The Best American Poetry

Meet the Press: Nin Andrews in conversation with Ami Kaye of Glass Lyre Press

 
NA:  You have been the editor of Pirene’s Fountain for a few years now?

AK: Yes, and I have enjoyed every moment with the journal! Our first issue went online in January 2008. Starting next year, PF will become a print annual, although we hope to continue an online presence.

NA:  And now you are starting up a press?

AK: I asked myself a dozen times if I really wanted start a new venture at a stage of life when most people are ready to retire, but it seemed like a natural evolution given our positive experiences with Pirene’s Fountain. In December 2011, we published a benefit anthology in response to the March 2011 Japan disasters, and were amazed by the response to our initial call for submissions. All told, it was hard work but we thoroughly enjoyed the process and the ultimate reward of holding a book we had put together. We received terrific feedback from our readers and contributors, and wanted yet another way to continue sharing and spreading the gifts of the many wonderful authors writing today. 

NA:  How did you come up with the title, Glass Lyre?

AK: I wrote a poem a while back called "In which he finds a lyre" and there is a reference to a glass lyre in the poem. At the time when we were looking for names for the company, I happened to be revising my manuscript and caught the words "glass lyre"—they fit well with the work we wanted to publish: "glass" for clarity, insight, vision and "lyre" for lyricism and language, so I put it to the team and it was unanimous!

NA:  What kind of work are you looking to publish?

AK: We will be publishing full-length collections and chapbooks of poetry, short and flash fiction, and the occasional anthology. In fact, our very first project will be “The Best of Pirene’s Fountain, Volume 1,” planned for later this year. After that, we will start publishing from some of the manuscripts—our submission editors are currently reading and making notes. We are looking for a diversity of topical treatments and styles from mature, seasoned voices as well as from emerging authors. An ideal manuscript would be unified and cohesive, with lyrical and substantive pieces that could stand on their own. The exceptional use of language is what attracts us most. It has been less than two months since we launched our website, and we have already received some promising manuscripts! 

NA:  Are you the sole or primary editor of the press?

AK: No, I am very grateful to work with a dedicated team: editor-in-chief Mark McKay; senior editor Lark Vernon Timmons; web and layout editor Katherine Herschler; associate editor Royce Hamel, and freelance artist Tracy McQueen. Recently Candice Sloan also came onboard to manage business operations, leaving me free to focus on the publishing and editing aspects of the press. The multi-talented, inter-generational dynamics at Glass Lyre makes for a great working environment.  

NA:  Will you publish translations?

AK: We are certainly open to the possibility in the future.

NA:  How many books do you hope to publish per year?

AK: We plan to start off small and slowly increase our output. Depending on the quality of submissions we receive and our team workload, we’ll make that decision as we go along. We would really have to believe in a manuscript before deciding to publish it. I would hazard a guess at a maximum of ten books per year, but one never knows how things turn out!

NA: How will you find your authors?

AK: We have built up a readership at Pirene’s Fountain and hope to get submissions from many of the talented authors we have published— we also hope that PF authors will help spread the word. In addition, we plan to promote Glass Lyre on social media, literary journals and through various publishing events and book fairs.

NA:  Will you run contests?

AK: Glass Lyre offers the “Kithara Book Prize.” The winning author will receive $500 and a certificate. Finalists are considered for publication, depending on the number of titles lined up for the year. We are also planning a contest for cover art, and may possibly run open awards at some point.

NA:  Are you currently open for submissions?

AK: Yes, we are open to submissions all year round. We take a break from reading during July-August and in December. Submission guidelines are available on the website and it’s a good idea for prospective authors to read them carefully before submitting their work: GlassLyrePress.com 

NA: I’d love to close with a poem from either Pirene’s Fountain or a book you plan to publish.

AK: Since Glass Lyre has only just begun to read submissions, it will have to be from Pirene’s Fountain. Let me say that we have received some truly brilliant poems over the past few years, so by no means am I choosing my favorite, however, this poem captures the fleeting nature of beauty, art and life itself.  It is by Lisel Mueller, who has been a wonderful friend and mentor to Pirene’s Fountain, from her Pulitzer-winning book, “Alive Together” (LSU Press, 1995):

In Passing

How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:

as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious.

Ami Kaye serves as publisher and managing editor of Glass Lyre Press. She has been running the journal Pirene’s Fountain, for several years. Her work has appeared in various journals including First Literary Review- East, Tears in the Fence, Cartier Street Review, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Peony Moon, Scottish Poetry Review, and Diode Poetry Journal, among others. Ami’s work was nominated for the James B. Baker award, and included in poetry anthologies. She is the author of What Hands Can Hold. Visit amikaye.com.

Nin Andrews received her BA from Hamilton College and her MFA from Vermont College. The recipient of two Ohio Arts Council grants, she is the author of several books including The Book of Orgasms, Spontaneous Breasts, Why They Grow Wings, Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane, Sleeping with Houdini, and Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum. She also edited Someone Wants to Steal My Name, a book of translations of the French poet, Henri Michaux. Her book, Southern Comfort  was published by CavanKerry Press in 2010. Follow Nin's blog here. Follow Nin on Twitter here.

The Punk Singer and The Florist: A conversation between Frankie Rollins and Selah Saterstrom. By Sarah Suzor

From Scene II of Barbara Guest’s play, The Lady’s Choice

Christian: You like only myth,

            And so you would go riding,

            Greensleeves and all

            To where love’s hiding.

Antoinette: I like you.

Christian: Lady in the heavy manner

            Of kings, you do not please.

Antoinette: Am I not pretty?

Christian: Pretty a dash, but not

            To my tasting.

Antoinette: And do I not please?

Christian: You please yourself.

Antoinette: You rock me.

Christian: You rock all foundations.

            You are almost an earthquake.

Antoinette: Your name?

Christian: Christian.

Antoinette: Than you’ve some charity.

Christian: Enough to lend.

Antoinette: Spend it on me.

***

I am obsessed with well-written dialog; I find it to be one of the most intriguing aspects of a story. Here Guest serves us her characters’ attributes with little explanation needed. Antoinette is some version of a privileged debutant, and Christian is some version of a shining nobility who Antoinette thinks she has fallen for without even knowing his name (so it’s also clear Antoinette is severely desperate). Remarkably, these are assumptions Guest leads us to without having to write much at all.

Today I am going to be featuring an interview with two fabulous fiction writers, Selah Saterstom and Elizabeth Frankie Rollins (who I will refer to as Frankie). They both speak about each other’s writing as operating not from what is explicitly written, but instead from what is implied within the writing. For example, from Selah’s 2007 book, The Meat and Spirit Plan (Coffee House Press):   

For my response essay I begin with the sentence: There are worse things than enduring sadness. The teacher reads it out loud. I shoot this girl Bitch Lisa a look like: fuck you, I’m deep (pg. 67).

Implication: Narrator- 1, Bitch Lisa- 0.

And this is an excerpt from the beginning of Frankie’s Origin, a novel in installments, where a husband and his pregnant wife are venturing off to settle an island:

Paramon spoke saying, “You look pained. Are you alright?” He rested the oars against his chest, mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, which was soiled with two days’ rowing. His eyes, despite lack of sleep, surprised her with their shine.

“Darling,” she said smiling, pulling herself up a little in the boat, straightening her damp skirts at her feet. “I was only thinking of tea in china cups.”

He blinked and winced.

“No! No reproach, Paramon. I was only making fun of myself. Not complaining. Just trying to make light of my homesickness." (From Chapter One.)

Implication: the woman’s miserable.

We, as readers, are often drawn into characters and scenes by what we can assume about the person, or the situation. It's really psychological; this way other people's stories can become our own. Selah and Frankie know that. They also win the award for Most Creative Dialog this week. (See Frankie’s answer to: What about your career would be most drastically different if you two hadn’t met?) As you will read, these two clearly display a real, and rare bond, a bond that originated not only from encouragement and inspiration, but also from friendship.

Be careful, like Guest’s Christian, they’re easy to fall for.

Sarah Suzor: How did you meet? And how long have you known each other?

Frankie Rollins: We met in a barn. At grad school. Goddard College’s Haybarn. Selah walked in and I saw her across a room of full of people and folding chairs. She had this great big bright aura all around her. Our eyes met and I smiled and waved to her like I knew her, automatically, instinctively. She waved right back. After the readings, we found each other and introduced ourselves. The only thing strange about any of it was the moment when I realized that I did not, in fact, even know her name.

Saterstrom: I’ve known Frankie for 13 years. 13 has always been a lucky number for me.

We met in Vermont at Goddard College where we were both pursuing MFAs in fiction. Frankie was ahead of me in the program, but I had seen her around: she glowed. I mean that she changed the energy of any room she was in and in a visceral way – such a presence – this was a fact, and in my book she was 100% glorious in every way that ever has mattered.

A limited, limiting clarity: A conversation between Paul Vangelisti and Standard Schaefer. By Sarah Suzor

From George Oppen’s poem, “Route” (1968):

Your elbow on a car-edge

Incognito as summer,

I wrote. Not you but a girl

At least

Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful

            thing in the world,

A limited, limiting clarity

I have not and never did have any motive of poetry

But to achieve clarity

***

Oppen is often included in the Objectivist poetry movement, a movement (reluctantly) defined by Louis Zukofski as poetry exhibiting “sincerity and objectivity.” I bring up Oppen in conjunction with today’s interview because “clarity” is often a notion that’s counter to the popular assumption of poetry. As a poet, I frequently find myself in conversations with people who are insistent that poetry is riddled with hidden metaphors and secret allusions, or that it’s a category of private, encoded language, intended to be truly comprehended by only a select group of individuals.

The collected bodies of work between Paul Vangelisti and Standard Schaefer defy the “encoded” assumption of poetry. This doesn’t necessarily make their books easy or accessible, it makes them clear. Standard’s 2005 book, Water and Power (Agincourt Press) is still one of my favorite books, and Paul’s recent release Wholly Falsetto with People Dancing (Seismicity Editions) is my latest greatest affinity. Wholly Falsetto speaks with certain straight-forwardness that, I’m assuming, most readers can find some sense of application within. For example:

5^th November

Because a tall man is a fool, says Aristotle, and traffic is unbearable, the days much shorter, your eyes often kind to me as the music too is lost at sea. Along the coast lights are going on and off, even if it’s too early to fall asleep and catch the leggy young blond walking off down the street spinning your fedora on her finger (pg. 22).

And from Standard’s The Notebook of False Purgatories (Chax Press), I borrow my favorite line of all time:

“Progress is progress / and never the other way around.”

In their collaborative fiction effort, which follows this interview, Paul and Standard alternate chapters. They offer two different viewpoints on a small fishing community feuding over water rights. An avid reader of both Paul’s and Standard’s work, I can’t tell who wrote what chapter. I say that to instill this: the way these two approach creating— their intention— seems mighty similar. I think Paul says it best when he mentions that the best part of working with Standard is that they never have to explain much to each other. To me, this is a gift that is almost as difficult to come by as sincerity, objectivity and clarity. Anyway, read the goods. Then go catch that leggy blond walking off down the street spinning your fedora on their finger. In dreams, or otherwise.

Sarah Suzor: How did you meet? And how long have you known each other?

Paul Vangelisti: We met through my good friend and colleague Martha Ronk, who was one of Standard’s teachers at Occidental College. That would have been about 1994-95, almost twenty years now.

Standard Schaefer: I met Paul through my professor Martha Ronk. I was aware that she wrote poems and that she knew people in LA who wrote poems. She hadn’t really won any awards or published much poetry yet. I think maybe I one of those kids who drive their professors crazy because even though they might really appreciate a literary education, they really want to create. And I think Martha might have had it in mind that if I met Paul and saw how hard he worked, I’d either drop the subject or at least stop hounding her because Paul obviously loved to discuss poetry. That was probably 18 or 19 years ago.

SS: What about your writing career would be most drastically different if you two hadn’t met?

PV: I’d probably have to say that I wouldn’t have tried my hand at a novel, that is, committed myself to spending the time and determination it takes to work through chapter after chapter or a significant length of time. Also, I don’t think that in the last 10-15 years I would have paid as much attention to, or at least framed questions about my own practice and poetics necessarily in the same historical manner had I not talked about and read through certain problems with Standard. Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you can certainly make him think more critically about the ones he relies on.

Schaefer: Well, I’d be a fiction writer with a drawer full of poems that I never finished. I was always more attracted to the formal and aesthetic freedom possible in poetry, but I just thought to do it well you really had to work hard. Paul assured me that you did. It’s just that I noticed that setting the constraints for myself was way more fun than following the constraints of fiction because whether or not it’s mainstream it is full of conventions that I began to realize kept from doing the thinking-through-language that I always understood to be the point of writing. Paul I think showed me that you just think through writing and use poetic constraints of various types forces you to think differently than you did previously.

SS: Standard, what’s your favorite line or stanza of Paul’s work?

Schaefer: There’s a line of Paul’s in a poem called “Rime”: “who can deny the sincerity of hot dog stands envisioned as hot dogs.” I was partial to it for a long time because it seemed to capture the vapidity of LA at time when it was trying to cast itself as the creative center of the universe and where I could see a lot of good ideas were being milled and refined into hopelessly literal, one-note affairs.

SS: Paul, what’s your favorite line or stanza of Standard’s work?

PV: There are many but how about this one for starters, from Desert Notebook, 2004-2008: “Perhaps there was never a desert and we made it the first time we looked up to Mars.”

SS: What’s the most exciting project you two have collaborated on together?

Omnipotent: A conversation between Omnidawn Publishing's Rusty Morrison and Gillian Hamel. By Sarah Suzor

Umberto Eco, from his collection of essays, On Literature (English translation published in 2004):

I have often asked myself: would I still write today if they told me that tomorrow a cosmic catastrophe would destroy the universe, so that no one could read tomorrow what I wrote today?

My first instinct is to reply no. Why write if no one will read me? My second instinct is to say yes, but only because I cherish the desperate hope that, amid the galactic catastrophe, some star might survive, and in the future someone might decipher my signs. In that case writing, even on the eve of the Apocalypse, would still make sense. 

One writes only for a reader. Whoever says he writes only for himself is not necessarily lying. It is just that he is frighteningly atheistic. Even from a rigorously secular point of view.

Unhappy and desperate the writer who cannot address a future reader (334).

*** 

I didn’t use Eco's quote to debate or analyze its contents; I used it because I think it speaks to the tremendous importance of those who bring books to life: publishers. 

Presses are one of the most essential part of the writing community. And because “small presses” typically strive to publish work “beyond mainstream literature,” small press publishing houses are vital to poets, translators and writers of experimental fiction. Today I am featuring an interview between Rusty Morrison, co-founder of Omnidawn Publishing, and Gillian Hamel, senior poetry editor for Omnidawn and managing editor for the press’ online imprint, OmniVerse. In 2001, Rusty founded Omnidawn Publishing with her husband, Ken Keegan. Today Omnidawn is one of the most well respected, highly regarded small presses in North America. Omnidawn, with tremendous help from Gillian Hamel, has also renovated the press’ old blog into the zine OmniVerse, which has become one of the best contemporary online resources for interviews, new creative work and essays. Omnidawn Publishing’s website lists approximately 50 full-length poetry titles (many of which have won prestigious awards and prizes), and OmniVerse now credits over 100 contributors; a stunning achievement, especially when one considers Omnidawn’s short 12 years of existence and its small masthead of staff members. Interestingly, both Rusty and Gillian combined two of my questions: 1.) What’s the most difficult part of working in this industry, and 2.) What’s the most rewarding part of working in this industry? Says something, doesn’t it?

Eco: “One writes only for a reader.”

Me: “One writes (or reads [or lives]) only to experience the thrill of fascination.”

In any case, these are two women who deserve a lot of praise.

Sarah Suzor: How did you meet? And how long have you known each other?

Rusty Morrison: Gillian is a friend of Sara Mumolo, who works for Omnidawn. Sara told us that she knew a poet who would be a perfect addition to our staff. Gillian has exceeded every expectation that I had; she’s become such an integral part of our team, I can’t imagine Omnidawn without her.

 Gillian Hamel: I came to Rusty and Omnidawn through the wonderful, nebulous network of the MFA program at St. Mary’s College in the fall of 2009. My friend Sara Mumolo, who went through the MFA a year ahead of me, had been in Rusty’s workshop at SMC and was interning at Omnidawn. She got me some review copies of Omnidawn’s books for our MFA’s literary journal, MARY: A Journal of New Writing, and I was so impressed by their exquisite design, literary sophistication, and all-around excellence that I asked her about interning there as well. She was happy to set me up with Rusty, and I couldn’t be more grateful to her for being another pillar of influence in my involvement with poetry.  

SS: What about your career would be most drastically different if you two hadn’t met?

GH: In a way, everything – Omnidawn opened up so many different avenues to me of exploration and innovation in understanding poetry, making books, and talking to other poets. I doubt I would have taken such initiative to design and manage an online journal, or to start my own chapbook imprint. There are so many other important people I would never have met. Most importantly, however, to the question of ‘career’ within this question, I might not have ever learned to take myself seriously as a poet and a functional participant in the project of poetry – which is to say, I would not have learned not only to trust my abilities in those areas, but also to understand when my limitations aren’t as serious as they seem.

RM: I did a second-take when I saw the word “career” in your question. I understand why you’ve used it, since you are asking about my work as Omnidawn’s co-publisher and poetry senior editor. And, certainly, in that context, I want to talk about the ways that Gillian Hamel’s presence continually renews and enlivens my approach to what Omnidawn can do and can become. I also sense that your question is broad enough to allow me to share the ways that my relationship to Gillian has enlivened my own writing, since I do see myself as being a poet as much as I see myself as a publisher. These two kinds of work fill the space that should mean “career” to me. The dictionary defines “career” as “an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress.” Poetry and presswork certainly have taken over all “significant” time in my life, but I wonder if one can speak of “progress” when discussing a creative project—be it a press or the poems I write. How does an artist gauge “progress”?

One of the most valuable aspects of my relationship with Gillian is that her vitality—her continually fresh approach to aesthetics—opens me to my own beginner’s mind. I can trust that she shares my way of seeing “progress” as including regress and digress, and even a salting of anti-gress, which can lead to new ingress. These aren’t typical words for articulating “career” path success, but they are essential words for constantly re-envisioning what a press can do, and what a poem can do.

SS: Rusty, why did you start the online magazine, OmniVerse?

RM: There wouldn’t be an online magazine called OmniVerse, if it weren’t for Gillian. Ken and I had wanted to create a magazine that would be a place to foster conversations about literature and the arts (a place where we could publish work that had nothing to do with Omnidawn), but it wasn’t until Gillian envisioned the form that we actually ventured into this.

SS: Gillian, how did you get the position of Managing Editor for OmniVerse?

GH: We’d had a slowly dilapidating blog, in its heyday a lively hub of news and discussion of all things Omnidawn and the broad poetic community, curated expertly by the inimitable Craig Santos Perez. As he began to limit his involvement in this project and focus more on his teaching career, Rusty generously offered me the position of the blog’s senior editor. However, my inability to navigate the format so capably combined with our rising presence on other social media outlets eventually rendered the blog much less relevant than it had been. The space in social media to focus on Omnidawn was well-established, and so we wanted to cultivate something for the work beyond Omnidawn’s immediate reach of publication. With Rusty’s support, I decided the best thing to do was serve another facet of Omnidawn’s involvement in the poetic community and, somewhat selfishly, fulfill a longtime dream of mine of founding and editing a literary journal. In my opinion, there will never be enough places to showcase the diversity of new work, criticism, and engagement in our art form, and I’m glad that Rusty and Ken agreed there was a place at Omnidawn for me to indulge this passion with one more outlet. 

SS: What’s the most difficult part of working in this industry? What’s the most rewarding part of working in this industry?

RM: My husband Ken Keegan and I began Omnidawn in 2001 because we believe that small, independent presses are essential: they disseminate fresh, lively, culturally pertinent and provocative literature. A society needs many small presses so that widely diverse ideas and points-of-view are easily accessible to everyone. As Italo Calvino tells us, “… the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the differences between them, following the true bent of written language." 

Ken had wanted to begin a press for years, but we never felt we were secure enough financially to do this, and we never felt that we had enough time. But, in 2001, we realized that there is never enough time or money to begin a project like this—we realized that if we waited any longer, then we’d never do it. So, we plunged in, aware of the precarious nature of publishing. We have no regrets; we are excited about every new book, every new project. But it is an excitement tinged by our awareness of the precariousness and challenges of small press life. I suppose that our awareness of the risk helps us to savor every moment, every pleasure.

I share this history because I think it’s the best answer for both parts of your question. I am constantly rewarded by the opportunity to be in conversation with writers whose voices are resonant and relevant to the changing moment in which I live. What’s most difficult is that the work of running a press doesn’t end at 5pm, and the week doesn’t end on Friday afternoon. We remain thrilled by the challenges, and always a bit overwhelmed by the possibilities.

GH: I decided to conflate these two questions because – and perhaps this is going to sound a little cheesy – the ways in which the work of poetry challenges, frustrates, and exhilarates me are pretty much inextricable. The limitations of things like money and physical space and time are obviously stifling and need no further examination, but the fact of their inevitability makes the result of your work a victory that is both indulgently contrarian and deeply valuable. It seems facile to make these kinds of statements, but I think it’s sort of pointless to argue against them, especially where poetry is concerned. We all know we’re working in such a fraught, marginalized space, and we carry on in spite of that and because of that and with the sort of forbidden knowledge that it’s actually what makes us thrive. In a way, I kind of love that things like e-readers are becoming so ubiquitous because it’s begun to validate the craft of what I do – as the imperative for the cheap and utilitarian in printed books disappears, we have more room to explore the medium, to discover the interplay between printed and digital materials, to return the art to the form and let the poetry breathe in the space that’s been created.

Confidence = Generosity: A conversation between Elizabeth Robinson and Travis Cebula. By Sarah Suzor

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet (“Letter 8,” 1904):

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence. …How are we to forget all those myths at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about the dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps every terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants to help us (pg. 52).

***

Whoa.

I love these letters. They are such an incredible inside look at the indestructible positivity Rilke carried with him throughout his career. Here he’s basically telling his young correspondent, Mr. Franz Kappus, that there’s no need to panic; we are all, at times, stricken with torment and doubt (about our lives, about our crafts), and, although we can never alter the past, we can always alter our perception of the past as we move forward into the future. Rilke is instilling the next generation with realistic optimisim. 

“But only someone who is ready for everything… will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence.”

Exhaustively. The word itself seems to tempt one into it;

I dare you

to draw yourself,

exhaustively,

from (into)

your own existence.

As I consider today’s interview between Elizabeth Robinson and Travis Cebula, I find Rilke’s haunting notion to be the perfect introduction. These two poets are some of the most inquisitive and prolific writers I know. The two descriptions – 1.) Inquisitive and 2.) Prolific – both require a certain curiosity that “excludes nothing.” Elizabeth is the author of 12 collections of poetry, most recently Counterpart (Ahsahta Press). She has taught all over the country: the University of Colorado Boulder, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the University of Montana, and she founded (with Colleen Lookingbill) EtherDome Chapbooks and (with Laura Sims) Instance Press. Travis’ second full-length collection of poetry, Ithaca was recently released from BlazeVox Books. He has founded Shadow Mountain Press and in 2011 he received the Pavel Srut Fellowship from Western Michigan University. Travis also teaches at the Left Bank Writers Retreat in Paris (avec moi). I love how both Travis and Elizabeth make a point to comment on each other’s generosity throughout this interview. As Elizabeth says about Travis (and, in my opinion, about people in general): Confidence = generosity.

With that, I gratefully share the stage.

Sarah Suzor: How did you meet? And how long have you known each other?

Elizabeth Robinson: Travis was a student in a remarkable graduate workshop I taught at Naropa University in the Spring of 2008. I looked forward to going to that class all week long and when I arrived, I’d just feel such gladness and affection for the students. As writers, they were so dissimilar, but they read and responded to each others’ work with real insight and respect. Travis threw himself into the experience. He gulped down contemporary poetry and poetics, he became an expert reader of his peers’ works, he experimented voraciously as a poet. Later I got to work with Travis on his M.F.A. thesis. I think the poetry part got written pretty fluidly, but he also had to write a 30 page essay, and I continually challenged him on aspects of what he wrote. He had conceived of a really interesting approach to poetics, but I just kept returning and suggesting changes here, pressing back on ideas there. I thought he’d eventually want to throw me in front of a train. But no: each iteration was cheerfully revised within a week or so. If he was ever frustrated, he didn’t show it.

Since then, though we both seem to be in transit quite a lot, Travis has been an endlessly prolific writer, an attender of readings, a respondent in a writing group, a recommender of books, an occasional shoulder to sob on: in short, a friend.

(He’s also a terrific cook, and my kids are wild for his peanut butter brownies, though I think his blueberry coffee cake is to die for.)

Travis Cebula: I’m pretty sure our paths first crossed in January of 2008. It was definitely my second semester of graduate school, which means I met Elizabeth on the first day of a poetry workshop she was teaching in the MFA program at Naropa University that semester. We may have strolled past each other on campus before that, but that was the first time we spoke.

She walked in the door of our classroom in the historic (and historically clanking and smelling) Lincoln building. I remember initially being a little frightened of her, which seems a bit silly in retrospect, but it’s true. In addition to her obvious competence and intelligence, which are evident at first glance, she had a strong no-nonsense air about her on the first day, probably to make sure we were focused. Understandably. Students at Naropa have a tendency to lose focus for a number of reasons. Her demeanor was a little intimidating, because none of the other professors I’d encountered at the school up to that point had taken anything quite so seriously. The pedagogical tone was normally much more laissez faire, which makes perfect sense if you know anything about the philosophy or history of the institution. But Elizabeth made it clear right off the bat that she had higher expectations for our class. I remember thinking, “I really don’t want to be around when she gets angry. I really don’t want to be the one who makes her angry.” It might have been her mother bear side showing on the first day, just so we knew it was there. That can be scary.

I’m glad she did, though. Everything turned out perfectly, and it didn’t take long at all for her to warm up to the class after she determined we were serious. I’m grateful to my program advisor at that time, Todd McCarty, for suggesting her class to me. Suggestion is a bit of an understatement. What he actually said was, “You NEED to work with Elizabeth.” He was absolutely right, and not just for me. The few people who were fortunate enough to be in that workshop together are still friends, in close contact, and every one of us is still writing on a regular basis. We go to each other’s weddings. We read together. We collaborate. We publish each other’s work. Seriously, how often does that happen? An entire workshop? Elizabeth started all of that.

But, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t want to be around when she gets angry. That would suck.

SS: What about your writing career would be most noticeably different had you two not met?

ER: My life in Colorado has often been difficult and estranging. Travis is a generous, dynamic, and enthusiastic colleague. I think I would find myself more isolated at this point if I had not met Travis. He is a staple participant in my life as a writer in Colorado. Because of his travels, his writing, and his general inquisitiveness, he often brings news of books, presses, and communities that I’m glad to learn about.

TC: I know a few people, including myself, who unabashedly refer to Elizabeth as our “Poetry Mom.” I hope she’s comfortable with that. Does that answer the question?

I think that if I hadn’t met Elizabeth I wouldn’t have a “writing career” in any kind of recognizable sense. I don’t mean I wouldn’t be writing right now, which I’m pretty sure I would be, but rather that my development in the other aspects of a writing life would be stinted at best. A career is something more than just work (or a job); it entails building relationships, a broad engagement with community, and responsibilities that extend into the world, into time. I think I’d still be trying to teach myself what to do in that regard, how to get to that next level, and asking myself questions like, “How do I submit work to a journal?” “What should I be reading?” “How do you write a book review?” “Are these poems a book yet?” “How do I know if there’s a reading to go to this weekend?” “Who can I talk to about what I’m writing?” “Who do I want to talk to about what they’re writing?” And many, many more.

Now I think of a writing career as a collage: the community, the conversation, the teaching, the publishing, the reviews, the support, the readings, the late nights spent talking, the love, the friendship, the editing, the sequence, the ups, the downs, the offers of and reception of support, all in turn. No, I wouldn’t have a gestalt of all of that yet if I hadn’t met Elizabeth. That’s an easy conclusion to arrive at. My life would be very different without her. I am a little curious if, conversely, the more recent part of her own career might have been any different had we not met. I wonder, have I offered her anything in return? I suspect the answer is, “Perhaps, but not nearly enough.”

SS: Travis, if you had to pick, which of Elizabeth’s books is your favorite?

TC: I hate questions like this, if for no other reason than it’s always impossible for me to give a straight answer. I love all of Elizabeth’s books, and for different reasons. Not equally, mind you, but to narrow my list of favorites down to one is challenging. They all offer different perspectives on life and the human experience, and they all carry what I believe to be astute and beautifully written perspectives on different aspects of life. Which is to say, she has successfully avoided the trap of writing iterations of what amounts to the same book over and over again. Asking me to pick a favorite book of hers is like asking me to pick a favorite part of life….

Actually, that might be easier. In that case, at least I could throw out junior high school. I’ll offer Harrow as my favorite, for the simple reason that it’s the first one I read, and thus the first one I fell for. The trauma she weaves into that book while avoiding even a hint of melodrama is breathtaking. Barring that, I would choose “whichever one I’ve read most recently.” So, Counterpart is making a strong case for itself at the moment, which may disprove one of my earlier statements. Her descriptions of devils and hell are strongly redolent of my experiences in junior high….

SS: Elizabeth, what has been most rewarding about watching the evolution of Travis’ writing career?

ER: I think Travis proceeds pretty fearlessly. It’s always really exciting to see someone who has been your student get published, whether discrete poems in a periodical or in book form, but Travis approaches writing much more expansively than that. He is traveling, meeting new people, finding out about contemporary presses. I guess what I find rewarding about observing Travis is that he understands so many ways of writing (that is, he can be very stylistically diverse) and participating in a writing life through friendships, projects, reading. When I work with people, I understand that they might not write poetry forever because other commitments and projects will come into their lives, but I always hope that they will really stick with it and find out what writing will yield in their lives as an ongoing adventure. Travis is one who has made that commitment and I am grateful that I can continue to be in conversation with him as a poet.

SS: Travis, if you had to guess Elizabeth’s favorite color you’d pick?

Discussing discussions: A conversation with James Belflower and Cynthia Hogue. By Sarah Suzor

Jack Spicer, from his 1957 collection, After Lorca:

Dear Lorca,

…Things do not connect; they correspond…. Even these letters. They correspond with something (I don’t know what) that you have written (perhaps as unapparently as that lemon corresponds to this piece of seaweed) and, in turn, some future poet will write something which corresponds to them. That is how we dead men write each other.

Love, Jack

***

The irony here is this: in 1957 Spicer wasn’t dead and Lorca was.  Now Spicer’s dead, and I’m not. So, either Spicer was psychic or this is the way things really do work: a ladder of correspondence.   

A creative profession, perhaps more than any other profession, is one built, culled and cultivated from groundwork that has already been set, hence innovation via (some kind of) inspiration. I know no writer who isn’t a living, breathing representation of the influences they have encountered. The future gains new ideas and models of creativity this way; we’re constantly marching up a long ladder of either intrigue with, or rejection of something outside ourselves. These things which one chooses to correspond to, or move away from, construct the notion of a “history,” a history that inevitably makes a creative career larger than simply one’s personal contributions. Sounds important, right?

In many ways the story of Ezra Pound editing T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land makes the poem itself much more intriguing. In the annotated edition of The Waste Land we see the working relationship Pound and Eliot had refined. Indeed they were pals, but the friendship formalities go by the wayside when Pound stepped in as “editor,” leaving brash, “Bad- but [I] can’t attack until I get typescript” commentary all over Eliot’s written script, and cutting major sections and lines of the poem with the justification, “Too personal.” Some of Pound’s comments are extremely funny, especially when one imagines what Eliot­­– “The Old Possum,” as Pound called him– must have been thinking while looking them over. However, Eliot took many of Pound’s edits into consideration because he trusted his advice. And later in the annotated edition we see Pound return as Eliot’s ally by championing The Waste Land to other colleagues. This is a 1922 letter from Pound to John Quinn:

 

“Eliot came back from his Lausanne specialist looking OK; and with a damn good poem (19 pages) in his suitcase…. About enough, Eliot’s poem, to make the rest of us shut up shop.”

The rest is history. And that’s my point.

So, I’ve decided to infiltrate the Best American Poetry blog with contemporary examples of “working relationships.” Each day I will feature two writers in a conversation that highlights the aspects of their lives and careers that have been enhanced by writing together, learning from one another, or publishing with each other.

The most beautiful findings in each of the interviews are the descriptions of the lifelong friendships that have been created between these artists.

James Belflower mentions he wishes he could bridge the gap between New York and Arizona just to sit down for coffee with mentor, Cynthia Hogue.

Elizabeth Robinson looks forward to hearing about the new communities Travis Cebula encounters during his travels.

Rusty Morrison says she fully trusted Gillian Hamel to see Omnidawn’s online magazine OmniVerse come to fruition.

Standard Schaefer and Paul Vangelisti constantly alert each other to work that might pique each other’s interests.

And when asked about the best advice Frankie Rollins has imparted, Selah Saterstrom answers: “To risk everything for my biggest life and best work.”

To risk everything.

You picking up what I’m putting down?

Enjoy these conversations as they come down the pipeline. I have also asked the featured writers to collaborate on a new creative piece between the two of them. This is intended to honor each other’s talents and abilities, but most importantly, to put a new spin on their “relationship,” one that we, as audience (as the future), can correspond to and with.

 

I’m kicking off the week with an interview between James Belflower and Cynthia Hogue. James’ second full-length collection of poetry, A Posture of Contour, was just released from Spring Gun Press, and it is a beauty. He’s pursuing his PhD at Suny Albany, and he curates the Yes! reading series. Cynthia is the Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry in the English Department at ASU. She has published seven collections of poetry, most recently, Or Consequence and When the Water Came: Evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, interview-poems and photographs (with Rebecca Ross).

I’ll let them tell the rest of their story.

Sundry Distractions [by Megin Jimenez]

 

While my first-person singular takes a breather, unaccustomed as it is to public blogging (like a frog), I'll use this opportunity to share some of my prized catches from the ocean of the Internet.

HOT LINKS

Interviews with creative people

* This interview with one of my favorite weirdo poets, Russell Edson, contains his own thrilling account of
his poetics. (His answers make a lot more sense than the questions, you probably don't have to read the questions if they become too impenetrable...)

* Poetry people will no doubt have come across this profile of another of my favorite weirdo poets, Anne Carson, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. (I was pleased to learn that she refers to her husband as "the randomizer" and made him t-shirt made with those words on the front, and a image of one of her painted volcanoes printed on the back...) 

However, poetry people may not have read this much meatier interview she did with the Paris Review back in 2004. Carson is unvarnished here, and unflinching and funny, and reveals a great deal more about her relationship to ancient Greek, her mother, being female, etc.

Funny

* In deference to the great feline overlord of the WWW, here is a GIF of a cat figuring out it was her human shaking the feather stick all along.

* A few years ago, I had a dream about a carp twisting and dying in my arms. In my search for a fairytale about a talking carp I thought the dream was referencing, I came across this New York Times story about a 20-lb carp in Rockland County that began shouting in Hebrew when it was about to be bludgeoned to death... I will let you discover the details of the story on your own... (I never did find the fairytale, which I must have dreamt, as well.)

Song

In my head these days, this lovely end-of-love song by a young Serge Gainsbourg. If you know some French, the lyrics are a poème.

And a poem, to finish

Here's an Edson-ish poem by Anne Carson, from "Short Talks," in Plainwater.

On the Total Collection

From childhood he dreamed of being able to 

keep with him all the objects in the world lined

up on his shelves and bookcases. He denied

lack, oblivion or even the likelihood of a missing

piece. Order streamed from Noah in blue tri-

angles and as the pure fury of his classifications

rose around him, engulfing his life, they came

to be called waves by others, who drowned, a

world of them.

Interview with Sudeep Sen [by Catherine Woodard]

The birth of a book is a blessed day. The day I interviewed Sudeep Sen in January at his apartment in New Delhi about editing The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry, his latest poetry book Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1978-2013 arrived in boxes from Gallerie Publishers. Shelves and shelves of poetry books share top billing with an eclectic collection of visual art, including Sen’s photographs. He took the photo on the cover of the anthology. Behind his desk is a framed draft of a poem by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, the prolific Indian writer and later-in-life visual artist.

 

Birthday cruise for Derek Walcott, 83

Sen, 48, introduced me to his extremely charming mother in the ground floor apartment so I saw Fractals join the shrine on a dining room side table of her son’s more than two dozen poetry books, translations and anthologies. Later in January, Sen was the contemporary poet honored to read at a Nobel Laureate conference in St. Lucia. Coincidentally, Tagore was awarded a literature Nobel exactly 100 years earlier. Derek Walcott, the 1992 literature winner, lead the Q&A after Sen’s reading. “The biggest gig in my life thus far – certainly the most precious, moving and meaningful,” Sen emailed me after. 

 

CW: All 85 poets in the anthology were born after India became a republic in 1950. How does that influence their relationship to English as a language?

SS: There’s a confidence in the language, an unabashedness. One or two generations ago English was a post-colonial language. It’s no longer the case. For me, English is an Indian language. It is one of our 26 official languages.

CW: So it’s about owning the language not in reaction to a colonial history of oppression?

SS: No, it’s more than that. English just happens to be one of the tongues they are using very freely as an everyday thing. Take me for instance, I have three mother tongues: English, Bengali and Hindi, that’s how I grew up. It’s very unself-conscious. English is a language I learned from my parents and grandparents who are Indians.

When I travel abroad, people say “oh you speak English very well” and I say “and so do you.” The English language is interesting because there are so many different Englishes. There is Caribbean English, Australian English, American English, English English, Asian English, Indian English.

CW: What did selecting the poets teach you about those Englishes? 

SS: That it is complex. Take David Dabydeen in the book, whose work is known as part of Caribbean literature. He’s from Guyana and grew up in the UK, an Indian diaspora poet who writes just fabulous English poetry of the highest order. His ancestors were Indian laborers. He writes about cooking dhal and roti and curry.  Some of his poems are very steeped in Western painting, including this fabulous love poem called “Turner” I excerpt in the book.

The Indian diaspora is very complex too. The older diaspora is five or six generations as opposed to Indians in America and the U.K. of just a few generations. Africa, South Africa, Fiji and the Caribbean all have large Indian populations. Those migrations happened as slave ships. They would take an entire village, the priest, the barber, the teacher. Their descendants still sing the songs my great-grandmother sung.

CW: What impact would you like the anthology to have?

SS: I’d like more of these poets to be read in India and abroad. Literally very few are known beyond small poetry circles. There are so many young poets writing and it’s so difficult for them to break into the scene.

CW: That said, does it surprise you then the anthology is getting reviews from mainstream print, radio and television. And that a few months out, it is slated for a reprint.

SS: It has just baffled me the impact, fabulous reviews in places that don’t even touch poetry usually.

CW: Why?

SS: I think primarily because 90 percent of the work is unpublished work, which is rare in anthologies. It’s new work that is difficult to access all in one place.

CW: I couldn’t find an online source to purchase with shipping outside of India for either book, including www.harpercollins.co.in. (Readers, please comment below if you know where online.)

SS: U.S. and U.K. rights are still being negotiated for the anthology. It is however available via online portals.

CW: There is a lot of embrace of traditional form among the poets. Why?

SS: I think this is more a generational thing. The younger generation is excited about the language and so comfortable with it that they are actually trying out hard forms like villanelles and sestinas. Many of them are also bringing in classical Indian verse forms. Ghazel in English is a good example. Contemporary writers embracing older forms but still making it contemporary is bound to lead to good things.

If you are going to write free verse, you need to know what classical verse is. You need to know what you’re breaking. You don’t have to stick to any of the old rules as long as you know the rules. So much of the bad name to modern poetry is because you can write a sentence chop it up into five parts and arrange it in a column and call it a poem. That happens all around us.

CW: Do you see any trends of the poets who are not living in India and writing from other places or is it simply a reflection of where they happen to be?

SS: They bring in a certain injection of the local culture. Indian poetry is being written by so many different kinds of Indians and that’s certainly making it richer. Take the Americans. They are writing about very American things that may or may not be understood here. However, many of them are rediscovering Indian roots.

CW: Are readers in India more open to poetry because of the many languages here with different rich poetic traditions?

SS: Yes, because poetry in other languages outside of English has a long, long history. It is very much imbedded in our larger cultural sphere and very much part of our upbringing. For example poetry is integral to the music traditions in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, extremely advanced.

CW: And where is English poetry in the scheme of things?

SS: English poetry is in a smallish circle relative to the bigness of India, a niche audience.

CW: But in a global context, isn’t India the second largest publisher of English in the world?

SS: And will be the second largest in not very long.

 

"A Blank Letter" read above by Sen. Learn more about him at www.sudeepsen.net. Read The Prairie Schooner Feast Anthology of Poetry by Indian Women edited by Sen.

Meet the Press: Nin Andrews in conversation with Matthew Zapruder of Wave Books

NA: There are so many independent poetry presses out there.  What makes Wave Books different? 

MZ: Every press has a different focus, some limits or areas of interest. Wave mostly publishes work by so-called "mid-career" American poets: individual books of poems, translations, etc. So we don't publish a lot of other terrific books that our allies in the small publishing world take on. The small press ecosystem requires and benefits from that sort of variety I think. I do also believe Wave has some unusual and innovative ideas about design. Other presses of course publish gorgeous books, ones that we love, but our focus on type design as a necessary manifestation of the idiosyncratic poetic impulse within each book seems to me to be different from what many other presses are currently doing, and hopefully a contribution to the field of book design.

NA: I read on your website that Wave hopes “to continue to challenge the values and practices of readers.”  How do you plan to do that?  

MZ: In the way that any representative of artists does, by putting forth work that pushes our ideas about poetry and art and life in heretofore unexplored directions. 

NA: How did you become an editor at Wave? 

MZ: Brian Henry, my friend and fellow poet, and I founded Verse Press together in 1999. Soon after, I took over as the main editor of the press, because Brian was busy with his work editing Verse Magazine, as well as his teaching and other obligations. When Verse Press became Wave Books in 2005, I continued on as editor, and poet Joshua Beckman was hired as the other editor. I think our editorial work and vision are much stronger for having two editors and a very involved Publisher, Charlie Wright. 

NA: I see that Wave publishes translations.  I was wondering if you could give us a poem, or an excerpt from a poem, from one of your books of translations, and maybe a short bio of the author and translator.

MZ:Here's a video of Graham Foust reading some of his (and Sam Frederick's translations of Ernst Meister) and some more information about the book we recently published, In Time's Rift.

NA: How many books do you publish each year?  How does one become a Wave poet?

MZ: Currently we publish around 8-10 books a year. Obviously that means we have a relatively small regular group of authors we publish. As I wrote above, we focus on mid-career poets. Our editorial board takes very seriously our task of keeping track of what is being written by the poets of the generation we publish. Yet we realize we can't keep track of everything, so periodically we will have a reading period of some kind, usually to fulfill a specific purpose. When we were putting together a book of political poetry in 2008, we had an open submissions period where we read any political poetry people wanted to send: this was very educational and helpful for us as editors, in figuring out what we thought a political poem was or could be, and we took many poems from those submissions. This past summer we had an open reading period for manuscripts, just because we felt it was time to see what was out there that we might be missing. Again, this was incredibly educational (though also an enormous amount of work, to read everything), and we found several books from that group that we hope to publish in the next few years, translations as well as individual volumes of poetry.

NA: If you could think of a title of a book you would love to publish, what would that title be?

MZ: The Lost Poems of Robert Desnos.

NA: Is there a poet or two out there that you would like to publish (or to have published) who is not a Wave author?

MZ: We are open to working on specific projects with poets who have great publishing situations, in order to publish something else that they are doing that might not be appropriate for their main publisher. For instance, we have recently published translations by Graham Foust, whose books of poetry are published by our friends and co-conspirators Flood Editions. That seems like a good way to get to work with poets we admire, without in any way disrupting a happily functioning publishing arrangement.

NA: Could you describe some of the happiest or proudest moments for the press? MZ:I would have to say the Poetry Bus tour was an early proud moment, though I'm not sure it was always a happy one, only because Joshua and I and Travis Nichols (who were on the bus for the entire trip) practically had nervous breakdowns from the sheer velocity of it all. But it was a lot of fun, and something that I think brought a lot of pleasure to people all over the country, which was a great feeling. Each year we put on an annual festival in Seattle, to which we invite our authors as well as a lot of other poets. Last year we did a translation festival at the Henry Art Gallery, and I felt immense pride and gratitude that we were able to bring together so many brilliant translators and poets to talk in a way that felt very connected to true poetic practice. This coming year our festival will be focused around poetry and film, the weekend of February 22nd, and I am really looking forward to that. On a personal note, my proudest moments as an editor are when I really feel as if, through my responses and enthusiasm and general presence as a thoughtful and serious reader, I am bringing the poets I work with closer to the very best thing they can accomplish at a particular stage in their artistic life. I am happy and proud when I am in service to the people I feel are some of the finest poets writing today. Recently, when I saw the book of lectures by Mary Ruefle that Joshua so carefully and brilliantly edited, I was very proud on behalf of Wave Books and poetry.

NA: I’d like to close the interview with a poem from one of the Wave authors and a link to your website.  Would you be willing to select a poem and provide a link?

MZ: It's hard to choose one poem by one author. But I guess I'd like to post a link to a poem by Joshua, from a book that is forthcoming in Fall 2013, The Inside of an Apple. This selection originally appeared in a gorgeous limited edition chapbook, Porch Light. For more info about Wave Books you can check out our website or our Tumblr or follow us on Twitter.

Matthew Zapruder is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Come On All You Ghosts (Copper Canyon 2010), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He is an editor for Wave Books, and teaches at UCR-Palm Desert's Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing. He lives in San Francisco. 

Nin Andrews received her BA from Hamilton College and her MFA from Vermont College. The recipient of two Ohio Arts Council grants, she is the author of several books including The Book of Orgasms, Spontaneous Breasts, Why They Grow Wings, Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane, Sleeping with Houdini, and Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum. She also edited Someone Wants to Steal My Name, a book of translations of the French poet, Henri Michaux. Her book, Southern Comfort  was published by CavanKerry Press in 2010. Follow Nin's blog here. Follow Nin on Twitter here.

On Twitter, “Terroir” and Feral Parakeets: An Interview with Don Share

Such serendipity!  Just as Don Share begins his week of blogging here, an interview with him appears over at the terrific journal The Common. You can find it here.

-- sdh