Loading summary
Transcript58 lines
- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move Another smart move Having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. The holidays have arrived at the Home Depot and we're here to help bring the excitement with decor for every part of your home. Check out our wide assortment of easy to assemble pre lit trees so you can spend less time setting up and more time celebrating. And bring your holiday spirit outdoors with unique decor like one of our Santa inflatables. Whatever your style, find the right pieces at the right prices this holiday season at the Home Depot. The new Popeyes and Hot Ones menu is the definition of fire flavor. We've got the sizzling Sriracha dippers. 10 out of 10. Time to take it up a notch with the smoking Rojo chicken sandwich. Mm, that's so hot, but it's so good. Now onto the daring dab Ghost Wings. Yep, there it is. I love the spice level Attempt the Popeyes and Hot Ones menu in stores. Our hottest collaboration yet. Love that Chicken from Popeyes. Limited time in participating restaurants. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:38]
B
My friend says Steven Spielberg is invited to the cookout because the color Purple gave us too many quotable moments. In the group chat, we mimic Mister's daddy talking about Shug, black as tar legs like baseball bats. In everyday conversations, my mother seasons her words with parts of Sophia's field speech. All my life I had to fight her black eye plumbed up in the sun after Harpo put a fist to it. I learned early on how to juice laughter from the pulp of a collective pain. Years later, I read the book and realized that what I didn't get in the movie outweighs what I got. That things are never themselves when you view them through the lens of something else. In the movie, Celia and Shug playfully kiss each other on the bed. And then the record stops playing. In the book, they have sex, fall in love. In the book, Shug leaves, but then returns to Sealy, desperate as a man who has forgotten his wallet and keys. In the film, Suge leans forward and presses her lips against Celie's, chaste and proper. The camera cuts to their hands, moving to the other's shoulder, then pans to a lone wind Chime in the open window. What other music did we deserve there? I have not forgiven him for turning our heads. The poem my friend says Steven Spielberg is invited to the cookout from the collection Resting Bitch Face by poet, essayist and editor Dr. Taylor Byas. Taylor, welcome to the New Books Network.
- [03:20]
A
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
- [03:23]
B
I loved this collection. Just say that off the top.
- [03:29]
A
Thank you. Thank you.
- [03:32]
B
You know, it's one of those where. Because as we're recording this, you have started to do press for it. And I have seen other interviews out there with you and other people talking about the book who have read it. And, you know, poetry is one of those things that, you know, some poems are for some people and other poems are for other people. And this is one of these collect collections where every single person, regardless of background, is like, this collection.
- [04:04]
A
That's a big compliment. It has felt like it's been getting really good reception, which is. Which is a huge gift, especially because I feel like it can be a kind of testy book. So it's been good. Yeah.
- [04:17]
B
Well, yeah, let's get into that a little bit. One of the things I want to talk about. I want to start with your dedication, actually, off the top.
- [04:28]
A
The.
- [04:29]
B
The book opens with a dedication for women, for black women, for those who have been frozen under the unwanted gaze of a man. A question I typically ask poets. A standard question for me is I always ask, hey, you know, when does the reader come in? Do you think about the reader? When does the reader come in? And what I found so fascinating about. I mean, this is a collection that contemplates the gaze. And so can you talk about, in your mind, the reader, the gaze? I mean, like, talk about how you thought about those as the same, different. You know, talk about those kinds of things?
- [05:11]
A
That's a great question. You know, it's. It's really easy for me to write or into black women, because I think that is also, you know, the practice, the opening practice of writing a poem, which is writing to myself or writing for myself first. But it's so funny because I typically. When I get asked this question about audience and, you know, when are we supposed to think about the audience? And I often tell people, you know, that thinking process should come, like, as late as it possibly can in the process, because I think think about the audience is also when you have to start thinking about your work as a product and something that will be eventually consumed by other people. And I think when that starts to creep in the process, it has a Potential to hurt the art. And so I always tell people, you can push that out as late as you possibly can. But that consideration had to, I think, creep into the process of. Of this book a little earlier because I think I was making myself vulnerable and asking the reader to be vulnerable in a way in which I had to think about, like, self protection. And in a way that I had to think about, how do I ask a reader to step into this space and create an environment that has maybe an undercurrent of unease? Or how do I ask a reader to step into this environment and to create a barrier where they don't feel like this I. Or this self on the page is a version of me, which I think sometimes can build this sort of familiarity or intimacy that a reader then feels that they have with you. That's not necessarily true or really there. And so this book did force me to think about audience. But when we're thinking about audience, like I'm writing for the black woman, and then we're thinking about the gays, which is, you know, very much a gendered gaze. It's very much a male gaze. Sometimes it is a black male gaze, but when we're thinking about historically, it is a white male gaze. Right. A violent white male gaze. Yeah. When I think about who I wrote this book for, in that gaze, they are different. Although, I hope, you know, white men do read this book, and I hope that they walk away from it having thought about and learned something. But I do think I have to keep those things separate. During my exam years, in particular, I was thinking about poetic Strategies of resistance by black women. And one of the things that I talked about in my exams is you talked about subversive laughter and how you can create a certain reading experience in which a certain reader can step into it and enjoy it and embody it in a way that another reader couldn't. And I think this book does a lot of that work. Like there are poems in this book, I'm thinking about a Woman to Woman with Mona, for example, in which a woman can come into that poem and be very familiar with the sort of language with that experience. And a male reader might come into that poem and feel locked out of that experience in some ways. And those things are intentional. I want there to be spaces in this book in which women, black women in particular, are the ones that can fully embody and access those experiences. And there is work that other readers have to do to reach the same place. And maybe they can't and maybe they won't. But if they would like to, there is work that they have to put in to do that. And so, in a way that was very different from the first book, I did have to think about the audience probably earlier than I would have liked. But I think the work and sort of the content required that of me.
- [09:14]
B
It's interesting to hear you talk about that thought process you. I wrote down. You talked about when you talk to students about, you know, your work as a product and poetry as a product. And I was thinking about the poems in this collection that I had a very easy time as a black woman walking into, as you said, and resonating with the speaker. I feel like the reason I had such an easy time is because I understand what it is to be commodified. And I know what it. I know what it is intimately to be a commodity, a product. And perhaps if had I not been a product, then perhaps it would not be so easy to step into the work.
- [10:00]
A
Yeah. And I want there to be different experiences. I like the fact that people have been using the word unease or discomfort to talk about it, because I think even for black women, there can be a sort of level of unease. And I think that comes from. Hopefully it comes from the feeling that some sort of truth about their experience has been rendered or that being in the space of the poem feels true enough or feels real enough that it renders some sort of sort of discomfort at its sort of veracity. But I do want some readers to come into the book and feel challenged and to come into the book and to be challenged to think about their own relationship to observation, to spectacle. Why do I find myself kind of leaning forward at this intimation of violence? Why do I find myself kind of excited by witnessing something that feels private or that feels like I shouldn't be? There are ways that I hope the poems are asking these questions or forcing readers to ask those questions of themselves.
- [11:15]
B
So we jumped right in. I jumped us right in, both feet first. I want to back up a little bit, because already. So the poem I read at the top, of course, is talking about Steven Spielberg, talking about the Color Purple and the book and the movie and the characters in it. You, a moment ago referred to Mona in a poem, and that was Mona Lisa. And so for listeners who have not seen the collection yet or know a lot about it, can you just give us an overview of, you know, thematically? What is this collection? Resting Bitch Face.
- [11:53]
A
Yes. So this is a collection that is. That is very much concerned with what it's like to be constantly surveilled in this country. To move through a life in a world where there's really no space, that you can experience true privacy or true safety. In particular, this book thinks about that through the lens of art, photography, and film. And I would say probably the biggest presence in the book is art in the sort of presence of the art museum space. So I'm thinking about what it's like to go to a museum, for example, which, as a black woman, you can go to just about any art museum and experience a pretty big chunk or percentage of that art museum and see nothing that looks like you. And what it's like to be in those spaces and to kind of be watched back by all of these white portraits and also the names of all the white artists on the wall. Even in the rooms where you do find art that looks like you or you do find faces that look like you sometimes that art is not created by people who look like you and has actually been done by people who have been violent and oppressive in their own personal lives. And so that's just one of the many ways that the book is thinking about the gaze historically and then how that sort of even continues to interrupt in the present day, which you'll kind of see probably most clearly in the title poem, Resting Bitch Face.
- [13:33]
B
So the book is divided into four sections. Canvas, Gesso, Dry down, and Signature. Talk about those titles.
- [13:44]
A
Yeah, you know, organizing Books has been. I mean, it's always been important, but it's probably become, like, one of the most important processes for both of these books. Even the organization process from the first book was crazy. We had seven sections, and that's because we broke a sonic crown up. And then we built the book around those. So organizing the books is something that I really take very seriously. And I spend a lot of time and put a lot of thought into. And in this case, I felt like this book had so many working layers that I had to think about. And it also kind of came together in these different layers as well. I always talk about how the first version of this book that we actually gave to Soft Skull was my dissertation. It had a different title. It wasn't even named Resting Bitch Face at first. And I ultimately ended up rewriting and replacing about a third of the book sort of in the editorial process. And so that in itself was a layer. I had so many things that I was thinking about. Like, I was talking about art. We're talking about photography, film. There are so many epigraphs that come into the poem and sort of contribute to the thinking process. There's ekphrasis happening. There are Persona poems happening. There's, like, an engagement with theory. And there were so many different pots that I was reaching into. And I felt like the process of even putting this together felt very much like that sort of meticulous but multilayered process of putting together a painting. And so when it came time to think about the sections and naming them, you know, I could have gone with Film things, which is. Which is what I was also thinking about, because I feel like a lot of the prose poems operate very cinematically. And so that was definitely something in mind. But we ultimately went with painting because I felt like the very process of sort of putting the book together felt. Felt most true to the process of sort of creating a painting. And so that's kind of what we went with. And then Signature actually wasn't there. It was just three sections at first, and then at the very, very end, when it was, like, time for me to turn in my final edits, I had written a poem for a museum here in Cincinnati, and. And I wrote the poem, and I was like, oh, that's the final poem in the book. And we added the signature just for that poem to be there. And it's perfect. And I'm so happy we did.
- [16:30]
B
I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna ask you what it has been named before, because Resting Bitchface is such a great name that not. I feel like nothing can really compare with it. But talk about the arrival at Resting Bitch Face as a title for a collection. And did you get any pushback on that?
- [16:49]
A
I'm curious. I expected to. I fully expected us to get to Soft Skull, and they would be like, oh, we don't really want to have a, you know, a curse word in the title. That feels kind of. You know, they were. They were actually the ones that was like, no, that's the title. Rusty Mitch Face. Is it? And they kind of, you know, gave me the courage, the encouragement to say, okay, let's go for it. So it was actually kind of in tandem with Soft Skull that we kind of settled on the name. And they were so excited, and they were like, this is it. This is for perfect. Which is yet another reason why I adore them and I love them, and I think they are the best. But, yeah, we were looking at the title poem and how we felt like it captured the sort of essence of the book. It's so critical for so many reasons. It's like, right at the middle of the book, it serves as this kind of hinge point for the book, literally, and then also kind of narratively as well. Um, and, and so we were, we went with it and soft school was 100% on board. Um, they were like, we talked with the team, everyone's like, into it. So that, that became the title. And yeah, it, it couldn't have been anything else. Like, I, I can't imagine it having been anything else. And I don't even know why the title was what it. I know why the title was what it was before. There was thought that went into it. But now that it's not that anymore, I'm, I'm like, what was I thinking? Wrestling dishwasher is clearly it. When the Moore family ditched cable Internet and switched to Zigli Fiber, they got so much more. Mr. Moore got more upload speed for next level gaming and live streaming to the masses. With reliable service, Mrs. Moore is no longer her family's IT guru, leaving her more time to stream games into overtime. Let's go. And young Mason Moore got more done quickly uploading HD product demos and video conferencing. Without freesight, the numbers were look good. Brad, you're on mute. Switch from cable Internet to Zibli Fiber and get more of what you love for $65 less per month than cable@ziplyfiber.com Imagine fast hydration combined with balanced energy. Perfectly flavored with zero artificial sweeteners. Introducing Liquid Ivy's new energy multiplier.
- [19:03]
B
Sugar free.
- [19:05]
A
Unlike other energy drinks, you know the ones that make you feel like you're glitching. It's made with the natural caffeine and electrolytes so you get the boost without the burnout. Liquid IV's new energy multiplier. Sugar free hydrating energy. Tap the banner to learn more. ABC Wednesdays. Shifting Gears is back. He has arisen. Tim Allen and Kat Dennings return in television's number one new comedy. What What? With a star studded premiere including Jenna.
- [19:33]
B
Elkman, Nancy Travis and.
- [19:35]
A
Hey buddy. A big home improvement reunion. Welcome. Oh boy, that guy's a tool. Shifting gears new Wednesdays, 8, 7 Central.
- [19:47]
B
On ABC and stream on Hulu and I, we, we, we should. So this is just so it's not a if you know, you know, moment for, for listeners because for some people, they will understand right away or they will understand like what resting bitch face is, like what that, what that means. Can you just say for people who, if they are not aware, if it's not a term or a descript, I don't Even know what to call it. A descriptor.
- [20:15]
A
Yeah, it's kind of like an insult, to be, you know, quite honest. It's this very gendered insult that's often hurled at women who are typically just, you know, going about their lives, but they look sort of mean or that's what, that's sort of an outside interpretation of their faces which are doing nothing at all. But they are interpreted as looking very mean or looking like bitches. So people will say, we have a resting bitch face. And you know, our bates resting state is that of someone who is not approachable, who is not nice, et cetera. And you know, the title poem kind of came from me thinking about the fact that at the height of the pandemic, I noticed men had stopped, like, telling me to smile because they couldn't see the entirety of my face in order to police it in the first place. And so that poem was written for me thinking about that experience. And so in that sort of genesis feels very perfect for the book and for that poem in the title. So I wanted Resting Bitch Face by the end of this book to not be that insult or that phrase, but to be kind of like the response to someone who's like trying to police or who wants me to appear a certain way. Like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm. I'm unmoved in the face of whatever it is that you want from me. And I'm actually going to continue to stare at you with this resting bitch face until hopefully you leave me alone. Like we're going to be in the stare down now until you look away. I wanted resting bitch Face to be the act, not the, not the insult, not the descriptor, but like the response, the chosen response to being kaleased.
- [22:02]
B
When you talked about thinking about poetic strategies of resistance, I mean, that's what it is, right? To the, to the person, and it's normally a man, but to the person who says, you would be so much prettier if you smiled and she's rolling her eyes.
- [22:22]
A
Yeah, it's like, okay, I'm going to do the opposite of that. Thanks.
- [22:26]
B
You mentioned ekphrasis before. Talk about, talk about ekphrasis as a literary practice because it shows up a.
- [22:35]
A
Lot in this collection. It shows up a lot and say.
- [22:39]
B
Also what it is, what it. Again, for people that may not be familiar with the term, what it is.
- [22:44]
A
Yeah, it shows up a lot. So it's basically a written response to digital art, typically. And the reason it shows up so much for me in my poetic practice is because in undergrad, when I was initially a fiction writer, it was taking an ekphrastic poetry workshop at the end of undergrad that actually changed the entire trajectory of my writing career. And it was after that class that I switched over to poetry for then my Master's and my PhD. So it's what brought me back to poetry. And so it always has a sort of special, special place in my heart and in my poetic practice for that reason. But one of the reasons why it was so appealing to me, I think I like when it comes to writing, especially with poems, I like the puzzling, the puzzling out, the puzzling through a story, puzzling through language, and trying to get that exact. The exacting sentence, exactly what I'm trying to say, while also doing something surprising. And I like that feeling. And I think when I was in that class, that was the first time I had felt that, again, like, looking at these pieces of art and trying to find a way into them, trying to access them, and not only trying to find a way into them as the author or as the speaker appearing on the page, but also having to then create a way in for a reader who isn't me and who isn't that speaker. There was so much puzzling that has to go into creating these openings when it comes to engaging with visual art. And so that continues to attract me in this collection in particular, or thinking about art. And before I knew I was writing this book, one day I had the idea. I was like, I just want to write an ecphrostic chapbook. I just want it to be a chapbook of just all ekphrastic poems. And then I started to write it. And the first one that I wrote was the locker room talk with Satan after the fallen angel painting. And I was like, okay, I think I have other things to say about the art. And I kept writing those acrostic poems. And in doing so, I realized that this is a much bigger project that held way more than I probably originally realized, and that it was probably going to need some space to expand. But it ended up being perfect for this project, in which I'm thinking about the sort of historical role that art has played in. In violation and objectification. And it also gave me some places to step out of my comfort zone. You know, some of the ekphrostic pieces are Persona poems, for example, or they're in these voices that feel very different from the speaker that appears otherwise in the book. And these were those places where the self protection had to come in, or I had to think about a way to access a rage that felt otherwise unwieldy. It's like, how do I reel this in? How do I make sure that this rage is a productive rage? How do I make sure that this is a pointed rage at the actual target? And I think the Persona poems or the poems that sort of take on a very different voice were places where I got to really focus and hone in while also kind of stepping out of my comfort zone. It, you know, the Chrysis did a really. A really important thing for the book and also sort of like varying the voice alongside, you know, the sort of commentary about the art and how history comes into play.
- [26:53]
B
So we just mentioned. You just talked about ekphrasis. You mentioned Persona. There are several other traditional forms and newer traditional, now traditional. It's not an oxymoron. Forms in the book Pantombs, Burning High, Bun Duplex, Reversible poems talk about the utilization of these forms vis a vis the overall theme. Like, I'm curious about, like, why these forms? Because these aren't just. You don't just have one poem in a form. Like, there's multiple poems in multiples of these forms.
- [27:33]
A
I think the way that I think about an approach form is very similar to how I imagine this book is thinking about and talking about art. The space of the art museum, as I mentioned earlier, is kind of very present in this book. It is a place that, I think, for the most part, we consider art museums to be educational places that we go to. We go to admire the art. Yes. But we also go to learn something about our history. I think we consider art museums to be places where we can learn as well. And art museums are also places where there's sort of these. These unspoken rules of etiquette. Sometimes there are. You know, they're like, you can't bring this backpack in. They'll have those rules kind of at the front. But there's this. This understanding that you're, you know, you're not supposed to be too loud. You're supposed to, you know, you're supposed to, like, not spend too much time at each painting. So people also have a chance to look at the paintings. You're not supposed to touch this black tape here. We all know that you're not supposed to cross the black tape there. There are these rules that you kind of know are in place, and there's. There's a certain way that you're supposed to behave. And I. I wanted this book to disrupt those Spaces. I wanted. I wanted this to be, you know, the book to be kind of screaming. Screaming back, talking back to the art in the. In the space where it's not supposed to do that. And I think traditional form is exactly the same way. Here are these traditional forms that have been historically populated by, you know, white Eurocentric authors, men, for the most part. And, you know, that's still the way that it's taught as well, for the most part. When we go through the school system, that's who we're introduced to. That's who we're told are the masters of the forms, the masters of the craft. And I just don't think that's necessarily true anymore. I think Shakespeare is very important to learn for the sonnet, but I also think that I have read much more exciting songs than Shakespeare's. No hate to him. But I also think about young readers. That's something that I'm always thinking about, because I think about my journey as a writer and how I was taught about poetry and how different it would have been if I had learned it differently, and how different my own idea about who I could be as a writer would have been different if I had been taught poetry differently. And so I think about the students who are sitting in classrooms right now, who are not the students that were sitting in classrooms five years ago, who are not the students that were sitting in classrooms 10 years ago. And I'm always thinking about how we can get them connected, how we can get them interested and engaged with form. And you're still going to have your students who link up with Shakespeare and are enamored and are in. And that's always going to happen. But I think more and more we are going to start to lose students who are, you know, who find it inaccessible, who are, like, looking at this language, and they're like, none of my life, my experiences, my anything, are being reflected back to me. And so I think, you know, I'm finding it difficult to engage and to get into this. So I write the forms that I wish I could have read. I write the form of poems that I wish I had access to. I write the form of homes that I hope people are bringing into classrooms. And I think it's important to include those, like you said, new, new tradition, newer, traditional forms. But it's funny, but it's very true. We get these forms because someone was, you know, brave and experimental enough to do something different or to take what existed previously and to break it somehow or to transform it somehow. That's how it Happens, things are supposed to evolve. And so when I see things like the Golden Shovel, when I see things like the Burning High Boon, I think it's also important that we are putting those forms out there as well. And so I also like to make it a part of my practice to celebrate my contemporaries who are doing really exciting formal things. And that's just one of the ways that I like to do that. I think that's also being in community as well, which I think is really important. So those are all the ways that I'm thinking about form, which are a lot of ways. But form is really important to my practice. And I think if you've read anything that I've written, that's no surprise.
- [32:34]
B
I want to stick on form just a little bit longer because there was something that I really loved about these formal poems. And I mentioned before Formri's a few of them. Pantoon Burning High Bun, Duplex, Duplex Reversible Poems that, you know. This is a collection, as you said about the art museum. It's about. It's about a gaze. It's about sometimes what is being. Putting. Sometimes the. The eye in the poems is the. The per. The gazer. And sometimes it's the person being gazed. The object or person being gazed upon. But there is this constant back and forth, right? And so many of the forms that you use have inside them this very same back and forth again. The pantoms and the duplex and a Burning hive on that is about this exchange of. You see this, and maybe it's a 180 or a 90 degree. And you see it this, and you see it this, and you see it this, and For Irreversible Palms also, which. It was something for me, I just found. I just loved thinking about it. I loved reading the poems and thinking about that complexity inside it.
- [34:08]
A
That's so funny now that I'm thinking about it, the. The palindrome that you're talking about when. What is it? Good grief, what have I read?
- [34:17]
B
There's two of them. There's two of them in there. And I know that while you're looking for it, I know that because I actually, it was the one form I didn't know the name of. I recognized it as a form immediately. And in one of the poems in the title, you help us out and let us know in there because you talk about rewind. But I had to Google because. Well, first I asked my poetry friends, including Rosa Castellano, who I know you know as well. She's a mutual Friend. And I asked than something like, what's the name of the form that you can read backwards and forwards? And then I realized I can just Google it. And I googled.
- [35:02]
A
And I was like, okay, yeah, that's so funny. Yeah, tell it like a movie. I. I always. I forget. I forget that's a palindrome. It's like a big pro with palindrome because it's just. It's a. It's a big poem. And even because there's also the monster you may marry, which is this pantomb. And, you know, there's all sorts of back and forth about the audience and laughter and who's being watched and who's sort of watching her. Her life fall apart. And then she's watching her life fall apart. What I also see in common with just looking at these two poems, even in a picture on my boyfriend's phone, which is the other palindrome that exists in here, they're all thinking about, like, cameras and lenses. And I think those are the places in this book where I'm thinking about the camera, the lens, whether that's in terms of photography or film, where that back and forth probably comes forth the most. Because I think when I'm working or when I was working through a lot of this book, the prose poems in particular, that's the way that my brain functions when I'm working in a prose poem. I'm thinking about things very cinematically. And the kind of like I, not the capital I, but the eye that I'm thinking about throughout the poem is one of a camera lens I'm looking at. Where are we directing the reader's gaze? How zoomed in are we here? How zoomed out are we here? I'm thinking in terms of a shot list, almost. And. And that thought process allows me to kind of flip back and forth. Like, one moment, I'm. I'm sort of behind the camera. I'm the cameraman, and I'm sort of directing the gaze. And so the reader might also feel like the cameraman or someone who's behind the camera. And then there are other moments where that speaker emerges, and they are the one that's being sort of gazed at, as you said. And the speaker might feel, or the reader might simultaneously feel like they flipped. And so I. I think that is probably why that happens in the spaces that it's happening, is because when I'm in that mindset of thinking through the camera lens, for example, I typically am flipping back and forth of what side of the camera I'm on and the reader probably is experiencing those flips alongside me.
- [37:43]
B
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pinned messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone.
- [38:06]
A
Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org Jack Daniels and Old no. 7 are registered trademarks. Tennessee Whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. Limu Emu and Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and.
- [38:44]
B
Save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
- [38:47]
A
Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [38:52]
B
Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [38:54]
A
Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.
- [39:04]
B
You just talked about the poem the monster you may Marry. And there's an epigraph on that poem on watching the WandaVision trailer after heartbreak. And so this poem, I actually, I watched the WandaVision trailer after I read the poem. Cause I've actually never seen WandaVision either. I had heard of it, but I'd never seen it. And I never met an annotation I didn't like anyway. And so I, so I watched the trailer, which then made me wonder how do you, when you did think about the reader, when you got to the place where you were thinking about the reader experiencing these poems? Because not just this poem, there are other poems as well that reference artworks that were, you know, there's a lot of internal references. How did you think about the reader engaging with the poem and the reference? Yeah. Talk through how you thought about it.
- [39:56]
A
Yeah. I think epigraphs can create, you know, two different experiences. And the first experience is someone comes across an epigraph of something that they are already familiar with. And so that immediately kind of draws them deeper into the experience. And then there's the person that comes into the poem and is not familiar with the epigraph. I Think a poem should function without needing the outside information. I think the outside information should only enhance the reading experience. If someone does sort of go and look at something that they aren't familiar with. And then they should come back to the poem, like, oh, now I understand this even more. Like, I understood it the first time, without it. But this creates this sort of additional, deeper, enhanced experience for me. And so I think if the WandaVision trailer isn't there, I think a reader still comes into the poem with this knowledge of the sort of. The sitcom, right. The sitcom is something that I think is universal enough that someone can come into that, knowing that sort of environment, that setting, that goofy laugh track, and can sort of get a sense of what the poem is doing even without that. And then WandaVision just only kind of enhances it. It brings it sort of into the present. There's a contemporary kind of context that is then brought into the poem. And so that's how I imagine it affecting the reading experience. But also, we're thinking about where they're thinking about history. And I think when we're thinking about art in particular, we're also thinking about artistic lineage. I think it's very important, especially as a black woman writer, I think it's important to me to show my reader, who else I'm in conversation with, what I'm thinking about. And, you know, of course, everything that I think about doesn't show up necessarily. But I do make decisions about when I do want to sort of direct a reader elsewhere or let a reader know that something was a part of my writing process. Because I think that's also the act of creating a lineage. For this book, for example, it's like a little family tree of the book, and the book is at the bottom, and here are all of its ancestors that sort of help it come into being. Because I think that's important. This book is very much a book that I think is concerned with criticism as well. So when we're thinking about criticism and a work of, you know, the theory and scholarship, those sorts of things, it's always important to, you know, quote who you're talking about, who you're in conversation with. I think that is like the poetic equivalent of kind of quoting who you're thinking about, who you're talking to, talking with. Those epigraphs, those afternotes that you see operate in a very similar way for me.
- [43:08]
B
You talked before about kind of the camera lens in your head sometimes as you were writing. I'm curious whether there were images that showed up for you in the collection that were a surprise?
- [43:23]
A
That's a good question. Were there images that showed up to me that were a surprise? There were some, and I think these were some that were kind of written later. So Discomfort at the moma. It doesn't have an epigraph, but it does have two pieces of artwork. In the poem, Kazuo Shiraga is Untitled. And then Blue Monochrome by Yves Klein. I didn't. It's so funny. I was, you know, at the art museum with two of my friends, and we were just in there trying to enjoy the art. And here I am looking at these. They're huge art pieces, by the way. Here I am looking at these huge art pieces. I am walking around this art museum with my heavy backpack on the front of my body. Because you can't wear it on your back, you know, so I'm so, like, my back is hurting. I'm in pain. I'm uncomfortable. I have my little notebook out, and I'm just writing notes on sort of any. Anything that sort of catches my attention. And then there's these two. These two paintings which, you know, like, both of them are just both, like, all color, basically blue, monochrome. It's just this huge painting that's just kind of like all these different shades of blue. And then the Untitled is this huge red painting that has. You can kind of see some of the brushstrokes. You can see the texture. It's like some of it looks like scabs. It's like. I don't know why, it's kind of disturbing. I didn't expect those to show up in a poem. And yet here they are in a poem. I was just kind of writing my notes and being like, this is strange. And then they kind of showed up. Those were surprises. I'm not surprised that Carrie Mae Weems showed up, because I've always really loved her work. But like I said, that was the very, very last poem that I wrote. And so the way that the poem kind of showed up was a surprise. But then when it did, it was, like, perfect. You know, I wasn't even writing it for the book. I was writing it for this exhibit for the art museum. And then I was like, oh, yeah. Then I started thinking about her body of work and how she makes it a point to kind of center herself, especially in the kitchen table series. Like, there are series of her, quite literally at that kitchen table when she is at the center of that photograph, regardless of kind of what's happening around her. And I was like, yeah, that's exactly the sort of ending gesture of the book. A recentering of the self in the photograph in which the self is looking directly into the camera and is sort of confronting that gaze. So while I'm not surprised she showed up, I am surprised, or it was a surprise, the way that the poem was written, not even for the book. And then it sort of ended up being this perfect final gesture for it, which, you know, those happy accidents are the best when they happen.
- [46:28]
B
You just talked about moma, which is here, Museum of Modern Art here in New York City, which is where I am. You talked about the Cincinnati Art Museum, which I have been to, but it's been a very long time. There are poems also that situate, very specifically situate themselves in Brooklyn, in Birmingham.
- [46:51]
A
Talk some about place has always been important to me. I mean, I. I can think back to my first chapbook, Bloodworm, which was very much about what does it mean to be a black woman in Alabama? And not just a black woman in, you know, Alabama, but a black woman in Alabama during the 2016 election, which was a time. And so even from that first project, I think I've always been very hyper aware in my work of how geographical location quite literally influences how I'm experiencing the world. It influences everything. I can look back at the poems that I was writing while I was in my master's program in Birmingham, for example, in some of the influences that, that crept into that work. Like I was looking at the, you know, the work of William Christianberry, for example, who is like a very well known Southern photographer, for example, which was heavily influenced by the fact that I was in Birmingham and by the fact that, you know, he was well known amongst people who I was around at the time. A lot of my work was influenced by that landscape, right? And then I sort of return to Chicago and then we have different influences that creep in as well. The landscape, of course, is different. We're in the cityscape and Chicago becomes this character that sort of touches everything in that poem. And now in Cincinnati, which is a very interesting kind of in between, we're sitting like right on top of Kentucky. So we're just stealing all their Southern warmth while still being in the Midwest. It's like this very interesting in between, both geographically and then also kind of like socially, politically too. Like I'm in Ohio, which is, you know, a very well known red state. And yet Cincinnati is this sort of, you know, blue, very blue city, very queer friendly, et cetera. And so now I find myself, I Find myself writing about Cincinnati a bit now. It was kind of hard to do when I first got here. I've been here for a while and so now I think I can kind of do it. But I've always, I think maybe after the first chapbook and then as I started to write about Chicago, because I was away from it, I just was hyper aware of how where I am in the world directly sort of influences everything. Not just, you know, my lived experience, but also like who I'm. Who I'm in conversation with, who I'm thinking about. Like when I was writing about Chicago, like all of my Chicago poets came back front and center. And it was Patricia Smith again, you know, it was Gwendolyn Brooks again. Because that was the environment not only on the page, but in my mind. And so, yeah, I've never really been able to separate place. And I think that also maybe has something to do with my fiction. I have fiction background as well, necessarily have to be concerned with setting, right. In poetry, that's not a requirement. That's not something we have to think about. But it is something that I think about. And it's probably because I was a fiction writer first and setting was always something that I was thinking about. And it's probably why my poems typically lean more towards narrative. And it's probably why my poems typically are maybe more concerned with a sort of scene than maybe than like, you know, you know, other poets are or have to be. And so I think, I think the fiction has a little bit to do with it too, I must admit.
- [50:48]
B
I'm reflecting on you talking through that. You know, we speak to a lot of academics at the New Books Network, and one thing about academics is academics wind up moving a lot, you know, for schooling and jobs and those kinds of things. And something that I that comes up a lot in my conversations around nonfiction texts oftentimes is around who gets to tell a story, especially if it's a very place bound story. You know, someone is telling a story that happened in the Bronx, but now they live in Michigan. You know, like, what does that feel like to do that? And as you're talking, I'm thinking about the fact that I don't know. Do you think that for poets you mentioned setting isn't as strong? Maybe in poetry though? So many poems we know the setting is the poem and sometimes the setting is Ohio, and sometimes the setting is my kitchen table. But oftentimes there's a setting there. But do you think that poets get more leeway maybe around the. Where Versus, you know, versus a. Even a. Not even non fiction. Even a fic. Even a fiction writer. Right. A fiction writer who's living in New York. But it's gonna, you know, set their story in Mississippi.
- [52:16]
A
Yeah, yeah, I. I think there. I think there is some. And just because, you know, I've. I've read poems that like, you know, I don't even think about the where. Right. And the poem is not really concerned with the where, and in poems can exist in that way. I used to joke that one of the reasons I also set it on poetry is because we get to sort of like, cartwheel along the spectrum in between fiction and nonfiction when it comes to deciding how true something has to be or how close something has to be to our real lived experiences. We get to say, oh, well, I want to flip over here towards this being more fictionalized, or I want this to be closer to my real lived experience. We kind of get to decide and sort of dance along that spectrum in a way that those two genres are kind of like, you know, have to sort of stay on their ends. And I think that might be like, a similar thing might be true when it comes to, like, location. I think there's a way that things can be, you know, true to a real life location. And I think there's a way that, you know, like, I'm thinking about, like, a good friend of mine, Jason B. Crawford's poetry collection that's. That's coming out this next month is very much concerned with, like, this futuristic place if all, you know, if all the black people left Earth, right. And sort of there's this place that, like, it's sort of fictionalized but feels very real in the world of that poetry collection. And I do think we have a little bit of freedom when it comes to doing things like that or when it comes to thinking about place and location in those ways. Yeah, I think we do have a little bit more freedom, but of course we have things like, you know, docu poetics, for example, which of course have to then, you know, fall more on that nonfiction side of the spectrum. I'll go back to, you know, the. The question you. You sort of pose is like, who. Who can tell what story? Right. If you want to tell a story in this place that maybe you haven't lived in for. For 10 years, what does that mean? I think just like in any other genre, we also cannot understate the importance of doing your research. And I, of course, grew up in Chicago, but then I also hadn't lived in Chicago for six to eight years, when I was writing the poems that appeared in, I didn't click my heels three times. And so there was a little researching that I had to do. I didn't remember everything accurately. You know, you have to refer to some photo albums. We have to go to Google Maps and do the little street walkthrough. Sometimes, like, you gotta do your work too, if, you know, if place is going to show up in those ways too. I think it's important to do research, whatever that research looks like, you know, it can look very different depending on the project. But yeah, I think it can look a lot of different ways because poetry does give us that freedom. But I think you should also do your due diligence. There we go. That's the words.
- [55:45]
B
It always fascinates me at the. Because to your point, as a generalization, there are no rules in poetry. Like, I always like to say, like.
- [55:55]
A
You don't even have to punctuate.
- [55:56]
B
You don't have to capitalize, you have to punctuate. You do sort of do whatever you want. And I always find it fascinating when poets choose that a thing has to be factually accurate within the poem. Like, what are those things that must be factually accurate? I have decided in order to say what it is that I'm trying to say.
- [56:19]
A
Yeah, yeah. And it looks so different from poem to poem. Yeah. I've had. Part of the reason the sculpture study series came into being is because I was trying to write something and I was like, trying to write it. It's true. And I'm doing air quotes here, as true as I could. And that just wasn't the way that it wanted to be written like that. That just wasn't the way that it wanted to exist. And it wasn't until I stopped trying to write it in the first person, I. And until I put it in a third person omniscient point of view, where it's just like this detached narrator that's watching the scene. And it moved more towards a fictionalized narrative that it. Like, it was like, okay, I'm ready to come into existence now. And, you know, sometimes it's not even something you choose. Sometimes you're trying to write it one way. And that's just not the way that the poem is like asking to be in the world. And it's not until you kind of try some different things and move it along that spectrum and find where it actually wants to be that the poem actually comes into being. And that has happened to me more times than I Could count.
- [57:35]
B
You talked before about your background in fiction and how that makes its way into your poetry. You're also an editor now. Talk about, you know, what impact, if any, you know, editor brain, Editor Taylor has on Poet Taylor and the poems.
- [57:56]
A
Oh, editor brain. More than anything, there is some relief, I think, being an editor, being on the other side of the curtain. You come to realize in so many instances that all these decisions that people make about your work, whether something is accepted or rejected or whether something gets an award or not, so little of that has to do with the quality of the work or who you are as a writer. There things are certain. So many other factors that go into these decisions. Like, I will sit on our Beloit editorial board when we have to do our big meetings and we have to figure out, like, our finalists for our Adrienne Rich contest, for example, and we will wrestle over so many good poems, you know, and then we'll send them off to a judge who ultimately decides a winner. But, like, even in that process, it's like, you know, there are so many. So many good, fantastic, strong poems here, you know, and they might get that rejection, or they might get the news that they weren't a finalist or they weren't the winner, and they might feel discouraged by that. And yet here we are on the other side, like, you know, arguing. Not arguing, but, like, having spirited debates about, like, which poems should go and that sort of thing. And so I think it definitely takes a lot of the anxiety out of. Of that, thinking about those sorts of processes and allows me to kind of accept those rejections, you know, way more graciously and know that, you know, there are probably a lot of. A lot of things that went into this decision that I just am not privy to and have nothing to do with the quality of the work. On the flip side of that, I am meticulous. The editor. The editor brain sort of brings me to my own work in a way that now I'm like, if I send this out on the world, I now have an idea of what they're going to see when they get this submission packet. I now have an idea of maybe how that first reader is going to experience that packet. You start to think about how you arrange submissions differently. You start to start to think about how you arrange books more seriously, because you now know that while a lot of factors do go into the process, these people are also dealing with typically a lot of submissions. And you have to stand out. You have to stand out to the reader who's, like, been reading for hours and is getting to your submission, you know, at the end of their reading time that evening, you have to stand out to the reader who's, like, fresh and has just started reading through the, you know, the slush pile. And so I think when it comes to sending my own work out into the world, whether that's like, you know, single poem submissions or whether that's like putting a book together, I am just much more meticulous about how I put things together, which is not a bad thing at all. But it does make you think about it a little bit more.
- [61:09]
B
Well, you talked about having to debate so many good poems. There are so many good poems in this collection. Resting bitch face by Dr. Taylor Bias. You can find Taylor on Instagram Aylorbias poet and on bluesky Aylorbias. And I am your host, Sullivan Sommer. You can find me online SullivanSummer on Instagram at the SullivanSummer and over on substack Ollivansummer, where Taylor and I are headed right now to continue our conversation. Thank you for listening to the.