals<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">one-twenty-one-point-five<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">decelerates<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">an ocean vineyard full & pale dot<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">where strawing hands row deep<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">side<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">life<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">cask<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">archiving in the open<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">snug air<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">held deeper<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">smokestacks fume gloam the body<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">cryovolcano<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">swaddling<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 3.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the veins<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">3.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in the tree top<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">of a loss my<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">energetic love<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">my<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">words hollow o u t<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">cosset<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">under hottest<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">pillow lava<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">in the lark of an attempt<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 3.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> shortened<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 3.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">strict<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">urgent<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">nerves flee<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">as i was beyond giving up<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 2.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">4.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">it happens something like this<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">underneath<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">pulsing wishes<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">which<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">empty in halves<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">words scar the stomach lines<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">a tussle of knots<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">our pearls<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">lost in fumarole fields<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">5.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> i am beyond a wrath of god</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> :stalemate:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> i am</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> mettle</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> passing beneath</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> history</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> darkening nerves in this passion play</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of nest taper light</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> portmanteau</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> last looking glass</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> copycatting my scrawl a near</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> decade ago</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> spirit chain</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of neck</span><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> the veins sympathize</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Nicholas DeBoer moved to Philadelphia a little over a year ago, & it has been a pleasure to get to know him & his work since then. Nicholas’ work has a certain magic to it, an espionage-quality; his poetry often contains long & lucid lines that are quite startling. When engaging with his poems, I feel the necessity of reading his lines many times, lingering over them, sensing them, & I acquire a new way to look at the world after I do. His poems have a certain sonic quality that is often musical, sometimes mechanical, sometimes like machines breaking or polyphonic riptides. His poems also make a wondrous use of space – often engaging with the open field of the page.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After reading one of Nicholas’ pieces, I am often thrown into a hijinks-space of thinking about the 20<sup>th</sup> century as a vested notion of space & time preconfigured to announce the passing of a vital period. Of course, reading his poems, I am brought to greet people like Ezra Pound, Orson Welles, William S. Burroughs. Sometimes after reading one of his pieces, I feel like I am floating in outer space, or somewhere in my inner space, dwelling on a near-future, or NASA-moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Besides writing poems that throw readers into another world, or a more magical version of this one, he also contributes greatly to the Philadelphia Poetry community. With Jamie Townsend, Nicholas runs con/crescent press and the con/crescent reading series, which brings some of the finest poetic talent to Philadelphia. At a Jubilant Thicket reading last spring, he read some of his essay on Ezra Pound. His critical writing is also exciting, & should be noted.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I hope you enjoy this interview with Nicholas Deboer, a truly innovative poet & human.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Debrah</b>: I am excited to converse with you about your poem "Whither (Fortune Lines of Palm)" & your ideas of poetry in general. To begin, I am interested in your line, in the first part of "Whither," in which you declare: "assimilate ----out of an age of tailspins / as if to remove / downed / islands of / self." Would you say that this is a direction you are giving to the reader? Do you feel that we live in "an age of tailspins?" If so, what does this mean? What are "downed islands of self?"<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
<b>Nicholas</b>: Yes. I am giving the reader a direction, or at least a 'form' of insight. History has such a wide notice to speak for itself, whether through its institutional frames, or through its 'arms of critique' and by having a system that is dedicated to 'critique as action' you get a whole age of 'propaganda wars', where the prevailing power economy is built on an endless circling tailspin. It's almost as if you dropped a 'whirlybird' from the Empire State Building. Yet, I'm also pointing out 'assimilate' as a kind of 'this will appear after' the 'age'. It's that old 1939 coin of World War II saying that only through war can we have unity, where I'm saying that only through a downward spiral can we assimilate, which I guess in a way is both positive and negative, although, I get how the vibe is on the minus side of things.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Further, I direct the reader because, although I can't confirm an image or really give them the full force of the law I'm laying down, I want them to maybe have a chance to see what I'm seeing, or to attribute a meaning as I have. It's important in my work that I am a voice that is speaking, maybe not just for me, but for anyone that wants to include their-selves, 'critique of arms'. I don't want to play that game that is full-on-blow-explode of 'ignore deep' of 'language', I'd rather get fucked up on it. So, moving forward, 'downed islands of self' points to that sensation of living through an age of destructive capitalistic selfishness. You are 'downed', through both what you have experienced and what you have become. I don't use this example foolishly, but there is something relatively rational about the response to all the assassinations of the 60s. I'm not trying to talk here of 'generation' as everyone, but more to the 'media accepted historical view' and how what it is really saying, is that we can kill your hope, one by one, Evers/Kennedy/Hampton/King/Kennedy/Malcolm X and there is an uncomfortable American dialogue that comes out with Nixon as the savior, and you see that reappear in both Reagan & now. The generation who made it through a time period that tumultuous gives over to a pulling away and assimilation out of fear, and into the islands of self, downed, afraid. So, I guess it has that 20th century vibe too.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Debrah</b>: I am very interested, then, in the kinds of historicity this poem engages. Looking to the assassinations of the 1960's as a lens through which to look at the ways in which people respond to the "media accepted historical view" of the past. Or the present. Positing Nixon as the heralded savior, and you state "in both Reagan & now." Who is deemed savior today? Do you think we see those who were assasinated as saviors resurrected through a capitalist t-shirt making regime? Who is the savior in "Whiter (Fortune Lines of Palm)," or do you decry that there really is no savior? You state in the last section of this poem, "i am beyond a wrath of god/ :stalemate: / i am / mettle / passing / beneath / history." What do you mean by wrath of god? Does the "i" of the poem speak of a generation, or the speaker of the poem, or something else? Is it even important to consider these things when engaging the work of Nicholas DeBoer?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Nicholas</b>: I like space. It's a good time. Whatever ways we take in and verify the past, we are never content or satiated by it. I look back at the Women's Suffrage movement, and I think, 'fuck yes,' but there is that silver line that intensifies with the patriarch. I mean, look how the cigarette companies responded to that moment, they saw that women wanted an independence that was wholly their own, so let’s have them break a taboo: cigarettes, or 'torches of liberty' as they were called. There was a 20% increase for that quarter. It's sick. Barnum & Bailey showboating with human life, the real of it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
I think that's always something that will interest me, those moments that look like now. Some people call it hindsight, but I always call it nostalgia; that streak of sense people put in their teeth to 'hark back'. Warren G. Harding ran on the 'return to normalcy' ticket in his run up to the White House. You can call it whatever the fuck you want, it's still breaking bread over a prison yard when you refuse to be present. But that's a politician’s trick. I think if you go back to campaign ads of 1968, you'll see this really perfect moment for the Republicans. You'll see the tragedy of Robert Kennedy's death, the lack of a viable Democratic candidate, Johnson's poll numbers shitty, Hubert Humphrey stuck and then there it is. You see blood, guns, the Democratic National Convention, a light and spark on the confusion. And then that fucking voice over a light NBC synthesizer: "It is time for an honest look at ORDER in the United States. DISSENT is a necessary ingredient to CHANGE, but in a system of government that provides for peaceful change there is no cause that justifies resort to violence. Let's recognize that the FIRST CIVIL RIGHT of every American is to be free of domestic violence. I pledge to you we will have ORDER in these United States."<br />
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It sounds pretty damn convincing, until you realize who you are talking to; this fuck of a boy who raises troop levels like it’s a score card. The tactic is get the old to vote against the young. At the end of the ad, you have, "THIS TIME" come in on a slow fade and followed by, "LIKE YOUR WHOLE WORLD DEPENDED ON IT." I mean, this is some big fear shit. Four years prior, LBJ won, on a little girl picking a daisy apart counting off to what turns out to be a nuclear holocaust and this message: "These are the stakes, to make a world in which all of god's children can live or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die. Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd, the stakes are too high for you to stay home." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
I mean, BAM. That's where the blood starts to get ankle deep, where nothing resembles a face any more. It’s that little girl, the focus of the camera bleeding through her life. So, I can't play it. I can't play who is 'savior' because I don't think that word exists like it has. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the face of the Civil Rights movement, but without Baynard Rustin would you have had the 1963 march on Washington? I don't know. I mean, here's a guy who had to stay in the background because of his homosexuality, who helped transform King into this amazing leader. I mean, that's what we lost, that's what showed up as a tide of blood rolling over our shores.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
It was easy to put leaders in solid bronze, platform it up to the heavens and watch that slow wither of their 'importance' into a crawl of birds shitting on their faces. But with a t-shirt, it’s a different kind of neutering. You don't have the abandonment of a statue, of a once important space, but rather, you see a commodity becoming faceless, becoming a stone that is sinking with a whole host of humanity. It's a fading of the image into our own faces; it isn't an act of honor as much as an act of 'recuperation' in that Debordian sense. The status quo taking the revolutionary and slipping it back under the surface of the 'gears of the machine.'</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Upon the proposition that there is a 'savior' in the poem itself, I would have to say, 'I do not know.' I give clues, I paint portraits, but we are big enough as species to just make it and match it later.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
If the 'I' represents that space it is an 'I' that posits that the unknown is our only virtue as humans. 'lowering hard footsteps/trials to reach thin/the march of/time' newsreel' or 'my bag of bones burns'. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's simple. We other ourselves when we read. We are both the 'I' and someone else's 'I' and that's awesome. Powerful. Crack a whip on the hot warped wood and wake it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
In the last section of the poem, I am in only one position: inferior and evolving. This is, whether I like it or not, a roar of confusion mixed with arrogance. I am beyond a wrath of god, because I cannot posit 'a god or the god', for I am human, beyond (both in knowledge and in the lack of knowledge) wrath. I will never be smart enough or dumb enough to subsist in accordance with the universe or myself. I am a little of either/or. I am mettle, I am invariable (as I am the only thing that doesn't change perspective) and I cannot be objective (the only thing that does change in my perspective). So, I'm a mineral ore that is under the current of history, I'm passing. It's this thing, where 300 yrs ago, life expectancy was small, 40 to 50 yrs max and time was slow, nine months to get me to England. Today, our life could be a 100 yrs and our time is so fast, we have our knowledge splitting at the seams of our own conscious import of it. I'm perplexed in the poem. I am at awe and dumbfounded (a sparrow hit by a pellet from a gun).<br />
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I admit. I am thinking of my/yours/the generation. It is whoever is around to listen and listen up. It's my people, cause we are alive on spaceship earth together. 'Is it even important to consider these things when engaging the work of Nicholas DeBoer?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
Sure. Why not? If the best we can do is take a rocket and toss it so high in the sky that it leaves this 'space' and tops out for 14 yrs (of our time) to reach an asteroid in 2030, if our best effort is trying to inflict social change on an institution that is so afraid of it that its rhetoric is vacant enough to drown art out into cholera infested streets, if our argument for living is little more than 'Hope' could get us out of 'nothingness' for something like and/or better than 'nothingness', Sure. I'm free Saturday night. Hell, I'll even pick up a case of beer and a packet of smokes to equalize the pressure.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Debrah: </b>We other ourselves when we read. Do you think we "other" ourselves when we write poems as well? I am moved that the "I" of this poem, as you've described it, is "perplexed," "dumbfounded." "A sparrow hit by a pellet from a gun." Beyond this notion of the "I," there are also particular places in this poem in which you make note of "the veins" (<i>"the veins empathize," "the veins sympathize")</i>. What is your purpose in drawing attention to veins, and personifying them with two of the most emotional human capacities?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Nicholas:</b> I think it's entirely hard to actually have any kind of a 'solid' identity in ones poetry. Perhaps, it's an easier function for visual artists, or musicians, but I doubt it. The problem, as I see it, is that, well, even in this conversation, I'm flowing out a simple algorithm that I'm used to, something I've known as a speed-personality that is really easy to utilize, shape and form into things. Sure, you can call this identity, but it's all pretty tough to follow. Akin to that old axiom of having to hold a picture of your youth and explain that that was you as a kid so that the person you are speaking to knows that connection. I think that's from that <i>Waking Life </i>movie. I think. But, if you catch it, right there, I'm getting slightly vague about what movie right? I could look it up, or I might know instructively that it is that movie, or I further know that a lot of friends over the years have told me they don't like that movie, so I can pitch different here, and say 'I think that's from that..." so I can curve the error of the predilection of the movie or I can further suggest that I liked it. So, yes and no. I think that we do 'other' ourselves in our work and I think sometimes we just allow that flow of an 'us' and let it shift however we want it to. In my own work, I gather that I'm looking through my eyes sometimes, sometimes I'm looking down at myself or up at myself. It depends on how the cinematographer wants it. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In regards to the veins, I've been obsessed with cymatics these last few years, this technique where one studies visible sound and vibration. I loved this idea of sound being able to focus and form patterns on objects/particles, and as I got longer into it, I figured it was something easy to apply to the blood. I wanted an emotional impact, an event that would cause a neural storm, an excess of brain activity that would be akin to something in the body. I mean, clearly this is all my own doing and not something that is easily exchanged to the reader and that's fine. It's not my job to fit all the pieces, but since you asked, I feel like it's chill to tap out the telegraphic thoughts I had. Getting back to that, I kept thinking about cymatics in the sense of the blood in the body being available to showcase emotional abilities, and that in the context of global warming for the poem, I wanted the earth to have those cymatic values as well. I mean, it's all balderdash isn't it anyway. I'm just trying to articulate a sensibility and hope that it leads the reader to some form of confrontation with elements they know all too well. But, it's a helluva show, you know.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Debrah</b>: Thank you, Nicholas, for your responses to these questions & for lending some wonderful insights into your work & ideas about poetry, politics, etc. Now, for the final question. Since this interview is for Starlight, Philadelphia, I would like to ask you if you think your work has changed as a result of being in Philadelphia? Have you felt the city leaving impressions on your poetic imagination?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Nicholas: </b>I'll say this. I moved to Philadelphia with the intention of being around and of poets. It was one of those decisions that has continued to be a part of my life in the most beautiful of ways. I know it's a pain in the ass, but I've always been into the Founding Fathers, even if they were fuckers. I guess what gets in my poetic imagination is the ease at which ideas flow to and from the people I've met here. I will always see Philadelphia as one of those creative leaps. I find my writing looser and a little more free because of my interactions with people here. The impulse to come here was for the press, for Jamie Townsend, for he and I to begin our journey as a poetic enterprise. Philadelphia has been a treasure to find, whether it’s the poets here or just being on the East Coast and not in the Mid West, it's a fucking treasure. I mean, in the final analysis, once your heart belongs to poetry, it’s the prison guards that get to go home. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Nicholas DeBoer was born at 1024pm with a temperature of 29.1 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind gust a bit, around 5.8 mph under a clear sky in Chicago, Illinois. It was the Michael Reece hospital, designed by Walter Gropius. He certainly still likes to think about it. Later on, he attended schools, they were nice schools & some of his friends were met there. He found out that he could get obsessed with things around the age of 11, when his mother told him he could listen to their vinyl & found an image of Edgar Poe in the Beatles seventh album. It got worse, over time. By his early twenties he had found out that he really liked Guy Debord & the Situationist International, & really thought it was important at 18 to watch Citizen Kane something like 100 times. Now, it's Ezra Pound, then it's Charles Olson. He went to Naropa & Western Michigan University. People have been nice enough to take some of his words in poetry journals, such as Fact-Simile, Bombay Gin, & other(s). He was born on the 23rd of October, 1981.</span></div>STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-13525979360520078792011-07-23T17:45:00.000-07:002011-07-25T00:13:13.375-07:00FEATURE: RYAN ECKES, PHILADELPHIA ANTHEMS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJSqPNTyDGTYGudWWvmenP8S7eQc6H8ogv3Hum-hZI9OLelyRrdajXnqVrr4Y4KsErXK5JeRJ-RjgG-AsFzUue7wKgN37Zepo_HKHoe42d8-x_I5A7AEdLglIpUDuE3DuXwve3NBVJVU/s1600/seth%2527s+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJSqPNTyDGTYGudWWvmenP8S7eQc6H8ogv3Hum-hZI9OLelyRrdajXnqVrr4Y4KsErXK5JeRJ-RjgG-AsFzUue7wKgN37Zepo_HKHoe42d8-x_I5A7AEdLglIpUDuE3DuXwve3NBVJVU/s320/seth%2527s+photo.jpg" width="213" /></a></div> Ryan Eckes is a keen observer of the whole world.<br />
(photo credit Seth Klinger)<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">art as experience<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">by Ryan Eckes</b><br />
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</b></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">in passing john calls john dewey <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">j-dew</i>, which makes everything infinitely </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">more watchable. go phillies like a bus, half hours, half flowers, to valu-</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">plus for flip-flops and a new notebook—marble, like my stoop. i stand </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">on the book, its title, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">valu-plus</i>, arrived home on a sticker, yellow, with</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">a price: a buck, a holler. after that we’re free to have our hazards. love</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">ages me, but not that two people were murdered a half block from me</div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">this week. the barista lays down a napkin and spoon even when you’re </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">just getting it to go. front-to-back three years ago a night this november </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">i tore thru <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">splay anthem</i> while this place was called something else, and </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">i thought i felt the whole world sail thru a map in my chest, knocked on </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">wood a lesson: bare hands, bare hands, no lie: you’ll never understand </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">yourself in isolation. a hair on your selfish city’s chest, you will mistake </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">selfishness for independence again. again, you will catch yourself being </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">a republican to yourself. if i’m beaten, who can tell. not me, anymore. </div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">not me, anymore.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">It is difficult to think about Philadelphia poetry without Ryan Eckes’ name coming to the forefront of the mind. Ryan’s poems are very Philadelphia – I cannot think of many other poets whose poems breathe the charge of the city & its many dimensions the way Ryan’s do. When I read Ryan’s poems, or am lucky enough to hear him read them, I am mentally transported to places in the city – walking around Philadelphia – being part of its people, its vibrancy, its songs, but also its underbelly. Ryan’s poems are celebratory, but also not full of the celebrational delusion that so many others have filled into their poetries of place. His poems have a realistic quality that ignites a reader’s senses, that make one aware of the city’s currents & how they filter through a narrow window, or a tiny moment. For this reason, I am always blown away when I read one of Ryan’s poems. They say so much in small increments, and can be read in many directions.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Ryan also contributes much to the community of Philadelphia poetry. He co-curates (with poet Stan Mir) The Chapter & Verse Reading Series at Chapter House Café in South Philadelphia, which is one of the best poetry series that I have witnessed since I started attending poetry series over a decade ago. He brings poets from all over the country to Philadelphia, so we are lucky enough to hear so many amazing poets read thanks to Ryan.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">I feel that if you haven’t read the poetry of Ryan Eckes, that you are missing out. His poems are nothing less than brilliant, heart wrenching, suffocating, & real. I hope you enjoy this interview with the amazing Ryan Eckes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Debrah: Ryan, I am very excited by the twists & turns of "art as experience." When reading this poem, & when reading your work in general, I definitely feel "the whole world sail thru a map in my chest." Is this poem part of a larger series? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Also, in this poem, you reference Nathaniel Mackey's splay anthem. Were you inspired by Mackey in writing this poem?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Ryan: Hey Debrah, thanks for inviting me to do this. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
The poem isn't part of a specific series, but it'll be part of my next manuscript, which I'll probably call Valu-Plus, after the store that recently went out of business. "art as experience" was one of the first poems I wrote last fall after I finished writing my last manuscript, and I was trying to sort of regenerate. I wanted to see what would happen if I attempted to write a poem the way I did four, five years earlier, when I wrote mostly prose poems. I would think of them as little motion machines that were also stories, and the process of writing them was both meditation and storytelling, a give and take of making something up as you go. As I wrote I'd try to let one sentence lead me to the next by repeating the sentence in my head and listening for the truest thing about it and pulling something out of it, which would be the next sentence, and I'd keep going like that until I felt that I'd arrived and had some kind of motion machine you could ride when you read it. Hence the twists and turns. The poem turned out different from my older prose poems, of course, because I'm a different person now, but the experience and reward of it was similar.<br />
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It's funny you point out that particular phrase, "the whole world sail thru a map in my chest," since that's the phrase I'm least comfortable with, least sure about. It's just that on a purely aesthetic level, I don't know if I like it. But I guess it does its job where it is. I was trying to describe as concretely as possible what I experienced while reading <i>Splay Anthem</i> for the first time, and what I had was some big feeling of endless sadness mixed with possibility, an overwhelming sense of reality, which I called "everything", or "the world", which is a better word, and saw it as a boat, in part because of Mackey's imagery, moving swiftly through the map of water inside me that I imagine's always there, that I won't explain. I felt kind of splayed. I wasn't thinking of Mackey when I started writing the poem--he just came up when I was thinking about a corner I was sitting on, where I'd first read <i>Splay Anthem</i>--but in general, yeah, that book has been inspiring. It's one I've gone back to again and again--there's no end to it. Ever read his preface to that book? It's wonderful. And what a great thing to say, "splay anthem."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Debrah: I just looked all around my home for my copy of splay anthem. I really thought I had a copy, but maybe it's just registered in my mind as a book I own because I know I should. I will have to remedy that! What is it about the preface to Mackey's splay anthem that you admire the most?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">I really enjoy your description of prose poems as "little motion machines." There is a lot of motion in "art as experience": "in passing," "go phillies like a bus," "arrived home," "just getting it to go," "sail thru a map" ... So, I definitely get this feeling of moving while reading this piece... moving in many directions, & in many ways. The title alone, describing art as an experience, connotes motion to me as experience is a kind of moving through... Do you feel that prose poetry is an easier poetic vessel through which to deliver the feeling of motion? How do you designate whether you will write a prose poem versus another form? Or is it something that just happens?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br />
Ryan: Oh, sorry--I don't mean to make you go rummaging for a reference. I was just rambling a little toward the end of that response. What sticks with me from Mackey's preface is a definition of poetry he borrows from the Kaluli, an indigenous group of people in Papua New Guinea. He describes a funeral song, a ritual and myth about broken kinship, from which poetry and music originate. He suggests that poetry is simultaneously elegiac and restorative, "not only lamenting violated connection but aiming to reestablish connection, as if the entropy that gives rise to [poetry and music] is never to be given the last word." You get that cyclical motion in Mackey's poetry, in the sound as much as the story, the cosmogony.<br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Since I was a kid I've often felt slowed, or stuck, or static--it's hard to explain—a heaviness on me, as if there were too much gravity, too much of some force pinning me to the floor, which makes me tired. And I think</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">that we live a very static-producing, final-word culture that inhibits exploration and curiosity and human connection in general, so motion has been an important word for me in resisting those forces, and writing and reading has been a way to do that, to feel alive. Prose isn't the only way that works for me. Line-based writing also does the job. The main difference is the unit--when I work in prose the sentence is the unit, and I tend to focus a little more on narrative and a little less on music--but just a little--while the line-based poems are usually made of short lines with quicker turns. What determines if it'll be a prose poem or not is whatever I start with. If it's a pair of lines in my head, I'll just keep writing lines (Ted Greenwald's been a big influence there). I try to get the feeling of motion from anything I'm writing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Recently, thanks to Conrad, I got interested in the 19th century architect Frank Furness, who built many buildings in Philadelphia. Furness wanted his buildings to convey motion, to exhibit natural elements, to be as alive as possible. I found a fascinating biography called <i>Frank Furness: Architecture and the Violent Mind</i>, by Michael J. Lewis, that makes connections between Furness' personal experiences and the designs of his buildings. Here's a snippet of a quote from it from my notebook: "His walls were not so much static murals as living conduits whose underlying physical drama was infinitely more exciting than any color that might be applied to the surface." The book was enough to inspire me to try to break out of my own conventions by writing a poem based primarily on the violence I felt moving through me, and I wound up with an ugly thing that's both prose and verse--the first section is shaped like a tornado, by accident. I had a good time.<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Debrah: Wow, what you reference from Mackey's introduction to splay anthem sounds amazing & important, this notion that poetry is simultaneously elegiac & restorative. That the "entropy which gives rise to poetry & music is never to be given the last word." I agree that we do live in this culture that really privileges "the last word." The last word, is, perhaps, meaningless when dealing with art forms that require, or give off, the feeling of motion -- of release & restoration -- this double function of poetry & song. Do you think it's important for poems to resist having "last word" resolution? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">I am thus moved to look at the final moments of "art as experience": "you will mistake selfishness for independence again. again, you will catch yourself being a republican to yourself. if i'm beaten, who can tell. not me, anymore. not me, anymore." This repetition that is enacted here -- the repetition of the word "again," as well as the repetition of the poem's final sentiment, "not me, anymore," allows for the poem to cycle at its denouement. What were your intentions with this repetition? And the political humor in this last bit is also amazing. Do you think poetry ought to be political at times, or no?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;"><br />
Ryan: Well, I think a writer should always be pushing his own consciousness, and that there's really no end to learning, so I see one poem as just part of a larger motion and when one thing's done I keep digging deeper into the world. I'm not necessarily against a single poem having "closure" or anything like that. When I say "last word" culture, I think of American moneyworship and bossworship, the anti-intellectual murder machine that our corporate media and government happily foster, telling us that the way things are is just the way things are, period, questions and protest are a waste of time, pleasure is more important than thinking and you deserve it, now go ahead and buy your happiness somewhere. I think everyone should be resisting that culture. In general, there is a serious lack of political consciousness in the U.S., so I'm all for any efforts to call attention to injustice. Poetry, music and art are not outside of politics, not immune from it, and because art is emotional, it can be useful for making people think more about "the way things are," and about their connection to everyone with lungs.<br />
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I'm someone who tends to build up a lot of political anger and class resentment, so I need to vent sometimes, and poetry helps with that. The idea of "therapeutic" art gets a bad rap (b/c we are strong independent americans!), so what if instead I stick with the word "restorative" like Mackey the academic? I use poetry to restore myself, and to communicate with others, hopefully, in doing so, and even make them laugh! Repetition, lately, works, and I've used that move at the end of a few poems over the last year or so. There was no specific intention there--I felt like I had to say that twice, and it sounded right--<i>not me, anymore, not me, anymore</i>. It's kind of my way of singing, and disappearing into something greater than what I know. <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Debrah: Ryan, thanks very much for your thoughts on these topics. For the final question, since this interview is for Starlight, Philadelphia, could you please speak to how the city of Philadelphia has informed your poetry? Do you think there is anything unique to Philadelphia poetry? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
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Ryan: Having lived here my whole life, I imagine I've got nothing but Philadelphia coming out of me most of the time. I doubt I could count all the ways it's informed how I do what I do. To understand it, I've tried to write <i>about</i> the city in many ways, repeating and responding to overheard talk, channeling friends' voices, neighbors' voices, telling their stories, my family's stories, trying to pick up the overlooked, walking songs through the city every day, sitting on a corner or sitting at a window, describing what I see right in front of me, writing letters to dead people, dwelling, dwelling on race and racism, and on violence, on winning and losing, and losing and losing, and love and love. I think I've looked and listened and let it all back out and whatever's in the writing is the city that's done what it's done to me, and you can see that even in the way I'm answering your questions probably. Some day I'd like to write my own paean to place--I'd like to make a poem as great and true to this place as Lorine Niedecker did to Black Hawk Island.<br />
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Philadelphia sort of demands that you be part of it, that you contribute to it--it's not the kind of big metropolitan city made for the individual person to live as if the individual were the actual place and the city there simply to do the individual's bidding (that sick capitalist thing). I think anyone who's spent any significant time here knows that. It's a city of resistance and confluence, and that shows up in a lot of the poetry that's written here. If you're a poet, Philly's a real nice place to be--because of its histories, which are often visible, which you can get lost and found in--but also because there are so many writers here--real good ones, too, that you can have real conversations with--I'm very grateful for that. There's a confluence of different poetic traditions among our community that I see as revolving around a shared social consciousness and commitment to a better world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Debrah: I think you are doing a very good job of bringing the spirit of Philadelphia into your poetic work, giving a piece of the city to all who read your poems. Thanks for chatting Ryan!!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: large;">Ryan Eckes lives in South Philadelphia. His book <i>Old News</i> will be published this summer by Furniture Press. More of his poetry can be found on his blog, <a href="http://ryaneckes.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">ryaneckes.blogspot.com</a>, and in various journals. Along with Stan Mir, he organizes the Chapter & Verse Reading Series. He works as an adjunct English professor at Temple University and other places. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br />
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</div>STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-20418494003298267832011-07-10T12:48:00.000-07:002011-07-16T16:09:03.528-07:00FEATURE: JAMIE TOWNSEND: STRAP / HALO<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZIAbjMvx8-5vUx3qE4rjKLhKiZFsXSsbnmHOb1Vk1xDslw7Y4zIEA5bxH9V6lRNwRp3JgPUo_KJjWrUUnXvPk1O2bHQJcZN4NkyKdxfKU64zgYPhm4pX-aPHcgWBMQJtzhnrclqzLIZw/s1600/jamie%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZIAbjMvx8-5vUx3qE4rjKLhKiZFsXSsbnmHOb1Vk1xDslw7Y4zIEA5bxH9V6lRNwRp3JgPUo_KJjWrUUnXvPk1O2bHQJcZN4NkyKdxfKU64zgYPhm4pX-aPHcgWBMQJtzhnrclqzLIZw/s1600/jamie%2521.jpg" /></a></div> Jamie Townsend is a beautiful, gentle soul.<br />
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">MANSIONS</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">by Jamie Townsend</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we</i> simply a performance block letter’d</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">congenital heart defect evangelical mix</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">tape public shame for grand space budget</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">lavish rental carmelite cell reading</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">beating it out excel in maintenance orders</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">mine division <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">non-denom</i> no provisionary</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">danger / danger replicated razor blade or</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">treaters hells-night watch harvest festival neu-</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">tered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a kind of collective action</i> – removed</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">blacklight poster lite novelty store variety</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">tee display pun verse for pop commercial</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">pressed hands bent milk or beer sloganeering</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">hanged man as actual event fear the ritual</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">position of leg cinematic deviance came</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">rock words well a problematic overlap</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">couldn’t fall for barcode dark-roasted market </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">worship on hands & knees keening </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;">the carpet growing stains not discernable faces </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
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I met Jamie Townsend three years ago, in the Summer of 2008. Poet Adam Meora, then attending the Naropa Summer Writing Program, called me & said he had just met a poet who was moving to Philadelphia at the end of the summer who was very “brilliant.” Thus, I was excited to meet Jamie, & happy to hear that another young poet was moving to Philadelphia. <br />
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Quickly after his move to Philadelphia, Jamie joined The New Philadelphia Poets, & his depth of knowledge regarding poetics & poetries ignited within me a new kind of awareness for minimalism, lyric, juxtaposition & gentleness. While The New Philadelphia Poets “workshop” meetings were still in session, I always looked forward to reading a new poem by Jamie Townsend, for his keen sense of putting surprising words together always pleasantly jarred me as a reader, & inspired my own work. Jamie’s poems are very musical, very fastidious, always hold true to giving something to the reader – his poems are generous. <br />
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Beyond the generosity of his poetic craft, Jamie has also contributed greatly to the Philadelphia Poetry Community at large. Recently, he & Nicholas DeBoer have begun the con/crescent reading series, which continually features some of the best poets writing today. Jamie Townsend has extremely good taste, & this is evidenced not only by his own poetry, but in his selection of the poets who read for the con/crescent series.<br />
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Every time I am fortunate enough to have a conversation with Jamie Townsend, I always learn something new – about the ways I think of poetry, about politics, about the cosmos. I am fortunate to know him, & I hope you enjoy this interview with Jamie, one of the best poets writing today.<br />
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Debrah: Jamie, there are so many lavish juxtapositions of words & phrases in this poem that create quite surprising nuances of meaning. For instance, "heart defect evangelical mix tape," "lavish rental carmelite cell," "danger / danger replicated razor blade." How do these words come together for you in composition? Did you enter the writing of this poem, "Mansions," with an objective, regarding meaning, sound, the layering of tercets? How did you select the three-line stanza as efficacious for this poem's delivery?<br />
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Jamie: Hey Debrah. First off, thank you for inviting me to participate in your wonderful new project! I'm honored at the time you've taken to look at my poem in depth, and really inspired by all the work you do in regards to celebrating Philly poetry and supporting fellow writers. <br />
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MANSIONS came together as a series of little discrete events that seemed to have correspondence with each other. I think the thematic elements and the prosody are tied together because I was approaching this poem as a way to explore the space of, in part, my own history growing up in an evangelical community and the limitations those formative years imposed on my experience of the world. That being said, I didn't want to write a strictly confessional piece, but instead to use elements of confessional writing in combination with a particular scaffolding of form and rhythm to facilitate these sonic and visual elements in the poem. I think my goal was to offer a dynamic experience for the reader, a place to engage in levels of "meaning-making" or resonance. I wanted to write something that was a feeling-out of certain sensations, of being blocked or stunted, pressed into a strict lineation for living (I think feelings that most everyone has had at some point) -- and simultaneously present a sort-of release from these feelings within the structure of the poem itself. MANSIONS has marks of traditional meter but plays with torque, connection and disconnection, both across lines and within them to resist a straightforward, closed reading. I want people to be able to pick up on places where groupings of words seem to be saying something specific to them, and then feel the shift as the poem expands or moves on to another grouping; what comes before and after linking up but vacillating sense. It's like looking at something closely and then backing away to see all the other elements connected to, and in play with, that limited, detailed view.<br />
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Since this piece developed around my own thinking about issues of religion, branding, and personal development the form just seems to occur organically. The tercets just came out as I was writing, but looking back on it now I think that it was kind of an example of Robert Creeley's "form as never more than an extension of content", yet I feel like here the form deepens and extends the content, at least in retrospect. It allows the reader to parse a line for "meaning" or an "experience" or whatever and then to go back and read the line again, and hopefully have a new feeling, a new sense of words clicking, swinging together, or extending an impression. The tercets create a tension; three is not a round number so we are not dealing with pairs or lines that create an immediate dialectic response to each other. There is something extra, something that extends out. Three is also a very important number in Christianity, as a representation of the nature of God - "God in three persons" - the Trinity. I've always thought it was very interesting, and telling, that in the evangelical community, at least as I experienced it, there is a lot of self-possessed surety, compartmentalizing, completion in belief, yet the being of God as expressed in three parts is an open form, it cannot be reduced to an easy equation for living. No equal division means endless possibilities. <br />
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Debrah: Jamie, I am notably interested in your delineation that three is not a round number; thus, it presents no dialectic. Instead, you say, it gives us "something extra, something that extends out." This you also link to the notion of the Christian Trinity, a concept which also reasonably presents no stagnant dialectic. Would you say, then, that this conceptualization of "3" gives us a sort of synthesis? Could we look at the third lines of each stanza as presenting that "release" that you speak of? I am moved to look at the last words in each stanza: budget, provisionary, removed, sloganeering, overlap, faces. Out of these six, three of them provide us with a kind of negation -- "non-demon no provisionary," "a kind of collective action -- removed," "not discernable faces." Is this negation a release from something?<br />
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Jamie: I would definitely say that while "3" works itself into the prosody of MANSIONS and has connections to its themes and subjects, it is not necessarily a qualitative element of the poem, at least not by any premeditated design on my part. I guess that I felt, quite naturally, the third lines in the poem, as the end lines of each stanza, would have to function uniquely in that space of "closure" (at least visual closure) -- as the ending of each stanza/section. I'm interested in this space of ending or "closure", mostly because it's presented difficulty for me technically (as often my approach to writing leads me down paths of thought I don't necessarily want to or know how to end), while at the same time providing a field for thinking about what a poem can do in this places where the form or thought gets "wrapped-up". What are the politics of the prosodic closure? How do you end a poem or a section of a poem in a way that doesn't impose upon the reader a tidy resolution? I think about this a lot -- and maybe it’s my way of facilitating overlapping questions of form, content, intent, perspective, readership, etc. I am interested in the potentiality within a poem, the openness it may have to many readings that could possibly be wildly different, and how any of those readings can be equally "correct" (or equally "incorrect" for that matter). I think I try to structure my poems in a way that encourages this sort of open-endedness, and involved readership, and in that way the tercets seem to work well (maybe it’s the three voices at play in the poem as well -- me, the reader, and the poem itself -- in dialogue). In English-language versions of haiku poetry the three line structure is predominantly used, and one of the goals of haiku is a nice balance between clarity and opacity -- I strive for that as well.<br />
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As far as negation in the poem, that may just be subconsciously coming from my own desire to avoid the whole mess of definition at the end of stanzas and the end of the poem as a whole; I hope the negation isn't just an "easy out" like that, but more so how the cards fell as the sections were put together (It probably says something more about what I think in regards to half-glasses of water). It's funny though, you typed "non-demon" when it’s actually "non-denom" (evangelical-speak for "non-denominational" -- sort of moderate-conservative yet officially unaffiliated Protestant churches") in the poem. I like this transposition quite a bit, as it has a sense of the both the original term and my own play with the lingo. Denominations as hierarchical, as powers to be negated by a ridiculous vague label that is, in essence, a denomination itself, with its own set of religious interpolations, customs and obsessions. Kind of a proxy, at least in terms of semantics, to "post-modern." I guess I would usually rather have these things be "demonic" or "denomic" than in that strange space of definition by proxy. "Let your yes be yes and your no be no" as it were. But great that the terms themselves can be open to interpretation, mutation, play (and any various wonderful typos that can happen).<br />
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I think that this also has something to do with power. I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of power in language, how we've moved away from a larger cultural discourse that takes up questions of opacity and clarity in terms of the language of mass media, government, religious leaders, etc. It’s an interesting tension that I am trying to think about in these pieces as well, mostly as I attempt to create open spaces for reading, open-ended structures, while still keeping an ear to the ground. I think most individuals in positions of any type of authority today consistently use methods of linguistic obfuscation to confuse, to render placid, citizens who would otherwise have a very real problem with the bare facts about illegal wars, hate speech, avoidable natural disasters, sexual abuse. On the Daily Show the other day Jon Stewart, in conversation with Bill Moyers, was discussing an interview he had conducted with Donald Rumsfeld. Stewart asked Rumsfeld about "selling the Iraq War" to the American public, and Rumsfeld immediately corrected him saying "not sold, presented". I don't know if I found a steady balance between keeping language open but still maintaining a clear difference between "sold" and "presented", but it’s something at play here in this piece, and something I keep returning to. <br />
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Debrah: The politics of sworn words & illegal testimonies seem like legerdemain. I like how your poems never seem to swear testimonies or provide the reader with, as you say, "tidy resolution." <br />
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In my reading of "Mansions," I notice the swelling of popular culture words -- "mix tape," "blacklight poster," "novelty store variety tee display," "pun verse for pop commercial," "milk or beer sloganeering," "barcode," "dark-roasted market." Does this poem make any statements about consumer culture? Also, the title "Mansions" bespeaks of residences for the wealthy. Should one pay attention to any notions of social class when reading this poem?<br />
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Jamie: Popular culture words occupy this really interesting space in relation to religious terms or ideas, and this is something I was definitely exploiting in this piece. So much of popular culture is about "branding"; scoring an idea into the mind with a strong, suggestive force. It's no wonder that religious subcultures often employ modes of branding, whether it be in the repetitive use of loaded and often ill-defined terms ("discipleship", "evangelizing", "ministry") or the "Christianizing" of pop culture commodities and youth cultures (Christian rock music, bible-verse quoting graphic tees, WWJB bracelets). This is all about exercising power through rhetorical gesture, as well as opacity and its place within these cultures of control. In many ways I am fascinated by and drawn to the idea of having a purely emotional resonance with a term wardrobed in a sense of mystery - the thrall of bare language, experiencing an immediacy of sound. However, this hypnotic, alien element of communication has become one of the main tools of advertising, and thus is connected to some of the most troubling aspects of our capital driven society. So it's all a balance (and often an uneven one). I think MANSIONS (the title I cribbed from a verse in the Bible I often heard referenced growing up: "In my Father's house there are many mansions" (John 14:2 KJB) - which gives this idea of heaven as a sort of gated community where a chosen few will live in luxury) explores the connection between these two ways of perceiving language, as well as with the inherent political implications of any opaque, "open" text. <br />
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Religion and pop culture are intimately connected, though they often propose to be at odds with each other. I'm interested in how they both make use of language similarly. What do we wish for, and how are those wishes veiled (often thinly) or made manifest through semantics? What do we need, and what are we told that we need? (and how do these things often bleed into each other?) Poetry serves an important function here, to bring words back into an experiential space that can be personally and socially generative instead of depletive. When looking at issues around social and economic class distinctions, which I think are always in the poem based on the conditions through which it is created (though not always addressed thematically), it’s really important to understand the ways in which these delineations get created and enforced. Much of the inequality in our culture comes directly from, and is continually fostered by, language: racial slurs, socio-economic derogatory terms like "welfare queen", religiously charged hate speech; these are linguistic and ideological frameworks that we construct, with materials that are often unconsidered and largely the product of our particular cultural legacy. When something is a "term" it has a predetermined span of time, a shelf-life; it is fixed in place by its perceived limitations. This is how language has been stunted and weaponized, by being enforced as "terminology". Returning focus to language's sense of playfulness, to its ongoing associative morphology and restless energy, can help, I think (I hope), break apart some of the barriers that concretizing rhetoric has set in place. <br />
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Debrah: Thank you, Jamie, for these insights. I am indebted to your thoughts on these things for it does seem that even notions of afterlife have ghettos for the unholy, like purgatory, hell, limbo. Heaven is for the upper-crust, if it is composed of mansions. <br />
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Since this interview is for Starlight, Philadelphia, I would like to close by asking you about how you find the city of Philadelphia to be an inspiration for your poems. Do you find it as such? Does the city & its pulse enter your composition of "Mansions?" Do you feel like your poetry has changed as a result of being in Philadelphia?<br />
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I think the eclecticism of Philadelphia has definitely opened up new perspectives in my writing. The city is this interesting hodgepodge of old and new, which coincides with the mixture of archaic/religious and popular culture language used throughout the poem (sort of like Old City abutting South St.). Living in Philly, as a writer, has afforded me a lot of opportunities to work with people who are passionate about where they live -- which, in turn, has helped me realize the importance of specificity in writing, of being connected to a place and the unique conditions that locale generates. Philly has helped ground my poetry in real things, and has helped me focus on the importance of writing as a social act, not just an aesthetic one. I want to give all credit due to the amazing, diverse, welcoming writing community in Philadelphia for adopting me 3 years ago. You were one of the first writers I met in Philly, and it’s amazing to look back at the time I've spent here, in part, through this discussion. Thanks again Debrah, it's always a pleasure to chat! <br />
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Debrah: & thanks for this interview, Jamie. It’s a blessing for all of us here that you decided to move to Philadelphia three years ago.<br />
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Jamie Townsend lives in East Kensington, Philadelphia, where he is organizer of the c / c reading series, & co-founder of con / crescent, a chapbook publisher & magazine focused on discursive essay / creative non-fiction. He is author of the chapbooks STRAP/HALO (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs; 2011) & Matryoshka (LRL Textile Editions; 2011). His poetry & critical work has appeared in various publications, including The Cultural Society, Gam, Wheelhouse, Volt, Elective Affinities, Jacket2, The Poetry Project Newsletter, & Try.STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-31490370695910384192011-05-22T20:30:00.000-07:002011-05-22T21:18:16.976-07:00FEATURE: SARAH HEADY: POETIC GLUE TRAVELING WOMAN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaTc5zjf-rgfSMt0kKq3GbBYk1L6-RbmJ2yePcUY1PhxIGz_OimEMbH6cRqdEIaAYbLHQtgq-c-CEQ65bNZhdIquFcSCr-Q-yTiaQ8eR13quxFVw6Dz-99B3Ga4q-Kb2k-Ae5nYfSEp4/s1600/sarahheady.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPaTc5zjf-rgfSMt0kKq3GbBYk1L6-RbmJ2yePcUY1PhxIGz_OimEMbH6cRqdEIaAYbLHQtgq-c-CEQ65bNZhdIquFcSCr-Q-yTiaQ8eR13quxFVw6Dz-99B3Ga4q-Kb2k-Ae5nYfSEp4/s1600/sarahheady.jpg" /></a></div> Sarah Heady has a wonderful collection<br />
of vintage postcards.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Correspondence<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">by Sarah Heady</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">The roland at the center of the world<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">is self-feasting in a centrifuge dress.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">Physics at the middle of a controversy:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">American Barn rotting in its own brown mist, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">a fragrance with the caginess of a gambling addict<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">basted with sutures in the blueberry patch.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">You sent me a postcard of a risk assessor <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">perched at the edge of town, waiting <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">for mishandled rations, or singing to himself <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">while steaming out chiggers from the perennial bed— <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">I couldn’t tell which. My eyes were dry. When I reply<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">I will emphasize my miserable beach experience:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">red grapes dredged in sand, wet sleeves.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">November walked the plank too soon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">The ocean just there, in that dunk spot,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;">turned instantly ice.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sarah Heady is a wonder of rare coincidences. She is, in fact, one of the founding members of The New Philadelphia Poets, and I believe she was the super glue of that organization. Because of her involvement & gusto, The New Philadelphia Poets transcended the typical role of most literary outfits, & became a group indebted to fight for the cause of the suffering independent bookstore. Sarah planned readings & events to support Molly’s Books & Wooden Shoe Bookstore, & both of these events met with great success.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sarah is the rare person grounded in the microcosm but aware of the macrocosm. While she was in Philadelphia, she seemed to blend these two necessities in being involved in a community while benefiting from the awareness of the coincidences that breed poetic inspiration. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Her presence is greatly missed here. Not terribly long ago, Patrick Lucy, Carlos Soto Roman & I met up with Sarah at the Philadelphia International Airport, where she had a layover. It was important to meet up with Sarah in this spot of travel & transition, as she bestowed gracious presents (like bags of granola) to us & updated us about her life. I realized at this moment that Sarah’s energy & poetry share commonalities with airports. Her work begs us to leave behind one moment to clear way for the next. I hope you enjoy this interview with Sarah Heady.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Debrah: Sarah, as one of my favorite collaborators, I am honored to begin with you on this project, Starlight, Philadelphia. Your presence is still felt in Philadelphia. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I am also moved that the title of this poem is "Correspondence," as this is part of what Starlight, Philadelphia aims to accomplish. What does Correspondence mean to you, and can you emphasize for me your miserable beach experience?<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sarah: Thanks, Debrah! I'm excited to be corresponding with you. I miss the non-existent starlight in Philly. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">With this poem I was thinking about the seemingly straightforward act of corresponding with someone through the mail. I recently inherited a box of close to a thousand vintage postcards, most of which were postmarked in the 1940s and 1950s. I noticed that the handwritten messages reflected the type of social disposition we associate with that time--overly cheerful and optimistic, painting everything like it's peaches and cream. But there were also moments in which the writers were very candid about the disappointments of their vacations. Most commonly bad weather and bad food, but also things like: "I went to look up my friend at his downtown office and he was out of town for the week," or "We arrived right after the museum had closed for the day." The reverse serendipity of the just-missed attraction.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I'm interested in the space between our actual experiences and the kind of leisure time we think we deserve: the sun will be shining, the food will be delicious, the conversation will flow, etc. Often the real deal is less like an advertisement and more like a watershed, or maybe just one more normal day on earth. An earth that has rain and wind and seagulls eating your snacks, whether or not that was in the brochure. And the way we then relate these adventures back to others, the details we leave out because they're not pretty and can't elicit the typical automatic response to somebody's vacation story, i.e., "That sounds amazing...[I'm jealous]." But jealousy might never enter the equation if we had the ability to convey the ambiguities of our experiences. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">In terms of my own miserable beach experience, now corresponding with you from nine hundred miles away, living in a situation that often feels like an extended bizarro vacation, there is the sense that anything I explain to you or anybody in Philadelphia about what it's like to live in a rural southern town would be futile. Being here is both wonderful and horrible, but how to convey that succinctly? In poems, I guess. <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Debrah: I am intrigued that you have created with this poem a replica, perhaps, of postcard interaction. And you state this in the second stanza so eloquently: "You sent me a postcard of a risk assessor / perched at the edge of town, waiting..." This kind of slower-time interaction has begun to fade from human experience in this digital age. Do you think poetry moves in slow-time or fast-time? Do you think the effects of a more quickly-paced world has affected poetry, which is an ancient art form? If so, for better, or for worse, or a bit in between? Has the increased pace of life affected your poetry for instance? Is the pace of Bell Buckle Tennessee fast or slow? Has your poetry changed as a result of your relocation?<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sarah: It does seem that poetry moves increasingly in fast-time, and there are facets of poetry that are extremely well-suited to the digital pace. Poets’ desire to connect with an audience and with one another is much more easily fulfilled now. But I think poetry as an art form does suffer a bit from the medium of the internet, since living with poems requires one’s full bodily attention—something that is, by definition, absent when you’re online. I, for one, can’t stand reading poems (or really any writing of substance) on a screen, so the idea of keeping up with poetry blogs is exhausting to me. But I’m also happy that they exist: I know that they allow incredible poetic collaborations to occur both in the ether and in real life.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">On a personal level, though, my attention span has been drastically shortened over the past five or six years, and I directly blame the internet. I’m constantly trying to wrestle my brain into stillness. I’m sure I’m not alone in this feeling of fragmentation, but I might have been poetically alone in Philly much longer without it. The fact of the matter is that you and I met through a craigslist posting you created in search of local poets. Everything is a trade-off.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I moved to Bell Buckle because I needed a boring, slow place in which to explore my own brain. In Philly I was attending and organizing lots of poetry events, but barely making time to actually write. There are only so many hours in the day. Here, where there are no distractions, I’ve been able to keep up a daily writing practice, the results of which have surprised and challenged me greatly. I think my consciousness as a writer has grown just as much in the past seven months as it did over three years in Philly, simply because I’ve spent more time with my writing self. I’ve got the luxury of nothing else to do, so I can go off on tangents that may or may not be fruitful. It sounds corny and reactionary, but being in a quiet, peaceful place where you can hear the birds singing and watch children ride bikes past your porch is intensely relaxing. I’m more tuned into the cycles of light, storms, fertilization, rotting, intoxication and hunger, which helps me cultivate attention and a sharper sense of time(lessness) in my brain and in my work.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Debrah: Sarah, I am interested in your idea that poetry requires one's "full bodily attention." Can you describe the process you feel the body goes through either in reading a poem or in writing one? What kind of process did your body go through in the composition of "Correspondence?" In the poem you say, "My eyes were dry." Did you feel this sensation of dry eyes when you wrote that line? Or did it exist in memory? Or does that line serve as metaphor?<o:p></o:p></span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Sarah: I think I need to qualify that statement and perhaps negate it. My richest writing and reading experiences come at times when I can both concentrate on the text and allow my environment to influence it. In your last interview with Greg Bem, he mentions the "external and internal factors derived from above" that shape his writing at the moment. We're talking about the same thing. To be able to feel my body in space, to be cognizant of sounds, to allow surfacing memories, vehicles, and people to pass through my consciousness are all very important. In other words, a holistic way of accepting all possible influences on the poem as it's being written or read. So really, the "full bodily attention" I talked about is not full, but fragmented. This superficially resembles the internet brain (i.e. open to following infinite pathways at whim), but is actually so different in quality from the receptive and relaxed state I'm describing. I think most practicing writers would agree that an empty white room with nothing but a laptop is actually a dead space for creativity, not an ideal haven. The shut-out world is not the best one. But all of this is very particular to the way <i>my </i>brain works. I would love to crack open my poet friends' skulls and see what's up in there.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Lately my process has consisted of stream-of-consciousness writing on paper, to which I only return several months after the fact and clean up. So I can't specifically recall the composition of "Correspondence," but I'm pretty sure it's the distillation of about five pages of crap. It's also the middle poem in a series of three short pieces. I do think I added the line "My eyes were dry" (which is to be taken literally) much after the fact, only in the final draft. Although I avoid tweaking my semi-automatic (haha) writing too much, so that it stays fresh, I will stitch new lines in order to bring everything together. It's very possible that my real eyes were really dry when I wrote the piece. I wear contacts and I'm bad about changing them.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Debrah: Haha. I am also horrible about changing my contacts.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 13pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Thank you so much, Sarah, for all this wonderful insight into your poetry & thoughts about the world & process. Now, for the final question. Since this interview is for Starlight, Philadelphia, could you please highlight your favorite experiences about Philadelphia Poetry, as well as perhaps your not so favorite?</span></b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>Sarah: Wow, it's difficult to think of the negatives when I'm wearing the rosy goggles of distance. But since you asked, I think what I would criticize about the Philadelphia poetry scene is something that could be said for any tight-knit group of artists anywhere in the world: we all just need to continually remind ourselves that we are stronger when we work together than when we compete and quarrel over little things. The scene is incredibly diverse, and sometimes that leads to antipathy and judgment, but that's also what I would say is beautiful about a small place like Philly -- you're bound to encounter poets that you wouldn't necessarily align yourself with, and you learn from them.</b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>So as to avoid more generalizations, here's a list of elements that stand out in my memory as quintessentially my-three-years-in-Philadelphia-poetry, which is all I can speak to:</b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>Poets huddles together in the shadow of poverty, City Hall cock, little shelters of Fishtown parks, late nite bodega ice cream, Dirty Frank's, bus up 3rd St. to now-defunct bar.</b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>Poets slipping on wet tile mosaic floor at Magic Gardens, linty already-peeled hardboiled eggs, arguments re: alchemy, the empty frame of Ben Franklin's house, kissing his privy, too drunk on margaritas to network.</b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>Poets on group sojourn to the Pine Barrens, Atlantic City, Port Richmond, Bucks County, Bainbridge at Fifth as smelly alley, empty 1.5 L wine bottles, Fergie's grilled cheese, Jamie loves pizza.</b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>Poets doing one a.m. yoga on the kitchen floor of a 100K house, on the border of safety, faking tourist status for free continental breakfast at the downtown Marriott, someone fucking stole the seat off a bike. But writing.</b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><b>Debrah: Such wonderful memories, Sarah. Thanks for conjuring them for us all to share.</b></span></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 15px;">A graduate of Oberlin College, Sarah Heady is a founding member of the New Philadelphia Poets. Since 2007, she has performed with NPP in such venues as the Philly Fringe Festival (<i>Invisible Keepsakes</i>) and the Bowery Poetry Club (<i>Redemptive Strike</i>). Her first chapbook, <i>Eight-track Underwater</i>, was published in 2010 by Splitleaves Press. Sarah recently relocated to Bell Buckle, Tennessee (pop. 451), where she lives in a drafty 'Joni Mitchell house' and attempts to grow things you can eat.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 3.5in 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #1d1d1d; font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-86835583473750359722011-05-03T05:49:00.000-07:002011-05-03T05:55:36.280-07:00FEATURE: GREG BEM, POETIC FRONTIERSMAN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR7TR4tDpJapZDnpnPhaMoeyPEiN8CUbQyVr4eP_4Ao-tqWrYqCc7wmeiAlyRogSKIQ4BGwvB0hMj61akPE6s8zg7rSS5yG7EB4ToGA8HNHQz3ancoFsjI5aXYuZMPNeiP-qa69Hb30ZY/s1600/greg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR7TR4tDpJapZDnpnPhaMoeyPEiN8CUbQyVr4eP_4Ao-tqWrYqCc7wmeiAlyRogSKIQ4BGwvB0hMj61akPE6s8zg7rSS5yG7EB4ToGA8HNHQz3ancoFsjI5aXYuZMPNeiP-qa69Hb30ZY/s1600/greg.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Greg Bem is adventurous. :)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Pneumaticklish, 21st Office of zee Foulest Happy Regiment</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="apple-style-span"><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">by Greg Bem</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And it wasn’t that we were hurrying: sky blazing through shields of glass in day of song.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cloud kiosk. Systems. A-scurrying, a rat-tail flickering in the wind-up trail of windy portages.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Door hinges. We were beaming. Eyes glittered over trashy pick-me-ups, breaks of ice.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silence is the best mother to be left in the closet you never like to go to it holding nothing special.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ice breaker but what? What’s in a hurry? Dear son, hold me back; keep me from bursting. Says she.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s all the damned’s whisper could say AC’d. There was an icy breath amidst April cruelisms.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I, focus now, to pick up circular saws, to throw them. To cut wood, flesh of the saw, dust.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I remember Maine. Launch and launch and it’s lunch time. Are you scared? I sense rumble in my belly.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sense ant parades, brackets. Mobiles dangling in childhood. Above. And Austin sweat lodge heat.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s been a year. A stone pot overturned. A feeling swelling from my toes to the jam on my fingers.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back in Rip City the camo’d fella in rainbow toupee delivered a wave today. A bus stop. Black.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On newsprint a pause rooted in quake and the matter still shies away and we are stone.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There be rebels we’ve staggered in Africa and the tooth of a giant snail lodged into each orifice.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And everyone is wont to wear crimson on their eyelids, paint their nails, plush up.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wait for visions of giant creatures who only come to the surface when it rains then dry up, dead.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cause for Cause for Concern: Discerned. Up the stairwell. Use the Emergency. It is cold.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is bright in the analysis. The benchmark of the mark. The new technologically tepid. Testy.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tap of water for the computer, fronds in second corner picking up another occasional glance.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best way to give is to take. Depraved. The best way to leave is to run away. This message for speed.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To give it all, to give it all back, Emergency Entryway. Damsel to have given it, I gave it all: give-able.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think about how many floors it would take before I had the courage to jump beyond and out, away.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aren’t you away? A rabbit. You are. Route to arson? You are in vogue? En-robeing the grove?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An egg smashed on the carpet. Rubbed in embryo. Emblematic patent office. Stamps: Stamps.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To leave the hand shaking; burning; spurning; turning; churning: my neck choking yours</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We make out like feasts before kings, like strands of hair beyond a lighter, look’d to burn point.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a case of the cold. The toilet’s edge. The backwoods brawler. Stale beer below shoes.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you: Title Case: Able to Hurry. The Standard Flagged. Case Opening. Account Closed.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Down spout. Spigot rusted. And yet what have we to do to lose position? Miss a smidgeon?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What have we to read up. Cannot leave it in a figure. “Do I Ask So Much?” “Do I want?”</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where have you gone today? What is real? Where is my family? Am I hiding?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again beckoned in fortress. Mode of permanence. Future bird for paradise. Paradise for birds.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you save, you are able. I watch stains develop on my desk and save them. Rag, keep away.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blotched ink stains rubbed into the palm. I am able, and I willing, to blast past: cyclists come out.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The blues in your eyes, I stare at them with belief. Endomorphic corneas: words are crispy.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story is a nod, a pamphlet, of the wet bucket: chronic concrete syndrome fatigue.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that we haven’t thought of that. Yet. Not that we have grown tired by, collapsed into.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditions come in all colors. Radiation is forgivable. My decay is greater than yours. Clip nails.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also all shades of grey, super standard, mentionables: bringing back life through attack of heart.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mandibles of the mannequin, creatures of lagoons a darkness. Risk, risk, risk. Back to the forms.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oil and vice. Stupor and flower petal: peddler. Cannot oust it. Out of it. These times filled and managed.</span></div><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">The first installment of Starlight, Philadelphia, is a feature on poet Greg Bem, who no longer lives in Philadelphia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This might seem odd for a project focusing on Philadelphia-based poets, but I have my reasons for starting with Greg.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Namely, I believe him to be a frontiersman who stands on the precipice looking out on the new world of what is possible for poetry of this new epoch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greg continually explores ways to create poetic convergence not only with new media & technology, but with community-building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This impressed me so much when I first met Greg for coffee at a place in Philadelphia called Café Ole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our meeting that day was portentous, as it signaled for me that I would know this young man forever, & that as long as I knew him, I would feel continually inspired to stretch beyond my artistic comfort zones & to engage with the world in new ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">While in Philadelphia, Greg worked really hard in the poetry community here – so much output on his part, so many poems written, so many videos made, so many chapbooks published, so many audio recordings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is hard to list all that he accomplished while here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But one thing remains true – if you mention his name to many of the poets here, they will smile & tell you lots of good Greg stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greg is a man like a legend.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">I have many fond memories of Greg, but I wanted to note the important endeavor that we took upon ourselves in terms of ACTION.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day, Greg & I noted the importance for poetry to enter in the realms of the terroristic -- & we devised plans of citywide poetic terrorism in the streets of Philadelphia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We tried this a time or two – it didn’t work as maybe we wanted it to, but you never know – some day we may improve it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The possibilities are endless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope you enjoy this interview with Greg Bem.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Debrah:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gregory Bem, as one of my favorite all-time collaborators, I am honored to start this project, Starlight, Philadelphia, with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">There are so many things I love about this poem of your's, "Pneumaticklish...."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it is difficult to begin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps let us first speak of the form of the poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What lended itself to you, about this poem, a necessity to create such elongated lineations of text & words? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Greg:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks for this opportunity. Here’s the deal with form and me as poet, as writer: I can’t sit still. I can’t stay true to one form. I’m not the kind of poet who’s going to go seek a foot or measured sequence, pattern, breath. The human body has its limitations and has its natural ways about it, and it’s great to try and emulate that textually, but it’s also extremely challenging (not only intellectually) because we’re constantly changing shapes, changing spaces, changing muses and moods. But also we crave excitement, change, diversification! </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">When I sit down to write a poem, it’s reflected by the external and internal factors derived from above. Like rubber balls hitting blank brick. With Pneum, as I’ll refer to it short-handedly, here’s the setup: I’m working a 9-5 job now, doing the Lew Welch thing, working for an advertisement company, writing ad copy all day in front of two big computers, like two giant portals into nothing and everything all day long, and they keep most of the lights in this office off all the time so really the light of the screen, of the work, is really what’s keeping you in, up, excited, lively, energized. And yet everything here is restrictive in its openness. I’m in a giant office building in downtown Seattle, feeling the height of the world, feeling like I’m “important” and aggrandized by elevation, and sitting amidst gods, strangely enough, and yet I have to be discrete in the creativity of the job. SO the form of the poem was easy to come to. I’m not going to hold back in the love poem for my job. The form is going to counteract what is pinning me down, or up, or against a wall like a bulletin board.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">So think of the poem’s lines as a kind of ejaculatory spurt of cultural cannon fire. Bullets seeking to escape out of these walls. Not necessarily physically violent, but culturally violent. The terms, the long lines. They are like John Olson, or Joanne Kyger, or Whitman, or Ginsberg, or even your own work, which has been known to carry breadth of content within each line.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">As a final note on form, I think it’s easier for me to write in length and size and, as Baudelaire called it, in the “VAST”, when I’m disassociated. When I’m a drone I really am a drone. I get transformed by the job, by the role, by the duty. This isn’t just when I’m working for a corporation. It’s when I’m actively playing community leader, or volunteer, or citizen. If I’m going to wear my mask I’m going to wear it all the way. And thus I can take on an objective view for a bit, for a shift, for the duration of my duties. But as soon as I have the opportunity, like on a lunch break with a goal or mission, like writing a love poem for my job, I take that chance and explode with it. What’s curious is Frank O’Hara. We all know his story and his job—I guess this can be applied to WCW too, by the way—but anyway with O’Hara, he worked and then went out for a walk on his lunch break and wrote fabulous poems, but they were strong symbiotically personal-external reels. Maybe it’s because Pneuma wasn’t some kind of sensory overload but rather a meta-sensory overload. An overload and expunging process from sitting in front of digital content all day, where screens move but nothing’s really moving, where the NOISE is in nothing more than the silence, which we fill with the orderliness of the typing, of the clicking, of the breaths (a huge cultural essay could be written on cubicle breathing, by the way, if you’re interested). What matters is that when I’m sitting at home in my fortress, my den, my nest, I am ready to explore matters far riskier and far more personal, more traumatic, than those I am ready to explore at work, and I think the super-personal thematic content really tighten up my lines. I tread lightly, so to speak, like tip-toeing through a minefield, making sure I know what I’m getting into. There wasn’t the need for that sort of protection of personal defense here. After four hours writing 70 character advertisements, a poet needs to be boisterous.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Debrah:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am especially interested in your notion that the lines of this poem serve as "a kind of ejaculatory cultural cannon fire."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That there is a sense of cultural violence permeating this piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In creating a poem that consists of culturally violent ejaculatory cannon fire, do you attempt to engage any attempts to arrive at a point of political deliverance?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does this poem engage a dystopian framework?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For instance, your line "There be rebels we've staggered in Africa and the tooth of a giant snail lodged into each orifice."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or again, when you pose the questions in the poem, "Route to arson?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are in vogue?"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There seems to be a lot of contemporaneous present indicative in posing such important questions & ideas in poetry these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people challenge the notion that poetry can still be important as a political weapon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You speak of this poem containing "bullets seeking to escape from these walls."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that literal?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Greg:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don't think of the same violence associated with poetry that I may have associated four or five years ago, when I was in the middle of my undergraduate education, when I thought about poetry in ways equitable to superheroes (or villains). I think there are definite limitations to poetry as a form of communication. But! I think that poetry as a political weapon is doable, and should be encouraged. It is a very portable medium to work with, which means it can be adapted to any environment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Some of the largest walls we have to bulldoze are those within ourselves. So when I talk about any explosive material, it should first and foremost be checked that it can leave the cannon! If you have a plugged up armament, and you try to fire, boom! You're done. Humans build up personal defenses all the time, and that's good to an extent, but at times we realize we're ready to burst. We take in just-less-than-infinite quantities of information and store it. But it's not meant to be stored! We are not fortresses! It's inevitable that everyone feels this. Some turn to poetry. They'll write lines with everything they want to clear their systems of. They need to get the negatory (and often that which is positive, or even ideal, as it too shouldn't be kept for oneself, shouldn't be weighing one own alone) out, and so what do they do? Turn their voices on! The poet who has experience will create motives and be able to tune in, direct their information to the source they desire: but this "crafting" if you will is not the most important element. The most important element is first raising awareness that individual voice is possible for everyone. Anyone can spurt out a line or two but most just don't know it. Larger political structures can form (as weapons--or other tools!) out of this increase in consciousness. But the poems themselves--writing them is an initiation, and an agreement a person is making with themselves and subconsciously with the environment they are about to share with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">The dystopian framework is utterly present and fascinating, simultaneously, and we must consider the environment I spoke of above, must really think about it, but not only about it, but what it will become. I grew up reading Kafka and Dostoyevsky and Emily Dickenson and Poe--you know, great literature, and despite how great it was, it was so depressing. So, so depressing. Look at Kafka's castle. Look at the morality and nihilism in the Russians. Look at the isolation and sardonic inhibitions of Emily. And Poe . . . he's one of the first real Lit guys they teach in middle school. It's no surprise that the generations who recently grew up with this morose shit, this beautiful no doubt but still morose shit, consider the incredibly violent video games they are creating justified. I'm going all over the place. Let me recircle out of that tangent and try to redeem myself: I think a lot of contemporary American poets grew up recently through some dark literature as foundations. I think that the dark literature they grew up with, and were influenced by, had a lot to do with Industrial America, an environment of the past. I think a lot grew up attempting to infiltrate and tear down bureaucracy and the nihilistic automatism connected at the hip. In the 80s it wasn't the poets but the sci-fi writers who were doing the same thing for literature with cyberpunk. Look at William Gibson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at Neil Stevenson. The relationship to the computer bureaucracy and the Infinite Knowledge is being tackled still. We don't have a grasp on it. I think that we poets look for reversions against it. We want the primacy of pre-digital technology. We want to go back to a language that felt less robotic, less zeros and ones. Aside from some folks experimenting with computer poetry (an image to me that's similar playing around in Rhode Island puddles after a rain storm, with the ocean just over the ridge), most poets stick to the page. They are quite literally behind the times. And for good reason. The Internet is the new Castle. The Internet is the new nihilism. Every time you check Facebook, Schopenhauer's cycle spins once again. It's a large death clock (to reference the tool that came out on the Internet when the Internet was still coming out on the Internet, when it was still being birthed through the celestially cybernetic womb).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Going back to my poem. When I write something that's big, it's because there is so much output I can't readily or comfortably sift through everything to pull out a nice spine, a nice dainty spine, where all the INFO of the poetry is located. Doing this requires a very specific place (as I mentioned earlier in the interview). So I throw out as much as possible. When I make mentions of Africa, it's not to be ornamental but to entwine myself with every instance of knowledge that I have collected, magnetized, along the way. Humans catch on to political unrest like it's butter and sugar. There is an identity we like to share, a knowledge that is privileged, an elitism about knowing everything that is going on at all times. My poem is the antithetical brother. It's statement is in the structure of the words. The political deliverance is there even if the message is not full formed. But doesn't that fit perfectly, represent wholly, with how most of humanity really communicates with one another, on a regular basis?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Debrah:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You say that you believe poetry has limitations as to what it can accomplish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What would you say those limitations are?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am intrigued by the notion that the dark literature of America has its roots in our Industrial Past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you think it is important to maintain a dark quality in literature, or to try to break through that darkness to offer some light?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you consider "Pneumaticklish..." to be a dark poem, or do you think it offers some light?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are darkness & light so distinct anyhow?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the poem, you state:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"I am able, and I willing, to blast past..."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does this indicate that there is something at the end of the darkness that permeates other moments of this poem?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do you see to be the limitations of this poem in particular?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Greg:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poetry has as many limitations as an art form as any other art form. One of the major limitations of poetry (and this can applied to other forms as well) is the idea of poetry. It obviously is a form that has been mastered in many ways by many different people, but it has an identity, it has rules and expectations. These restrictions can be morphed and manipulated, but not necessarily in the most radical of ways. At the end of it all you're still going to work with what is Poetry. And we and those who are going to hear/read what we have to create--they are going to think, I know where this is going. Even if they have no idea. Even if we have no idea. We're still dictated by historical identity. If you want to relate this back to the industrial, that post-Renaissance belief in mass-production, you can look at literature that follows forms that A) will sell; B) will be appreciated by many; and C) will be a representation of beauty. Beauty to who? To me? To you? I think if you want to be radical, you could write a poem that says: this is not a poem. But how long will that "gimmick" work? Not long after the first poem. At the same time it can be argued that what "radicals" (or realistically "revolutionaries") in the Middle East, in Africa, in the Midwest of this country are creating poetry every day with their Twitter accounts. Twitter's form may be the contemporary poetry, the real poetry, the poetry of the people that will be documented as such in one hundred years, or at least Twittered about. And of course classic, page-based poets are going to get a little offended by a statement like that, but we've all (consciously or subconsciously) attempted to make our status message or away message or cell phone text message or Twitter post poetic. At least once. I think this could be exploited, for sure. I made a couple text message chapbooks that kind of delve into it, but they are very rudimentary. I wasn't focused. I still am not focused enough to take the avenue seriously. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Rather than get bogged down by it, I like to look at limitations of form in kind of hindsight, which is why my general sadness didn't slowly infect my work and force me to stop writing. I think that in the end it comes down to what you can achieve without going the whole nine yards. How can we be practical as poets? It might involve being poetic and applying what we know about poetry to other media and presentation: the performer behind the mega speaker in St. Paul. The self-published poet creating politically-agitating poetry broadsides and handing them around to various audiences, both public and private. How can we be realistic without romanticizing (and failing) with the old American Hero ideology. Remember when Budweiser did that Real American Hero campaign on the radio? It might have been on TV too. Anyway, it focused on the regular, average joes that do all the service and industrial work in this country. They were completely sarcastic, completely well-written, and something I remember cheered me up every day when I went to school in high school (and beyond). That's all gone now. A shockingly ridiculous 93% of the American people (who are accounted for) have cell phones. Something utterly unfathomable right now. Hero ideology has changed. We still worship that our heroes have super abilities, but there's more technology, a more realistic grab. Look at who the protagonists of all those blow-em-up action movies are. They are kind of the same but they are really playing on themselves. They are memories, not reality. We can all specialize in whatever we want now, with access to these banks of mega-knowledge. I just learned where all 200 rap artists whose music I have on my hard drive are from. Last night. In like 20 minutes. Wow.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">So does all of these drastic changes make this a dark world? What is darkness? What is light? These are questions I haven't struggled with in a while, so I'm glad you ask them. I think you confront the undersides of culture in your own right so you know what I mean by exploratory. I think poets, in order to be considered interesting, whatever that means, by way of appealing to people, they need to be sarcastic and critical and tap into both what is A) strange and B) what is familiar. A good mix of the two is required. I think that shock value is important too, coming from a performance-based background, but I think we can be subtler, more challenging, and yet still be invitational. Pneuma is a poem that deals with that. There is all this slush I have to slush through, images of things, of stuff, hanging out around my LIFE, and eventually the grace is through that line you mentioned, when I see the thought of the cyclists outside. That there is still freedom and air and current and exploration and speed out there, in the world that I am not experiencing. I just have to escape the solitude of the inner and external fortress, of work, of the working life. Being a part of industry now means sitting in front of those giant screens, communicating with people three feet away by email. It's the pit and the pendulum. It's me strapped down watching the blade move back and forth. It's me wanting to go to my Massachusetts home and hide upstairs and write poetry all day. Cthulhu is coming, my poetry says, but the terror is going to be in the feed, the streamed content, not a physical, non-digital presence. In the end of Pneuma I say; "Cannot oust it. Out of it. These times filled and managed." Well obviously they aren't managed, only in the poem, which is the tool I use to manage them! The politics of the self! The ideological war of personal sanity! It's sarcastic and a little tragic but it's all we can do to hang on and survive.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Debrah:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greg, this has been super informative, & has given me much to think about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank you very much for all your luminous thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the last question, since this interview is for Starlight, Philadelphia, can you speak a bit about what you thought of poetry in Philadelphia -- & is there anything about Philadelphia Poetics that you brought with you to Seattle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are the poetries/poetry communities that exist in the two cities more alike or different?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How so?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Greg:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Debrah, thanks for putting this whole project together. I think that it's time more people, more poets, more artists, leave the truly horrid mediums for dialogue (magazines, television, literary journals) and start talking with each other, and sharing it! No more social politics! No more private discourse! But I lose myself. In the end, I hope that the kind of thing you are doing, like the kind of thing Carlos Soto Roman did with Elective Affinities, becomes the model for poets everywhere. But anyway...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">I'll briefly talk about my relationship with Philadelphia, which I think exists to this day (beyond our friendship, of course!)--first of all, I moved to Seattle from Philly only last September. I'm still new to Seattle, so making grandiose statements on it versus Philadelphia is kind of hard. I lived in Philly for a couple years and was pretty involved. I started with the Poetic Arts Performance Project and kind of became "assimilated" into the New Philadelphia Poets after meeting you. I helped curate and perform at various events and tried to support a couple other groups, too, including CAConrad/Frank Sherlock, the Philly Sound crew, et cetera. The best part about Philly was the incredible overlap; you saw the same faces everywhere. People really cared. Sarah Heady, Jacob Russell, Ish Klein, Jena Osman. Hell, even Ron Silliman shouts out the underdogs and folks who aren't tied to the hip with academia. And yet I think that Philly's university background makes it easy for intellectuals, even those who are used to being kind-of undercover, to be employed and pursue just what they love. They can stick to the smokes in the alleys and teach a few courses and it kind of binds so many circles together. In this way, I really appreciated Philly. I didn't feel the same gap that I felt in Rhode Island. I didn't feel the gap that's here. Philadelphia had so many heads popping up from below and everyone was (and presumably still is) able to reach out and connect with others. One night I got wasted and made a Philadelphia Poetry Map (that the girls with Apiary actually want to revive) and yet really thinking about it, it wasn't even necessary. It was a kind of symbol, a kind of flag, personally of course, and hopefully externally, that could be waved merely in appreciation of the diverse and active members of the poetics community.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">The skills that people learn in communities as tight as that carry with them to wherever they go. Yesterday poet and media experimenter Joe Milutis (who teaches as U. Washington Bothel) called me a diplomat uniting many different poetic styles together. Well I really dipped my hand in that directly for the first time with Adam Meora and St. Skribbly LaCroix and the PAPP crew, blending it in (pun intended) with everyone else I knew. Why not share different groups and people with one another? It's a fun and exciting activity! When I got to Seattle I realized that a community was existing but not in a healthy, thriving sort of way. No "golden age" like Philly saw. And yet there are so many trailblazers out here, keeping things alive in some cases, pushing things forward in other cases. Nico Vassilakis and Robert Mittenthal and Will Owen and Graham Isaac and Summer Robinson and Paul Nelson, and of course my confidantes Alex Bleecker and Jeremy Springsteed . . . we're all doing things. But I'm still trying to raise a genuine interest, create that conversation, amongst everyone. And that's the hard part--hitting the ignition, and hoping it will catch. Because, like I learned in Philly, organizing and being active in the community can certainly be draining. To the point where you need to learn that eventually there's got to be a split between creator of community and creator of poetry. But where the boundaries are--that's personal, and thus the fun part. I think I was able to survive in Philadelphia amidst the debris of poverty for so long, amidst the violence for so long, and not really get sad, because I was enjoying being part of the machine that was countering all that, emotionally. And everyone involved with that machine--we were all smiling.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">Debrah:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks, Greg -- & we’re still smiling -- & surely your words here will help us all continue to smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have a wonderful day.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';"> Greg Bem is a writer and marketer living in Columbia City, Seattle. He grew up in Southern Maine and got an undergraduate degree from Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. From 2008-2010 he lived in Philadelphia, where he was a member of the Poetic Arts Performance Project, and New Philadelphia Poets, and a full-time volunteer of the AmeriCorps program City Year. In late 2010, he drove across the country with two close friends in a moving truck and settled in Southeast Seattle. He volunteers for the Columbia City Library, the Rainier Valley Food Bank, and the Northwest Spoken Word Lab. He tutors youth regularly, is employed by the SEM company Marchex, and works weekends at the Borders Books in the Sea-Tac airport (tic-toc). His poetry, creative prose, and book reviews have been published in numerous online and offline journals. He co-curates an acclaimed performance series called the Breadline with Alex Bleecker and Jeremy Springsteed, and he runs a transparent press called Lone Byte that can be found, along with information on just about everything else mentioned above,<br />
at gregbem.com/wordpress.</span></div>STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-52526299201919250852011-04-14T15:18:00.000-07:002011-04-14T15:18:33.335-07:00COMING SOON / In the works...The first STARLIGHT will be on Sarah Heady & Gregory Bem, two poets who recently left Philadelphia to explore other parts of the country, but whose presence can still be felt beaming about the head of William Penn. STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-278872772090668258.post-42448506551699989362011-04-12T20:19:00.000-07:002011-04-12T21:37:25.987-07:00STARLIGHT PHILADELPHIA is just another project, among many, showcasing the vibrancy of the Philadelphia Poetry Community. <br />
<br />
This project exists to help foster lines of discourse & the sharing of poetic craft among the members of the Philadelphia community. It also serves to showcase to the national poetry public the quality & beauty of the poetry happening in Philadelphia today.<br />
<br />
Contact Debrah Morkun at <a href="mailto:debrahlvm@gmail.com">debrahlvm@gmail.com</a> with queries or suggestions.STARLIGHT, PHILADELPHIAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236689644004181113noreply@blogger.com