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Q1. I
hope you like the email interview format. I'll lobby a first round
and follow up in subsequent emails. Am I typing too fast?
Yes.
Q2. I note that a lot of the stuff in
"Whale Box" references pre-Socratic philosophy in a
not-just-funny-but-also -knowing way. Where
does your interest in that come from? Where does it
go? Where does it lie?
Honestly all I really know of philosophy is that I
have been experiencing an existential crisis for, as some friends can attest,
the last 27 years. It's only gotten worse with poetry. That said, I researched Heraclitus and Dionysus specifically prior
to the reading--that is to say in the six hours directly preceding it--in
order to try to tie together the serendipitous mythology of the whole thing
(the name of the reading location, Dionysus, and the other half of the
reading on Heraclitus' work).
Q2a. Well: "Naivete!
Bacchanalia! panta rhei!"
The first two are easy. The last one indicates your research paid
off (and rhymes really well, as far as my pronunciation goes).
What does it mean?
"Universal flux." It was a Heraclitus
thing. Also a band (German).
Q1a. These
questions are too cutesy. In the final version I'll edit them
again. Maybe I'll make it so your answers seem ridiculous, or scandalous.
No. I mean Yes. What is the right answer to this
question? I'm from Maryland
originally--the rural part.
Q3. Why don't you talk about Jonah in the
poem?
I thought it was implied. Apparently I was wrong.
Or, I was Jonah during the reading, so I didn't need to talk about him in the
poem.
Q3a. No, you're right. I don't think
anyone can communicate from inside a whale anymore without hinting at
Jonah's misadventures.
I kind of thought of myself as the whale, which
doesn't make a lot of sense since I was also inside a whale. I'll just call
it self-reflexive and absolve myself of all responsibility. I like that you
said "anymore," but you know why that's funny, or else you wouldn't
have written it--so I won't explain further.
Q4. In
the whale is there a feather with which to tickle the whale? Did Heraclitus not think of that, or was
there no feather?
Yes, and in that feather is another whale. No, he
didn't think of that.
Q5. What's
the ritual?
For the purposes of the reading, the ritual was the
reading/performance that directly followed mine. I had gotten an oblique
email from the two poets reading after me, mentioning a secular ritual based
on the works of Heraclitus. They actually said that. I felt like
the more passive 'act' automatically since I was certainly not packing any of
my own rituals, so I felt obligated to introduce theirs by way of my fake
(but sincere) myth.
Q6. You take a pretty antagonistic tone to the
ritual. Or, the Liberator does. Was Dionysus a cranky guy?
I heard he likes to party.
Well, at first he was antagonistic, but more out
of annoyance than maliciousness I think. Heraclitus (the Obscure) is seen as
the sad philosopher, so I just imagined that they were old acquaintances and
Dionysus (the Liberator) was just fed up. Some of us thought Dionysus had a
problem with 'luudes when he was living with Andy
Warhol.
Q7. It seems
kind of highfaluting to name a bar Dionysus. Like, if you go to
a bar called "Margaritaville" you
know you're going to have some fun. But a place called Dionysus, you
have to know a little bit about the Greeks or whatever to know there's going
to be any revelry at all. You do a good job of having fun with that,
but not poking fun at it.
Yeah, I've wondered about that--their intention.
I think when people are naming a bar, band, whatever, there's a brainstorming
session that happens, where some Googling is
likely. The bartender at Dionysus, who is part-owner if I'm not mistaken,
seems pretty astute for such a tall person.
Q7a. I mean, you
can’t go to Margaritaville all the time.
What. Right.
Q8. What's
the Rush song about the Whale? I don't know about that.
I didn't either--I linked to it from within Wikipedia somewhere. Here is part of the plot per Wikipedia:
An explorer aboard the ship " Rocinante" is curious about the black
hole as it draws him in ("The x-ray is her siren song...").
Eventually, the pull of gravity is too great, and the explorer is sucked into
a mysterious land. The traveler finds himself in a world caught up in the
struggle between Heart and Mind. The logical thinkers are led by Apollo
and the emotional people are ruled by Dionysus.
All that in such a high voice.
Q8a. Certainly
referencing Rush reminds the reader that “Whale Box” is an epic poem. And
Sondheim? What’d he do?
That's where the
"the time is the present..." line comes from. He did a version of
the play The Frogs.
Q9. I love
the line, "No absolute; no co-" I
find it really unsettling. Does it mean that nothing goes with anything?
Probably. While things are relative, there may be
no contingency. It's one of those things that was likely sound-based first
and content-based second, or third.
Q10. Do you
mind if I change "Uhh" to "Uh"?
No. Do you mind if I change this question to,
Q10a. "Do you feel insecure about having this writing in book form,
after admitting that you didn't spend time on them?" Yes.
Q10b. I’m sorry
you feel that way. I think the visual element to the poem really enhances it,
such as with “co-” and on the page with “Um”/////// “Uh.” You know, all that
spacing is so worldly.
Well! It's really
for reference when I'm reading, which was all kind
of thrown out of the window when it was so dark in the box.
Q11. If The
Obscure made a mix CD, what would be the first song?
This is a great question, but I hate questions
like this. I'm so bad at trivia, for lack of a better term. I would say “Adagio
for Strings” by Barber or if you want something with lyrics, “Everything in
its Right Place”
by Radiohead, or “Aguas
de Marco” by Jobim. They are all equally heavy with
sounds of humanity and also reveling in it, if that makes sense.
Q11b. It makes
sense. At least I didn’t ask you “What’s in your CD player.”
Thank you.
Truthfully? Enya. Not kidding. Yoga.
Q12. Is this
a sad poem? It ends kind of sad. Do you like sad poems?
See above: yes. I mean I like sad poems. Sadness
without loathing--sadness with reality and flux, I guess. Perhaps more quiet
than sad. I like many kinds of poems but when it gets down to lyricism, I
like a poem that can point to an environment without describing it, and that
environment is usually ethereally a bit sad. I bet you like sad poems too.
Oh, but about this being a sad poem--there are moments, but overall I'd say
it's more of a playful poem than a sad one. You have to consider the
context--I was inside a box with a whale drawn on the outside.
Q12a. It is,
overall, hilarious. “ . . . weave a letter of
apology/For the time it takes to weave the letter of apology.” That’s like
the “am I typing too fast” joke but actually funny.
The typing joke
was funny to me but so are educational videos from the 1970s about white
blood cells.
Q13. What's
the saddest poem you ever read that you can think of right
now? What's one that made you laugh?
I think Olson's “In Cold Hell, in Thicket” is
fairly devastating, but only in the way I describe above. Of course there are
more overt poems to do with war and whatnot but I'm on a theme. One that
makes me laugh...my comrade Ryan Walker writes things that can make me laugh
when I'm alone, but probably because they also point to said environment in
other parts; they earn their humor. A line comes to mind, "what is
ham?" (I think that's right). What about you? What poems come to mind?
Q13a. “Here I sit,
broken hearted. . .” I mean, I don’t know. But I’m glad you did. I earnestly
thought about it for a while and all I could come up with was that I agree –
a poem has to be funny, too, to be sad. The funniest poet that comes to mind
is Matt Cook, who I think is funny just for his observations, like, “This was
during the 20th century when everyone
had magic markers in their dining room drawers.” Is that funny out of
context?
Kind of, but not
as funny as typing too fast.
Q14. I
initially didn't agree that the word "blog," or any of
its conjugations, ought to appear in poetry. It's not that I hate blogs or anything, but I'm just not ready to see such
a profane word in poetry. Did you have any thoughts about it or
did it come naturally?
I don't agree either. I wanted to keep things
pat--or bring them back to pat--because I didn't know if the other half of
the reading that night would be lofty. It was hard for me to incorporate
mythology into something conceptually (externally at least) silly. I hate to break
it to you but profanity entered poetry long ago.
Q14a. Yeah, but
nothing so profane as “blog.”
Scandalous!
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