book interview: garden effigies by sara henning

May as well start here. I’m curious: what’s your elevator pitch for your book?

Garden Effigies explores the varying intersections of desire, intimacy, and loss. With poems that span subjects such as familial relationships, celebrations of intimacy, and awakenings into female reclamation and empowerment, the collection is both lush and analytical, willing to examine the most beautiful and painful moments of existence. One theme that haunts the collection—that of disclosure, culminating in the collection’s final poem entitled “Erasure with Starlings and What Women Won’t Tell You—nods to contemporary neo-confessionalism, a poetics that delves and breaches the manifold expressions of human experience.   

How did you come upon the subject of your book?

I came upon the subject of Garden Effigies when I was looking to dovetail poems dedicated to social justice—specifically violence against women—with an exploration of matrilineal relationships. By uniting these seemingly disparate notions, I began to weave a collection that wove the subjects together in a way that felt culturally enriching to me. Living in a world where women are stolen and imprisoned—I am specifically thinking of the kidnappings of women by Ariel Castro, among other such cases—I began to think about how crimes against women percolated in my own reality.

And the title? Sometimes, it seems to me, titles can strike like lightning or can be extraordinarily elusive. How did you go about finding your title?

I appropriated the title from a poem in the collection entitled “Apostasy Concerning Lingerie and Garden Effigies.” I did so because the poem seems to take to task the notion of how women cluster their most painful and ecstatic experiences in an emotional secret garden, tilling their memories there and tending them like exotic plants. This seemed to be a productive way to consider how the collection treats notions of memory, longing, and preservation.

Tell us something about the most difficult thing you encountered in this book’s journey.

The most challenging thing for me was yoking together the disparate notions of social justice and private lineage. I wanted both to illuminate each other rather than cause minimization or hyperbole.

And the most pleasurable?

Seeing poems with thematic differentiation come together under an overwhelming architecture was very satisfying to me.

What’s the best and / or worst piece of advice (writing or publishing or similar) you’ve gotten?

I think that the best piece of writing advice I have ever given is fairly pat and regurgitated, but very useful to my projects: write what you know. I think that this particular piece of advice can come with a warning label unless an individual is constantly engaged in research and extending one’s experiences. Writing what I know feels very liberating to me, and I often extend and complicate it by considering trope, metaphor, and creating images that delve at the level of the poem and the line.

Tell us one of your favorite books you’ve discovered recently and say a little about why.

This summer, I finally got a chance to spend time with Natalie Diaz’s When My Brother Was an Aztec. It has been on my reading list for a while, derailed over the past three years by the demands of Ph.D. program coursework and my preparation for written and oral comprehensive exams. The collection is moving because it considers cultural, familial, and intimate lineages in ways that feel compelling and seamless. The painful themes of poverty, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, and familial loss are explored with dignity and candor. The collection offers a tapestry of depth and range that few collections these days really harness.  

Can you share an excerpt from your book? Give us a taste.

Sure, I would love to do so. Here is a poem entitled “Woman, Border Crosser:”

WOMAN, BORDER CROSSER

—In Japanese folk literature, a Kitsune is a celestial fox that can take on human form, often in the form of woman, girl, or elderly man.

The vixen trespassing my mother’s gazebo, the one whose tail helixes in the turn spindles as she crouches by the parquet deck—will she fit reeds and skulls like avatars over her head at dusk, will she stand erect then, a tincture of hips and clavicles, though the brush stays fused to her pelvic girdle?

She’s a body zigzagging between darknesses, only flirting with space and time as she’s one place, then another.

I’m watching her sashay, not prowl, toward the storm-fractured pine trees bordering the yard, then turn back, as though her secret’s already slipped into pantyhose, flattened and cinched into a pretense of spine.

Fox by day, woman by night. I want to watch her lure any man not inoculated against her beauty into fever, watch him grow lacerations of desire like seeds of Spanish moss winded or carried by birds, watch him thrash under the fate of her body still swathed in almond-colored organza.

I want to watch her decide between eating his liver, unfolding the russet lobes like leaves of artichoke, tonguing long strips of his heart trimmed and seared in shallot oil, or letting him lift her hips in his car seat’s sun-bleached suede.

She’s what I mean by woman, not transformation. He’s what I mean by man misled by pleasure, thighs glistening like bitten star fruit.   

So what if he closes his eyes, grasps her flushed belly, so what if her tail is unraveling into a bolt of lightning? She’s only waiting for him to come so hard she disappears.

And then by his front axle, he’ll see the red plume loitering as she’s loitering now by the gazebo, my eyes still caressing her, dandelion florets catching in her fur. What do I call this border crosser, this parable once awkwardly concealed in stilettos, now running at full throttle? Her hocks and hind feet, translucent in her wake, are kicking up names and dust.

What’s a question you wish I asked? (And how would you answer it?)

What is your favorite gustatory writing muse? My answer: sea salt dark chocolate, especially if the salt used is Fleur de Sel. J

OK, we’re smitten. Where do we go to buy your book?

Thanks so much for saying so! You can buy my chapbook at the Dancing Girl Press website linked here: http://dulcetshop.myshopify.com/products/garden-effigies-sara-henning

book interview: the fool by jennifer jean

-May as well start here. I’m curious: what’s your elevator pitch for your book?

My debut collection, The Fool, explores the economic and spiritual poverty of my adolescence in Los Angeles—as well as the formation of my own family and spiritual development when I moved East to the Boston area.

-How did you come upon the subject of your book?

Like many poets, I explore my formative years in my first collection. It’s not a necessary rite of passage. But, it seems, retrospectively, that I needed to lay this sort of foundation for the manuscripts I’ve in development now. In writing The Fool I feel as if I’ve exorcised (or at least, have exercised!) some of the demons that’ve held me back—one of which is the cause of our family’s poverty:  the absence of my father due to his war-induced, severe PTSD.

-And the title? Sometimes, it seems to me, titles can strike like lightning or can be extraordinarily elusive. How did you go about finding your title?

The book is named after the central character of the Tarot Deck who encounters all manner of archetypal people and situations as she moves through each phase of her life. In many ways The Fool character is analogous to the debut poet who explores her formative years as if on a journey from ignorance into (the beginnings of) understanding. Some people have asked me, “Are you The Fool?” I tell them, “Yes, and so are you.” We’re all The Fool! I found this out when I worked as a phone-psychic in my 20’s. I also discovered then that reading poetry is much like reading a Tarot spread—so much depends on the juxtaposition of symbols and the connotations of words.

-Tell us something about the most difficult thing you encountered in this book’s journey.

Writing about meeting my father for the first time in 14 years was difficult. But after the galleys were in, and I’d begun pre-publication promotional readings, I felt courageous again. I geared up to visit him one more time (by then, it’d been 21 years since our last meeting).

-And the most pleasurable?

I know a lot of other mother-writers who gave up writing entirely so they could focus (only) on nurturing their family. And, I know a lot of other adjuncts in academia who gave up writing because they were burnt out trying to survive. I am so fortunate that I have a supportive husband and writing community who have helped me keep hopeful, and active, and thriving as a writer!

-What’s the best and / or worst piece of advice (writing or publishing or similar) you’ve gotten?

“Don’t stop!” Don’t stop writing. Don’t stop sharing your work and trying to publish. That’s what poet Dean Young told my grad school class. He told us about wonderful and accomplished writers, dear friends, who just stopped writing. Faded out. He said he almost gave up too. Of course, his stories were always full of his constant learning, and growth as a writer—so it was apparent we weren’t meant to just pound the keys and bombard publishers. Clearly, he wished us to read and read and learn and learn and engage and engage with all art and the writing life.

-Tell us one of your favorite books you’ve discovered recently and say a little about why.

Visiting Indira Gandhi's Palmist by Kirun Kapur is fantastic! Every poem has substance, richness, layers. They’re longish poems—pretty packed, but without sounding or being prosey. She attends to her line breaks (too many “lyric poets” and “narrative poets” do not, these days). I’m really excited to read her next book!

-Can you share an excerpt from your book? Give us a taste.

Rooting

                   

Root for the nipple, root for the home team,

root your foot

and ground

when crisis strikes. Root in your trash

for treasure. But, the root of all evil

is uprooting—and always thinking,

I’ve got no trash, or, I come from me.

Fool—this means you’re numb

to the root

that binds our family.

-What’s a question you wish I asked? (And how would you answer it?)

Well, if this were a Tarot reading you might ask, “Is my fate set?” And I’d answer, “No. Prophecies detail possible futures—when we know what’s possible we have the power to change our lives for the best and the adventurous.”

-OK, we’re smitten. Where do we go to buy your book?

Visit my website to find The Fool:  http://fishwifetales.com/books.html

book interview: a world less perfect for dying in by ralph pennel

May as well start here. I’m curious: what’s your elevator pitch for your book?

What do Elvis, Jesus, and Edward Hopper have in common? How do you light the soul on fire without, too, igniting the flesh? A World Less Perfect for Dying In answers these questions and more! The works here exam the liminal through the immutable, give lyric to form, give spirit permission to aspire to will. These poems, in exploration of themes of loss, faith—both lost and regained—death, isolation, and love, examine the ways in which our lives are but the brief imaginings of others, and the hope we still dare to breathe into those imaginings that they might one day come true.

How did you come upon the subject of your book?

As is the case with many other first books of poetry, the themes and subjects emerged organically, for the most part. By that I mean that I didn’t sit down consciously one day to “write this book” per say (though, in a way, by composing these poems, it was a conscious decision). The place I started working from was a suite of “urban pastorals” I had written a few years back. I wanted initially to expand on this notion, but the more time I spent working directly with this conceit in mind the less the works held together. Other ideas and themes emerged prominently and had to be moved from the periphery to the center. This meant adding and subtracting from the collection in order to get the right feel for the work as a whole. Once the poems began speaking to each other in ways that elevated the individual works collectively it became evident to me through that conversation what book I was really working on. This is all, of course, a much different process than I am executing now with the next manuscript . . . so far.

And the title? Sometimes, it seems to me, titles can strike like lightning or can be extraordinarily elusive. How did you go about finding your title?

The title of the manuscript came as both a strike of lightning and something extraordinarily elusive, actually. It was elusive in the sense that I had tried out several titles before it, which didn’t seem to work. But, maybe that’s not quite right. They worked with the way I had the poems arranged, but I felt like the wrong themes and tone were being exposed within those arrangements. It wasn’t until I made a few good decisions about how to create a greater sense of tension in the way the poems were speaking to each other that the title emerged. Actually, two possible options emerged. When the two titles emerged, it was as a lightning strike. I abandoned the first one that came to me, as I figured it might lead the reader in the wrong direction, toward assuming the “I” in these works is meant to be confessional and not lyrical, as I work consciously to expose what is emotionally true through what seems experientially true as seamlessly as possible. The title I abandoned became, instead, the title of the first section of the book. Coincidentally, this is usually not how titles reveal themselves to me. I often know the title of an individual piece before I begin to write or within the first few composed lines of a new poem. So, this was a slightly different type of engagement than what I have been accustomed to when working on individual pieces.

Tell us something about the most difficult thing you encountered in this book’s journey.

Letting certain poems go regardless of my affinity for them for the sake of the success of the manuscript. It was difficult at times to be completely honest with myself about the fact that some pieces just weren’t speaking well enough to the other poems to stay. We have to be able to kill our darlings, right? At least, that’s what I keep telling my students. But, it’s true. We aren’t very often our own best audience, often too close to the material to make the right choices concerning content.

And the most pleasurable?

When I came back to the book after my publisher sent me the first round of proofs. It had been a while since I had looked at the manuscript at all, exhausted by the process of getting the book accepted for publication in the first place. I had spent so much of the last two years arranging, rearranging, revising and composing new pieces that I couldn’t really see the book anymore. Or the individual pieces, for the most part. That first time through the proofs felt really good. I had gained enough distance from the work again to see it with fresh eyes. It was a huge relief.

What’s the best and / or worst piece of advice (writing or publishing or similar) you’ve gotten?

I’ll go with worst. Oddly enough, however, often the worst of the worst advice evolved into the best. But that has more to do with me as a person than the advice itself. One of my undergraduate professors had this uncanny knack for exacting the truth in a particularly poignant and damaging manner (she was eventually let go by the school, unsurprisingly). On more than one occasion, in an attempt to do harm, she actually made it clear to me what decisions I needed to make to move forward as a poet. One moment during a meeting with her in her office—where she was clearly reading my poem for the first time though this was a weekly arrangement she had with all members for the class and this was a task she should have accomplished before I was sitting in a chair at her desk with her—she made an attempt to belittle me by showing me how I was failing as a poet in general as a way to talk about the poem she had just read for the first time. And, admittedly, the poem may not have been that good. I don’t remember the poem. However, (though I was initially crushed to the point of considering becoming a math major), I realized that in her attempt to stamp the life out of me, she inadvertently led me to see where I was succeeding, and I, therefore, knew exactly where to focus the majority of my energy in becoming a more successful poet. So, in the long run, I am thankful for the interaction, but she was wrong and dead wrong to treat me, and everyone in the program, as recklessly as she did.

Tell us one of your favorite books you’ve discovered recently and say a little about why.

Pinion, by Claudia Emerson. Someone in my writing group recommended it and let me borrow her copy. She thought that it might help me make some critical choices regarding voice and organization with the new manuscript that I am currently working on. And she was right. The pieces come from different voices. The voices are true and emotionally authentic. And Emerson’s voice is so powerful in a quiet, purposeful way that is simultaneously public and private. I am glad to be spending time with the book in general and would recommend it to anyone, but I am also grateful to have the chance to study, for my own artistic purposes, the kinds of choices (and tough choices, I am sure) that Emerson made regarding the types of risks she knew this book had to take.

Can you share an excerpt from your book? Give us a taste.

from “Planning Our Departure”

You roll away from me, hand dropping

against the box spring,

as if to usher this bed into motion, into

one last feat of greatness though nothing on it stirs.

While we lie here, storm clouds

settle in above us,

rain gathers in their sagging bellies, felled cotton seed

invades every grassless patch of ground below.

I half expect to find this bed covered too,

mistake loose down against my pillow

for some ambitious seed that made it through

the screen beside this bed, seeking some higher,

safer place to land, who knows what falling is,

how it ends where no light reaches and never has.

Not even in the highest noonday sun when

the shadows are but charcoal blemishes no bigger than a sigh.

What’s a question you wish I asked? (And how would you answer it?)

I guess influences? The voices where I always seem to find inspiration most often (though I’m always looking for books and authors to add to the list—Natasha Trethewey, for instance, is a relatively new addition, in fact) are Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Larry Levis, Sharon Olds, Anne Carson, Brenda Hillman, Carolyn Forche, and Lisel Mueller. And, on a different day, if you asked, depending on the kind of work I’m doing, I may also throw Yusef Komunyakaa and Mark Doty onto the list.

OK, we’re smitten. Where do we go to buy your book?

You can buy the book directly from the publisher (which is, of course, best for the publisher and author) at http://www.thelostbookshelf.com/index.html .

The book is also available on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/World-Less-Perfect-Dying-In/dp/0986111171 or on SPD http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780986111174/a-world-less-perfect-for-dying-in.aspx. The book can also be found on the shelves at Porter Square Books, in Cambridge, MA.