Ask The Author: Brian Laidlaw

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Brian Laidlaw has two poems in the July issue. He answers questions regarding steampunk, style, and spills.

1. Where are your elegies for steampunk?

Steampunk isn’t dead, but it used to be. I should have elegized it when I had the chance.

2. Are you digital or analog?

For the purposes of this series, I was thinking of “digital” and “analog” in terms of music recording – so it’s a distinction between the tidy (binary) process that happens when you record on a computer, and the chaotic unpredictable process that happens when you record to tape. I identify with the latter, the analog, for sure – but the world around me is obviously pretty digital. For example, I write all my poems longhand – but to submit them or publish them, they have to be digitized first.

3. What’s with all the lowercase in the poems? Is this a stylistic choice or does this add something to the poems we’re unaware of?

Yes (that’s me rejecting a binary question) – it’s a stylistic choice that, I hope, adds something to the poems. Getting rid of the capitals meant that each sentence didn’t have a concrete beginning and ending. To my ear, that opened up a lot of possibilities for the sound and the logic of the poems. Also I secretly think capital letters are ugly.

4. What spills do you cry over?
 
Oil spills – those are the ones I literally cry over.
 
5. If you spend a fifth of your time being miraculous, what do you do with the rest of your time?

I think I was inflating my numbers a bit there… I probably spend more like a twentieth of my time being miraculous (which is still pretty good, in my opinion). That’s what I consider my art-making time. I guess you could say that it’s “analog” time: no divisions, and infinite chaotic possibility. The other nineteen-twentieths of my life are mostly regenerative and functional, eating and sleeping, and taking care of digital business. But it sure would be sweet if those percentages were to flip.

6. Are you the DJ? Are you what you play?

I love this question. I wish I were the DJ, but it’s more like I’m the radio single: I can express myself to myself, but the DJ is the one who can make people listen. But both the musician and the DJ are making choices about what elements, and in what sequence, to include in their orchestration… and if they’re fully (mortally?) invested in those choices, they definitely are what they play.