Interviews

Ask The Author: Amy Benson

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Amy Benson discusses the nature of threat and the bounty of dreams. Check her out in the August issue.

1. If this were a letter, whose name would be on the address?

Dear Urban Neighbors

2. What has changed, if anything, between your father’s generation and the generation of today in how we view threats to national security?

We can’t help but think more globally now than we did during the rise of the Cold War. Though I suppose the most recent Bush Administration and the support it received domestically would belie that conviction. But the experience of being post-national (at least to a degree in Europe and elsewhere) was part of the world’s rejection of the blatantly nationalistic. I think members of my father’s generation– post WWII, full flush of the Cold War/arms race– had a much greater sense of their own facility, of the power of the US and their power as a US citizen, and also, then, their responsibility as a citizen. Bomb shelters, drills, even back-to-the-land experiments. This may just be my own feeling, but I think the generation of today feels more helpless, given terrorism and its lack of national boundaries and accountability, but also tends to be more interested in the bigger picture– the one that extends beyond national boundaries and the present moment.

3. What do you think your story expresses about the nature of safety? And is that what you yourself believe?


There are countless delusions in which we willingly participate and that participation allows us to function. But it’s very easy for the functional delusion to fall apart or morph into something extremely unhealthy. It would make the world patently unsafe if everyone owned a gun; at the same time, it’s horrifying to consider what might happen in a subway if it were targeted. Unthinkable, really; that is, I choose not to think about it entirely. Just shut it down. I choose a kind of reactionary heedlessness often. That part is true. I’m not arguing for it, I’m just trying to explore what happens if that heedlessness sours and becomes its opposite (which seems much more possible than I’d like to admit most of the time).

4. Think of the last terrible story you read and give it a name starting with Mr. (example: Mr. Bad Breath).

Mr. Sad White Guy

5. Whose work do you find generative? Where do you turn when you hit a drought in your own writing?

I read John Berger to see how he keeps something big and open, kind and exacting at the heart of his pursuit of ideas. He is an an education in ethics and gentle wisdom. I also turn to Anne Carson and Mary Ruefle, and the book by Lawrence Weschler, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees.

6. What kind of dreams do you want your reader to have after reading this story?

The kind of dream in which the dreamer is separated from personal history or psychology and feels like a plural entity.

Ask the Author: Lane Falcon

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In our July issue, “Three Poems” by Lane Falcon. Look on for dishonest cars, black daisies, and nervous bibles.

1. There are such ghosts in “Amber.” If they were to make themselves known, where in these stanzas would they be hiding? 

Probably the last stanza, the on-looker stanza. The poem honors someone who is idoliized– a heroine– but estranged. Someone I love and admire, although I hardly ever see her anymore.

2. Those strings of black daisies: a testament to what?

Rebellion, strength, opposition, adaptation.

3. I love the close, dark spaces of “Apology.” I ask because I’m curious, because the text and audio contradict: which is more honest, a Hyundai or a Nissan?

Neither. Continue reading →

Ask the Author: Jonathan May

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Read Jonathan May’s poem “On Our Rwandan Refugees: A Memory” in our July issue for some free shivers.

1. How many were there? 

We knew just a few refugees, but mostly as they made their way further south to the coast. We didn’t know many who stayed.

2. It’s a straight shot south from Rwanda to Zimbabwe, a long way to walk. Can you describe where this poem came from?

This poem came out of finally being able to look directly at my childhood in Zimbabwe and see the beautiful, the horrific. I had written about growing up there a lot, and this poem was a culmination of sorts, a beginning/ending for the refugees and a beginning/ending for me. But we have to give up some of our favorite subjects, sometimes, in order to move forward.

3. What is one need that we simply cannot address here?

I’ll take a moment to grandstand on the need to send books to Africa. Companies like Better World Books have programs to send books to Africa.

4. This poem reads almost like advice offered to an outsider. How did you settle on the tone for this piece?

A lot of people in the West tend to still have very weird perceptions about life in Africa. Zimbabwe, in particular, was entering a period of enormous economic and social depression right as we were forced to leave by the government. So life over there was actually kind of weird. Life was, early on, incredibly tenuous. All to say, this poem conveys what I hope is still a very realistic, albeit brief, moment: people appearing from the sunset, having walked many, many kilometers from the crowded bus, their wounds and accents telling the whole story.

5. What happens after he comes into focus? Until when?

We break bread or share sadza, everyone eating out of the same dish. Some would talk, some would not talk. Over there, the distinction between the two isn’t so important. Listening was important, and being receptive to that listening.

6. How is it different watching a man disappear into the sunset?

You’re watching a Western at that point.

Ask The Author: Hazel Foster

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Can you remember back to April? Refresh your memory with this piece, “Jana Lives in This House,” and this interview with author Hazel Foster.

1. Who do you want living in your house?

Ideally me, but I don’t have a house, which is possibly/definitely why I’m obsessed with them, especially the run down type, like the house in my story. If you have a dilapidated house, especially one with outbuildings, there’s a good chance I’ll want to explore it. I’m a cowardly trespasser. One time, I stealthily entered an old catholic boarding school turned administrative building and ventured up four flights to the attic. The dormitory portion made my arms tingle–the long empty rooms meant for beds, the rows of green-blue sinks. I’d especially like to see the inside of an old wooden red barn. So if you know anyone, I’d appreciate the hookup.

2. What would you name a child?

This is a somewhat contentious subject between my significant other and I. He likes some names; I like others. Unfortunately for you, I can’t share “the list.” I’m paranoid and would hate for anyone to steal one of my baby names, like Julia Roberts stole my name and paired it with the middle name Patricia and utterly ruined it. As a child, I made lists of names I liked in my journal. I can share some of those: Alice, Gwen, Will.

3. Where did “Jana Lives In This house” come from?

Ultimately, this story comes from a road trip to Texas. All along the highway rested houses that seemed as if they could be kicked over, as if the wind ripped through them daily. The contrast between these whispy houses in Texas and the beefy ones from my home state of Michigan sparked everything about this story. Continue reading →

Ask The Author: Kejt Walsh

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Just how tall is Charles Wright? What shouldn’t you put up your nose? Should we all move to Eugene, Oregon right now? Find out this all of this and more in our interview with Kejt Walsh from the August issue.

1. When I read George, I kept picturing someone sewing my face shut. It felt bad, yet seemed awesome. Have you ever put a needle in your actual face? Do you like needles?

I have never put a needle in my actual face, but I did once put a bead up my nostril to see what I would look like with a nose ring. The bead got stuck; my mom called 911; paramedics came. I got the bead out by blowing my nose. This is the only story that I can think to tell when people ask about my most embarrassing moment, as it might have been the only time I’ve ever been truly humiliated.

I have never put a needle in my actual face, but I did once put a bead up my nostril to see what I would look like with a nose ring. The bead got stuck; my mom called 911; paramedics came. I got the bead out by blowing my nose. This is the only story that I can think to tell when people ask about my most embarrassing moment, as it might have been the only time I’ve ever been truly humiliated.

2. Could you be with someone who had a great personality but was a terrible kisser? Would you try to teach them or what?

Kissing can’t be taught, only developed. If I was dating a bad kisser, I’d take them to a workshop where fifteen people would kiss them in a row and then offer feedback- what’s working, what is falling flat- while my dating person sat silently and listened.

3. What’s Eugene, OR like? What’s the lit scene there?
Eugene is blue and green and gray. Sometimes I eat vegan cashew butter ice cream out of paper cups. It’s cold and I walk in the rain a lot. It hasn’t been raining the past two months because it’s still considered summer in the Northwest, which means the sun is actually out and there are no clouds. It’s gorgeous.

I saw Charles Wright do a reading in an art museum but the room was too full and a fire code violation, so they put dozens of people in an empty gallery and we listened to Charles Wright over the PA system while we stared at blank walls. I liked the really gentle way he pronounced “poem” to sound like “po-eem,” and that I didn’t know what he looked like or how short he was until after the reading. I don’t really know any writers in Eugene.

4. Clotho was one of the Fates in charge of the threads of destiny, she also helped create the alphabet. What do you think the connection between fate and language is?

The connection must be that as we weave ourselves an identity and history through language, we determine and construct our destiny. I think a lot about the power of narratives and naming. I think more than being just a sexual preference, a word like “lesbian” is used to indicate the larger narrative that a person’s life falls under.

5. Reading your poem aloud is a real mouth workout. you’re playing with a lot of sounds. Did this poem start with liking the way something sounded together or was it the image that begat it? or something else?

“George” is an ekphrastic poem about a portrait of George Tooker taken by the photographer George Platt Lynes. In the poem, I was really trying to grapple with the homoeroticism that Platt Lynes’ portrait conveys and the significance of that.

6. Are you now or have you ever been madly, MADLY in love?

Isn’t every poem written by someone who has fallen madly in love?

Ask the Author: Benjamin Landry

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From our July issue, “Uuo” by Benjamin Landry. The history of your life, following:

1. Ununoctium occupies the lower, far-right corner of the periodic table of the elements, a foundational block below the noble gases. So, my question to you: what depends on Ununoctium?

The central conceit of my work, here, is linguistic in nature. But I am happy to take a stab at your science questions, about which I may be less informed than many other readers. This is an exercise one of my friends would call “Modern-Day Jackass.”

I suppose everything depends on Ununoctium, in as much as this element represents human curiosity. Ununoctium is largely theoretical, lab-created; it is much too unstable to exist in nature, yet scientists persist in creating it. Some of this is plain old hubris (see the naming race for theoretical elements), and some of it is to discover if these new atoms exhibit any magical properties that can be yoked to our collective benefit. On a pragmatic note, “Ununoctium” is the last poem in my manuscript, so I was pleased with the outwardswinging, theoretical connotations of having this as the “commencement” poem.

2. Can you talk more about your project structured via the periodic table? How many elements have you discovered so far?

For three years, I worked in various administrative staff capacities in the University of Michigan College of Engineering. Each day, I passed through hallways lined with research posters containing symbols from the periodic table of elements. These symbols buzzed with a different energy than when I last encountered them in high school Chemistry. I found myself sounding out the symbols as though they were phonemes, and this exercise elicited all sorts of memories, fragments, surreal scenarios, etc. Occasionally, the scientific properties of the element in question were inextricably linked with the symbol in my mind, but this was usually not the case. I guess this is a long way of saying that I am fascinated by the idea that found systems can resonate with and even organize phenomena that we do not think of as ‘systematic,’ such as memory, fantasy, spirituality, etc.  To date, I would say that eighty or so of the elements have resonated strongly enough to produce a poem. The strongest fifty-eight of these poems comprise this manuscript.

3. What would be one place that science fears to tread? At what point does theory cease to suffice?

I would guess that science is pretty much fearless. I keep thinking of the Curies…that at some point, they must have understood radiation thoroughly enough to realize that they were killing themselves for the sake of discovery.

4. Ununoctium has a half-life of just under one millisecond. So, really, how much time can we afford to wait for our carbon?

That’s right. Better stock your bomb shelter.

5. Speaking of which, our carbon: a facsimile of what?

We’re carbon-based lifeforms, so take your pick!

6. Where would you look for the next atom of Uuo, and how many would that make in all?

I Saw U

My Missing Particle

Remember me? You came into the Chanticleer looking a little lost. Tall boots, neon scarf. I was the sandy blond with the plaid shirt. I said something about the rain, and you smiled. Thought we might’ve had some chemistry. Turned for a nanosecond to order you a drink, but when I looked back, you were gone. Want to try again?

When: Tuesday, September 4

Where: State and Cayuga
I saw a: Teeny electron
I am a: Big-ass nucleus

Ask The Author: Elizabeth Cantwell

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These three wonderful poems from Elizabeth Cantwell were in the August Issue. Now, Elizabeth discusses structure, sparrows, and continuity.

1. What made you choose to move the poems from prose shape to stanzas and then back again?

Originally these poems were highly structured. I had this whole formal thing worked out with syllabics and stanza shapes and … the more I worked on them, the less the lines felt like they wanted to do that. So I started listening to the lines, which I really should have done in the first place, and this is where they ended up.

2. What is the last sparrow you’ve heard?

I googled the bird that appears in the opening credits of Twin Peaks and it’s not any kind of sparrow after all, it’s something called a Bewick’s Wren. Nevertheless. I’d like to call this bird a sparrow. The way it cocks its head is so lonely.

3. How is continuity a problem for you?

You know how sometimes you are driving, and you’re on this road that you’ve never been on before but you’re sure it connects to another road- the road you want to be on? And just as you’re getting close to where you’re sure it connects, the road decides to end instead, and now you’re in the middle of some stupid neighborhood in a cul-de-sac and someone’s kids’ plastic toys are out in the yard, and the clouds above look like rain? I think my brain is constructed entirely out of these roads. Continue reading →

Ask the Author: Cameron Witbeck

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From our July issue, Two Poems by Cameron Witbeck. Stay tuned for burnout smoke, cannibalism, and the weirdest footprints you’ve ever seen.

1. “The Mecosta Burnout” has a terrific sense of place. How did you dredge this up?

I grew up in Mecosta County. My best friend, a Mr. Tyler Leon Thomas of Canadian Lakes, Mi., begged me to go to the event with him. He was all like”Bro. Burnout. Let’s go.”

I acquiesced.

2. Something tells me that this place is difficult to get out of. Will she break those chains, and if so, where would she go?

Anyone who’s been to a burnout will tell you that the best part is the smoke. You live in it. You can’t see anything. You forget the chains. A burnout isn’t a drag race- it’s car and driver flaunting. It’s flexing. It’s saying, “Just imagine what I could do.”

If she went anywhere after the burnout, it was probably the bar in Chippewa Lake.

3. May I have your thoughts on Bruce Springsteen?

Ohhhhhh…that’s how he spells his last name.

4. What is the most frightening or exotic creature you’ve ever seen in the wilderness?

I’ve stood ten feet from a cow moose. I’ve woken up to the howls of wolves so close I felt them in my chest. But the most terrified I’ve ever been in the woods was near Hannah Lake, when I was a kid. A swan attacked me.

It was a giant, beautiful swan and it just kept coming after me, like an avian Terminator. It chased me, hopping and flapping and pecking, for at least a quarter mile.

5. Why is our desire to consume each other so strong?

If you’ve ever butchered your own meat, from kill to pan, you know that you have to be in love. What can you make from the viscera and tendons? How will you prepare the heart? You peel muscle from the bone with your bare-hands, because you’d lose some if you used a knife.

Cannibalism is the logical extreme of passion. It is the physical act of wanting without end.

6. Who left these strange tracks in the snow?

It depends- on depth of imprint, on aging, on length and width, on shape, on stride rhythm, on the narrative of sign.

My best guess: an old woman. A bad hip. The left one. She wears a helmet when she collects pop cans.

Ask the Author: Christopher Shipman

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Chris Shipman explains how he became his own murderer and airplanes. Check out his poetry/killer in the August issue.

1. Are you now or have you ever been murdered? If yes, explain. If no, justify.

At the moment I am safe and sound, because my dagger loves me, but there are 15 knives hanging from precarious clotheslines in the darkness of my walk-in closet. When I flip on the switch they vanish. I have been murdered many murders of crows. I explain this away with birds that fly beak first into your question. I explain this away by murdering my face with your question.

2. What drew you to the murder ballad genre?

My murderer drew me to the murder ballad. He goaded me with 1,000 acorns falling from trees to enter the alleyway of my aging heart. It was dark and foggy, like something out of a movie. Somewhere a dog scratched at a white fence. And then came the music, rising.

3. Do you more often revise your poems or rewrite them until they feel right?

I revise my memory then write the memory then write the poem then repeat the process.

4. Are these poems from a larger series and do you use the same title for every poem?

Yes, there is a larger series at work. And yes, every poem has the same title. And yes, now that you ask, these are two condemnable facts of life.

5. To me, these poems cross innocence and experience. I don’t know exactly why I think that or what I mean. Tell me, what do I mean?

I can’t even tell you what I mean. What do you mean by asking what do you mean that I mean? See what I mean? A plane just flew over my head in this little park by the school where teach, where I sit writing this, where my students are describing things I’ll never see, where I am thinking about this plane, and how I like the noise, like being a kid and describing things without writing, and I am thinking that I am feeling pretty happy, but I really hate flying, and I also think about this, and how now the next plane will sound like it’s going down, you know, in the way you don’t want it to, so now I am fearing death again, maybe a little more than before, and now I am thinking about making my murderer sit next to me on a plane. See what I mean?

6. What’s the last dream you remember? 

My murderer enters the archetypical house in the archetypical dream. He’s dressed in my grandfather’s skin, the same un-tucked flannel, baggy khakis, and that thin grin. I let him in. I don’t know he’s my murderer until the end of the dream. But that comes later. Sarah is there. Maybe Adam Atkinson? Anyway, my murderer/grandfather reads my tarot cards, says I’ll die this year. Or maybe he just says the number 30 and frowns in that you’re-going-to-die- this-year kind of way. No one else seems to mind. I pretend I don’t mind that no one minds. Sarah is smiling. Maybe Adam, if he is there, is smiling. They see the strange pictures on the strange cards and they are alive and they smile. I see my murderer/grandfather to the door. He says, “I would be your husband to this life if you would be my wife to this death.” This is when I know for sure he’s my murderer, because my murderer always says shit like that.

 

Ask The Author: Rhoads Stevens

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Rhoads Stevens, author of “Pork Pie” from the August issue, challenges everyone with a writing assignment and discusses nutnfancy’s view on war knives.

1. First, do you know if you really can bring weapons back from war. This seems true, but do people bring their own weapons to war now or are they always supplied? Is it a mix of the two? If they give you a gun, do you have an option to buy it after your tour is over?

A year ago, I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube about knives. They were knife reviews, and they were posted by someone going by the name “nutnfancy.” So I think this nutnfancy had something to say about people bringing knives to wars, and those knives just didn’t hold up. (I have to trust nutnfancy on that one.) And wasn’t Seymour Glass’ pistol from the war?

2. The man sitting beside me at this coffee shop is talking about politics and using the word “obviously” to begin every sentence. Say something political using the words “obviously,” “freedom,” and “hallmark.”

I am in no way qualified to say anything political, though it’s hard to think of a non-hallucinatory context in which the words “obviously” and “freedom” appear together. Here’s my attempt, but I know it makes me look like a twit: Obviously, bi-partisan politics pervert freedom, but isn’t perversion the hallmark of an almond rubbing against a walnut on the night of a lunar eclipse?

3. Sum up Pork Pie in 3 words or less.

For lonesome readers. Continue reading →