Sarah Henning had Four Stories in the March Issue.

1. Does breastfeeding really work in the bonding of a child to its mother?

From what I understand (not being a mother myself!), both bottle feeding and breastfeeding are good times to reinforce parent-child intimacy.  Though according to a study I read in the Public Library of Science Computational Biology, the act of breastfeeding affects maternal warmth toward the infant. The act of infant suckling causes the mother to release copious amounts of oxytocin, which enhances feelings of love and trust in her brain.

2. How can one burn a childhood on a pyre?

Oh, you know, with sticks and matches. Exhaustive emotional cleansing helps too.

3. How much of you do you put in your work?

It really depends. Sometimes my work is allusive, and sometimes it is a filter to my repressed inscape. Continue reading →

From the March Issue, Six Poems by Virginia Konchan, and now this interview.

1. What wouldn’t Napoleon do?

“My” Napoleon (in the lineage of Susan Howe) wouldn’t convert on his deathbed, betray emotion, harbor regrets, or talk just for the pleasure of hearing his own voice.

2. What made you choose Napoleon as the persona for these poems? How would they have sounded different if you chose someone like Genghis Khan?

Of all the French historical and literary legacies that get trussed up and trotted out (an unrepentant Francophile, I mean that lovingly), Napoleon usually gets the short shrift, pun intended. I chose Napoleon because his legacy is conflicted. Furthermore, unlike Genghis Khan, his military coup was ultimately unsuccessful (which always makes for a more interesting story). In today’s political climate, the line between liberal reform and dictatorship runs increasingly fine, as it did for Napoleon, a self-appointed emperor to whom we owe the Napoleonic Code, meritocracy, and freedom of religion and the abolition of slavery in France and the countries he conquered. Ruthless dictator or liberal reformist, what better way to assume a bastardized lyric “I” than writing dramatic monologues in the voice of Napoleon: even if the poems fail, people listen.

I wrote several poems in this series (from which these poems are excerpted) in French, then translated them into English. Here is “Napoleon Attempts a Heroic Couplet”:

Napoleon Essaie un Dystique Héroique

C’est inutile. Le troupeau étoilé est venu et parti.
Dans ca place, des semi-remorques, a l’aube mourrant.

Mise en garde: un crayon rouge seule,
un tasse en plastique dément.

Un étranger sous la véranda,
corsage en main tremblant.

Tous mes compétences, j’apprends,
en enfer, sont de sécrétaire.

Je suis la crépuscule dans un mer d’analgésiques,
tordu maladroitement, comme un galant, sur le genou.

J’attends ta vaste écharpe blanche,
signe classique de clémence.

I would argue that a dramatic monologue in the voice of Genghis Khan wouldn’t just sound different: it would be a different poem altogether, because a poem’s sonic qualities are part of its material reality, as with languages. Also, I have no affinity for Genghis Khan or the Mongolian language, which would make writing dramatic monologues in the voice of Genghis Khan an exercise in imaginative sympathy, if I did.

3. What have you hailed lately?

Emily Kendal Frey’s The Grief Performance, My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer by Paige Ackerson-Kiely, the end of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, my mom, my Marpac sound conditioner (thanks, Kathleen Rooney!), Porter Airlines, Steve Millhauser, Anna Swir, and the white borscht at Podhalanka, my favorite Polish restaurant in Chicago. Continue reading →

We published Isaac Butler’s great piece, “In the Heart Library,” in the March Issue.

1. What would you like your heart to be made of?

Given the history of heart attacks on both sides of family, probably adamantium, the indestructible metal that Wolverine’s bones are laced with in X-Men. Failing that, I’d say let’s make it out of notes played through a baritone sax, punctuated by a paradiddle on a snare drum.

2. How has theater impacted your writing?

Well, I became a writer because of theater when I started commenting on the art form and the industry via one of these new-fangled things called blogs almost a decade ago. But aesthetically, I think it’s both helped and hurt in some ways. I think because I am a theater director, I have a dramaturgical eye for structural issues and seeing how those choices can affect content. I’d also say I’m pretty good at writing hyper-real dialogue, at capturing the spoken voice. At the same time, it’s very very difficult to put the “audience” out of my head. Because as a director, you’re thinking about the audience all the time; a moment on stage that’s crystal clear in your mind that doesn’t read to the audience is worthless. But as a writer, when you’re drafting, when you’re generating, if you’re thinking too much about the audience/reader, it can really block you. Or, to remove the defense of the second-person, me. It can really block me. For me, questions of audience need to come in when I’m revising, not generating, or else I’m getting so far ahead of myself, I can’t see the thing I’m trying to make. And that’s a real struggle. I’ve also had to work really, really hard at developing descriptive prose because I’m just so used to focusing on how people talk and what that says about them as characters.

3. What would you like to have done with your body after you’re dead?

You know, I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately. I’m an atheist, and I’ve just hit my Jesus year and I’ve just started having all of those very-cliched Oh fuck I’m actually going to die panic attacks that everyone warns you about. To add to that, my wife’s family just suffered two losses– one expected, one very much not– that we’re still reeling from. We’ve gotten to see two funerals recently, and oddly it was like when we were getting married, how after each friends’ wedding we went to, we’d turn to each other and figure out what about it we liked and didn’t, what we wanted to keep for our own wedding. So, for example, we’re both now very emphatic about not having an open casket visitation. And, of course, there’ll be no gee-oh-dee at my service.

I’ve always said I wanted to be cremated. But now I actually think that if it’s possible to have my body donated so that someone can get some use out of it, that’d probably be best. Continue reading →

From the March Issue, Three Poems by Rebecca Hazelton.

1. Where would you like to wash up?

Things that wash up seem melancholy for me, though I suppose it’s all in how you look at it—I could view these items as recovered from a great sea—what are the odds!—but I don’t. Instead, I think of Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic, her face flecked with sand. Of selkies separated from their skins, The Little Mermaid separated from her sense of her own value, her voice. All that said, I’d like to wash up in Bali.

2. Why would a spy access our skin?

Well, I can’t speak for you, but my skin is lovely.

3. Is your Elise influenced by Kafka similar to Robert Smith was influenced by him when writing “A Letter to Elise”?

No, but you’re the second person in as many months to ask me if I am influenced by Kafka in some way. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m Kafkaesque, because that seems to involve being miserable and underfed. Actually, the song I listen to when it comes to these poems is P.J. Harvey’s “A Perfect Day, Elise,” from her album, Is This Desire? Harvey’s music is the perfect blend of Bible, sex, rock and roll, and experimentalism, and I find her

very inspirational. I use music a lot when I’m writing, especially when I am writing a series of poems that I want to have a certain tonal unity. I listened to Joanna Newsom’s Ys on repeat while writing my forthcoming book, Fair Copy, especially her song “Only Skin,” which has an amazing blend of delicacy, over the top lyrics, and gorgeous rhyme. She’s orchestral and wide stretching. The current work is a lot of Explosions in the Sky, which accomplishes similar aims for me in terms of mimicking breadth, and the aforementioned Polly Jean, who in her most recent work has begun to address questions of nation, history, and politics, which are topics I’m just gingerly starting to touch on.   Continue reading →

In March came Melissa Yancy’s “Boolean Napoleans.”

1. Do you put the boo in Boolean?

I’d like to think so. I’d like to think I put the lean in Boolean, too.

2. Are you a leaker?

Sadly, yes. At work we have this concept of the “shadow of the leader,” that prompts you to be more conscious of your effect on others. I think the people around me tend to be influenced by my mood. It’s pretty self-important to think that my mood alters the entire enterprise (as it does in the story) but I’m pretty self-important like that.

3. Where did “Boolean Napoleons” come from?

From a haiku. When a beloved co-worker left our office, one of my colleagues decided to make her a book of haiku as a parting gift. Boolean napoleons was the seven-syllable line in one of my haiku.

The story is about a guy in my office (the file clerk) who has . . . an unusual perspective. He has a rich inner life and it’s hard to tell how much he know about what goes on in our office or what’s going on his head. He’s never been a really verbal person, but occasionally he’ll mutter this great zinger that shows he’s been listening to us all along. The other day he wore an Alfred E. Neuman mask to our staff meeting. It was funny but unsettling, since we never really know what he’s thinking. Perhaps he was ready to kill us all? Afterwards, we couldn’t get him to explain why he did that. The foraging, hoarding, etc. in the story are all based on him. And the doodles are all mine. I’ve always thought he and I had a strange kinship through science fiction. On the surface, we are nothing alike and in the “life of the office” occupy different social strata. But we are both likely to be found on New Year’s Day watching The Twilight Zone marathon. Continue reading →

From the March Issue, “Near Sonnet for S” by Kimberly Ann Southwick.

1. What would a far sonnet look like?

You would have to squint to see it. When you reached out, it wouldn’t be there. Maybe they write them in outer space. I can’t be certain.

2. How has running a literary magazine impacted your writing?

When I ran the poetry section at a bookstore in NYC, a customer would visit me there. He warned that editors tend to put too much effort into their journals and forsake their poetry. I found that I have gradually come to disagree. I don’t know if I would be so involved with my writing, or if I would feel confident sending it out, if I didn’t run Gigantic Sequins. In looking at others’ writing so consistently, I am constantly dissecting texts, what works about this piece, what doesn’t—and I do that with my own writing, too, now, instead of being selfish, like maybe I used to me, as in: this piece works for me so it should work for everyone.

3. Who would you say “I love you” to while standing on a ladder?

I’ve done it before. I might do it again.

4. Why did you only make this a near sonnet?

Sentence fragments: because complete sonnets (and far sonnets) are too hard, because language is imperfect and the sonnet is a perfect form, because it’s difficult to say more sometimes and less is often better.

5. Do you ever laugh at Christmas lights?

Not since I was a student.

6. How have you blurred a sentence?

Part of it is being a woman. Part of it is knowing your voice and your grammar. You can only do it right out loud. Double-checking and second-guessing all the time and knowing that you don’t mean it—the hesitation, it comes too quickly, naturally– your “I mean–” your “something like that–” you “just–”. In an essay called “Collector’s Item”, Joseph Brodsky writes, “’Something like that,’ she added, just in case, to widen the margin of error.” Something like that. That’s part of it.

In April, “Fuck You Superman” from Ian Brown.

1. Would you ever tell Superman to go fuck himself to his face?

Oh boy – what a question. No. Definitely no. I mean, assuming I was living within the realm where that guy actually existed, I wouldn’t… because he’d have too much good (and me too much no good) to justify that sort of pomp. BUT, if I saw him one day in our actual society, like just hanging out at a coffee shop or something, I might tell him to go fuck himself … you know? I’d tell him to go fuck himself for only doing good on the page and in movies (and television) and not on the actual mean streets.

2. Do you think Lois Lane deliberately placed herself in danger to get closer to Superman? Would you have married her if you were Superman?

A) Of course she did. B) No way, dude. Well, maybe. But only if she passed the Clark Kent test. If I could get some loving as Clark Kent, then I’d feel safe being with her as Superman. This is actually a subject that is kind of dear to me – the boundaries between a person and what they do and if it’s a flaw to love, or be loved by, someone for what they do. i.e. Michael Jordan wouldn’t be Michael Jordan if he wasn’t Michael Jordan. – ha.

3. What does a persona poem do for you?

Honestly? Who knows… Vantage point, I guess – I like the possibilities and access that they allow. Continue reading →

You should read Carly Berg’s amazing story, “Oysteresque,” over and over.

1.How did you walk the fine line of delusion in “Oysteresque”? 

Well, it was based on a dream, so I just kind of went with that.

2. What undersea creature would you go out on a date with?

I am fond of giant squids. All those great big tentacles to keep your shell open and such…

3. Why am I not the father?

You never know, man. The nineties were a wild time. 🙂 Continue reading →

From the March Issue, “La Muda y La Tonta,” by María Elvira Vara Táta.

1. If your hair was a pendulum, what would you have hanging at the end?

A lie detector. That way, I wouldn’t be able to lie to myself. How many times do we do that? Filling in the gaps. Adding to the vacancy. Constructing a castle out of carrots. But then again … I would probably claim it was malfunctioning.

2. Where do you want your soul to go?

Wherever my deceased grandparents are — let’s hope they are all in the same place, or a bus ride away from each other, a place abundant in Nutella gelato, Willie Wonka Garden Style.

3. How do you want your funeral to come off?

No funeral, please. But since I probably won’t have a say in that, at least let’s have loud music, salsa dancing, and lots of homemade food. Have a cachapa con queso in my honor or a very fat burrito. Crying is allowed– although discouraged–as long as laughter prevails. Tell of the time I used to build stairs to facilitate the climb of Ratoncita (mine was a female, not a male) Perez to find my teeth, of when I got lost with my cousins in a rural part of Carupano, of relentlessly searching for hidden Christmas presents, of regaining mental-heart-soul peace with the simple pleasures of people and food in Spain, of the first time I read Junot Diaz, of the feeling of absolute bliss for belonging and finally achieving a dream in the States. Of being so very fortunate. Continue reading →