An Interview with Amy Gerstler [by Aspen Matis]

Amy Gerstler is a critically acclaimed writer of fiction, poetry, and journalism whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including The Paris Review and The Best American Poetry. Her 1990 book Bitter Angel won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her newest collection of poems, Index of Women, is forthcoming from Penguin in April of 2021. I had the pleasure of corresponding with Ms. Gerstler via email about her newest book of poetry, her perspective on poetry’s role in our present society, the themes that most fascinate and inspire her, her current work, and her experience of and feelings about editing The Best American Poetry 2010.

What is poetry’s greatest role in your inner life? Why do you write poems?

Joan Didion, in her essay, “Why I Write,” said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” That sums it up! I also write poems to have an excuse to wallow in subjects I’m compelled by, to attempt to get inside other characters / minds (in order to better understand them), to speak to about the dead and the vanished, and to commune with and stretch my imagination.

What do you see as poetry’s role in our present society? A unifying force? A destabilizing force of social and personal change? A reprieve from the mundanity and suffering of day-to-day existence? An access to greater empathy? A glimpse of inspiring beauty and truth? A compass that reveals new clarity of thought, redirecting our collective course? 

Great list! All those things and more! Poetry can delight and comfort. Unsettle and expand consciousness. Help us comprehend/contend with being human. Allow us to pay little visits to each other’s wild minds. Keep us alert to the possibilities of language and how it differentiates and binds us together.

What is the most radical thing a poet can do in her work?

She can devote herself to following her own course, as writer, thinker, and emotional animal—whatever that may mean at different times in her life. She can cultivate and explore her own obsessions without letting anything or anybody stop her.

Your forthcoming poetry collection, Index of Women (Penguin, April 2021), showcases exclusively female speakers in poems that wrestle with mortality, animality, love, gender, and the nature of humanity. What inspired this new collection on womanhood and the magic, meaning, humor, sorrow, and struggles of our days that create the hidden meaning of our lives?

Dramatic monologues thrill me. Edgar Lee Masters Spoon River Anthology stunned me when I was young. All those vivid voices spouting dark truth from the grave! I love the poet Ai’s dramatic monologues. My interest in women’s voices, spoken or sung, and their stories and experiences was also generative. Coming across the ancient Greek poet Hesiod’s book Catalogue of Women was a fortunate and influential accident. Such an odd, compelling idea to compile a catalogue of women! I wondered why one would do that and what it would be like if a female attempted such a project.

Your book of poems Scattered at Sea explores hedonism, gender, ancestry, reincarnation, the philosophy of the ancient Stoics, imagination, drug highs, memory loss, bereavement, spirituality, and the nature of prayer—many distinct arenas and inquiries! What unifies the pieces in this collection? How did Scattered at Sea find its form?

Since the book invokes scattering via its title and poems, I felt released from pressure to make the book “unified.” Instead, I tried to pursue the opposite: making it scattery, dispersed, a bit all over the place (which is reflective of the way my brain works, anyway).

What 17th and 18th century poets do you read? And what has their work awakened in you?

Having very little formal education in poetry makes me a dubious source of intel about 17th and 18th century poets, sadly. Among the few I know I love Christopher Marlowe, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, each for different reasons that I fear there is not nearly enough space to enumerate here.

Are there any reliable critics? If so, who, and why is his/her perspective useful? If no, why not? What happens when poetry is critiqued? What is gained? What is lost in translation?

This is a fascinating notion, the idea of a “reliable” critic. I suppose it would depend on what you wish to rely on a critic for. Sharp, inventive writing? Humor? Interesting opinions? Erudition? Open-mindedness? Fairness? Ability to appreciate and describe the letter and spirit of a work? Historical context? Links to other works? Analysis? In other words, I think the idea of a “reliable” critic involves very individual judgements on the part of each reader, who determines for herself what she’s seeking when reading literary criticism, what she needs from it at that moment, and whether she gets that or not.

What themes and inquiries most fascinate and inspire you?

Emotion is key for me. Sex, gender, love, mortality, animals, science, pseudo-science, spiritual longing, loss, and the occult are all abiding fascinations.

What are you working on now? What creative pursuits most excite you?

I’m collaborating on a musical play with composer/actor Steve Gunderson. There’s a possible comix project on the horizon that’s in the earliest stage of discussion. I really hope that will work out as I find graphic novels and comix an amazing medium.

You edited the 2010 edition of The Best American Poetry. What was that experience like for you? How, if all, did editing the anthology affect you? Are you proud of the book? How do you feel about the process—and the product of your labor—in retrospect?

Editing that anthology taught me tons and was profoundly inspiring. I will always be so grateful to the series editor, David Lehman, for trusting me and gifting me with that opportunity. The process brought home to me what a thriving, vital, various field American poetry is. Narrowing the book down to the requisite 75 poems was the hardest part.

Comments

[Denise Duhamel]

Great interview, Aspen! And I looking forward to your book, Amy! Love the cover.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

Are there any reliable living U.S. critics of poetry? I suppose Helen Vendler, Stephanie Burt, Marjorie Perloff, David Orr, Dana Gioia, Adam Kirsch, and, by dint of his current association with THE NEW YORKER, Dan Chiasson would spring to the minds or lips of some. And then there is, I suppose, the National Book Critics Circle Awards’ Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing recipients still active in poetry criticism.

But if I may rephrase the question to "Were there any reliable U.S. critics of poetry?" my lead answer—after St. Louis-born T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)—would be Nashville-born Randall Jarrell (1914-1965). He's widely acknowledged as the most influential U.S. poetry critic of and for his generation. If you don't know why, read Jarrell's POETRY AND THE AGE, his highly influential book of criticism published in 1953. In it he cracked open the carapace of U.S. verse emergent or dominant during his time with insight, intelligence, erudition, and wit that, in combination, were often as engaging as the verse he singled out for celebration or, at least, cerebration.

In POETRY AND THE AGE Jarrell states this: “A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.” I cannot think of a better benchmark for what constitutes U.S. poetic canonicity. Better yet, think of the poems by living U.S. poets that you love. Can you single out 24 keepers by any one of them? May lightning strike them all as often as possible!

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

"And then there is, I suppose, the National Book Critics Circle Awards’ Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing recipients still active in poetry criticism."

I meant "And then there ARE." Mea culpa.

[Warren King]

More culpable: not one joker in this list is "reliable" in any sense except if you use reliable as an adverb modifying "fake." << Helen Vendler, Stephanie Burt, Marjorie Perloff, David Orr, Dana Gioia, Adam Kirsch, and, by dint of his current association with THE NEW YORKER, Dan Chiasson. >>

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

Warren: What current U.S. poetry critics would you rate as "reliable"? Just curious.

I wasn't necessarily endorsing any of the ones I cited. That's why I wrote: "would spring to the minds or lips of SOME (caps for emphasis here)."

Also, I singled out for praise two U.S.-born poetry critics who have been dead for 56 years: Eliot and Jarrell. That's a fairly strong tip that I'm not often bowled over by the current crop we have, including the ones I mentioned.

Finally, I'd be the first to concede that there's no true equivalent among current U.S. poetry critics to, say, Irish-born Fintan O'Toole in his "reliably" perspicacious criticism and commentary about U.S. politics from his perches in Dublin and Princeton. "Outsiders" of his caliber tend to have "inside" down pat.

[Warren King]

I agree on the deceased: Eliot, Jarrell, R. P. Blackmur. Auden is great not as an evaluative critic but as the intellectual equivalent of a roving reporter.

[Crazy Jane]

Warren, you're too funny! Refreshing. But assuredly you would agree that Dana Gioia has integrity. James Longenbach and David Orr are also worth reading, I find.

[Jack Skelley]

More than ready for "Index of Women."

(Shelve between Hesiod's "Catalogue of Women" and Brian Eno's "Index of Metal." (!)

[David Lehman]

A wonderful interview with a terrific poet. Thank you for all the comments, including the spirited if totally tangential back-and-forth on reliably unreliable critics. "Index for Women" will be well worth waiting for.