The Lightning Room With Alexandra Tanner

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In our September issue, “Four Poems” from Alexandra Tanner. Read on, for mini-goats, lobster mac n’ cheese, and mergrace.

1. What will you miss most about this world?

It’s a three-way tie between Chips Ahoy! cookies, YouTube videos of miniature goats, and Kimye.

2. “My Nephew Makes His Own Lipstick” is such a wonderful tiny revenge. What are people wearing in your favorite parade?

I live in Florida, and I always cry at Disney World parades– it’s some insane, visceral reaction to the music and the smiles and the unbelievable heat– and Princess Jasmine has the best outfit, hands down. I’d wear teal glitter harem pants every single day if I could. 

3. “Bonaparte Run Aground” has this tendency to leap in and interrupt itself. How do you piece your poems together?

For me, there’s always a point when a poem clicks– when everything feels in its right place– and I think to myself, if you change one more word, one more comma, one more anything, this goes from wonderful to terrible. And then I change things. And then I change them back. And then I’m done. Usually.

4. How often do we verge on transcendence? Can you give an example?

When you can sort-of-but-not-quite-completely remember the previous night’s dream, or when you’re on a long drive and your thoughts go in a hundred different directions at once, or when you taste lobster mac n’ cheese for the first time.

5. Describe for our readers the last time you experienced an unfamiliar pain. How far did you take your ballet? What’s the after picture look like?

The last unfamiliar pain I felt was some sort of sinus-y allergy situation that I had going on for a week or so about a month ago– I thought, oh, great, my brain is going to start oozing out of my left nostril. It didn’t. I did ballet on and off until the middle of my freshman year of high school, when I was sent out of the room after my bun came undone during pique turns. That was my last class ever, I think. The after picture is still developing. It will, more than likely, come out blurry.

6. Tell us the ending with the mermaid.

This isn’t really the ending the piece refers to, but in my own dream ending of The Little Mermaid, she realizes what every child who hears the story or sees the movie already knows– that being a mermaid is infinitely cooler than being a human– and goes back to the sea to rule her merkingdom with merwisdom and mergrace for years and years and years.