12 or 20 (second series) questions with Michelle Sinclair

Michelle Sinclair worked as a policy analyst on human rights issues for many years. She studied international development and social work at McGill University, and completed an MFA at Chatham University in Pittsburgh. Her original work and Spanish-English literary translations have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, and other journals in Canada and the US. Her first novel, Almost Visible was published by Baraka Books in September 2022, and received The Miramichi Reader’s “Best Books of 2022” award for fiction. She lives in Ottawa with her husband, three children and three pets.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

I’ve only published my debut novel so far. I was nervous about how it would be received, but I’m trying to go with the flow. I’m also learning how wonderful it feels if a reader connects with an idea, theme or character.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

I always read fiction and it was my first love. I wanted to write like my favourite authors.  I suppose I may have been frightened of non-fiction and poetry - it seemed easier to “hide” behind fiction. I like to experiment and try new styles and genres and there’s so much one can do with fiction.

Ceridwen Dovey said this about fiction: “In a secular age, I suspect that reading fiction is one of the few remaining paths to transcendence, that elusive state in which the distance between the self and the universe shrinks. Reading fiction makes me lose all sense of self, but at the same time makes me feel most uniquely myself.”

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I have bursts of inspiration - a character or an image or even an atmosphere, and I’ll write it down. But the plot work is the slowest (and most challenging) for me. I need to know the characters well and then I can work out what will happen to them. Unfortunately I have to think, plan, percolate (and ask my family for plot ideas) for a long time!

4 - Where does a work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

If the idea is to explore a moment or a feeling, or if I’m looking to play with words, then I know it should be a shorter piece. If the idea is to really let characters live a layered experience, then I’ll know it’s a book. So far I’ve only written one book though, so we’ll see if I can do it again! I think I might be working on another book, but sometimes it threatens to be a novella. 

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I am the type of person who has hoped that some calamity will befall me and prevent me from being able to do any public speaking. In my former work I had to do it all the time and it never got easier (as they promised it would).

However, public readings have proven to be quite fun. I was nervous for the first one, but the crowd was lovely and supportive. While I’ll always prefer sitting on the sidelines to being the center of attention, in the end readings are good for me to connect with others and to challenge myself.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

I tried to answer this question in my own words, but I think George Saunders (in A Swim in the Pond in the Rain) sums it up well when he discusses the classic Russian short stories:

“The resistance in the stories is quiet, at a slant, and comes from perhaps the most radical idea of all: that every human being is worthy of attention and that the origins of every good and evil capability of the universe may be found by observing a single, even very humble, person and the turnings of his or her mind.”

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Writers have many roles - they inform, entertain, distract and educate. They can evoke empathy and compassion. They ask questions about the human condition. The fact that writers can convey philosophical concepts in imagined stories brings us closer to feeling a conceptual issue - rather than thinking about it (I suppose the same could be said about art in general). I think the role of the writer is to bring us to a closer understanding of ourselves.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I really enjoy working with editors, and appreciate their perspectives. I almost always enjoy working with others and love getting feedback.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

When I was beginning my novel, my mentor warned me that it might take me a decade to finish. He was essentially telling me to chill out, but I was horrified. I wanted to finish the work quickly. He was teaching me that writing will take the time it takes, and he was absolutely correct. That novel took eleven years to finish!

10 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I have struggled to keep a routine and failed miserably. I write when I can. I have three children, three pets, a job outside the home and a number of volunteer responsibilities. Sometimes I have to remind myself that making it through the day is enough.

11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I read an author I admire and hope that their words and talent will somehow, by osmosis, make its way into me. Poetry will often inspire me.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Lilacs.  I’ve never had one home (we moved a lot), but I always seemed to be with my mother whenever I encountered a lilac tree, so I connected lilacs and my mother. She passed away almost twenty years ago but she seems present when I smell lilacs, which is both sad and comforting.

13 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Nature and music are probably the two most influential (other than books and words). I find great solace and inspiration in nature. Music is tricky because I can’t listen to music while I work, but certain pieces of music might inspire an image or an “atmosphere” that I want to evoke through writing.

14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I think this is the most difficult question of all! I love any writer who challenges the status quo - particularly Black and Indigenous writers.

There are too many to name here, and I keep discovering new (or new to me) writers that give me a new perspective - of craft or sentence structure or theme. Writers who are important for my work are those who are courageous or push boundaries, because I feel I have permission to try to do the same.

15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I want to write a play. Seeing one’s work interpreted and acted on a stage is an exciting prospect and the collaborative effort is appealing because it is less lonely than writing on one’s own.

16 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

I worked as a policy analyst for many years and enjoyed my job, but I feel fortunate to be able to focus more on writing and reading. That said, I want to find a way to further connect literature and social justice efforts. In my MFA program, I was able to work with community programs - in one instance at a rehabilitation center for mothers with addiction. I want to keep writing and publishing and eventually find out how to partner with others in these kinds of pursuits.

17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I felt compelled to try. I love reading and I love playing with words, and I knew that it could be something that might become easier with time and practice. I’m also painfully aware of the things I cannot do (and there are so many)!

18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I have fairly eclectic tastes, but I really enjoy stories with introspective, perceptive characters. I just finished Martha Schabas’s My Face in the Light and loved it. Each paragraph contains a lovely, thought-provoking perspective that illuminates some emotion I’ve considered superficially but never fully contemplated. I didn’t want it to end. I had to read slowly to savour it.

I’ve been watching a lot of movies about musicians lately. I recently enjoyed “Summer of Soul”, about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. It includes interviews and live footage of performers like Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson and Nina Simone, and is informative about the social and historical context of the festival.

19 - What are you currently working on?

A few different projects, and I need to focus!  I had two ideas for novels, but I’m wondering if one of them could be turned into a play. I also have a few ideas for short stories and I’m recently coming up with poems. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but it’s fun to work on shorter pieces and closure feels more accessible.

My kids have incredible imaginations, and would like me to write a book for kids. However, they’re such good writers, I’m hoping I can edit their work. That would be the best project!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

sick day(s) : covid-positive,

taking a sick day or two:
unable to move/think: headache/foggy, exhausted/muscle sore; Tuesday mid-afternoon, i fell to earth, (+ yesterday morning tested positive for Covid-19,

Christine tested positive as well, which is a bit of a concern, but at least the children are clear so far. Obviously, we'd send them somewhere if we weren't concerned about infecting another household. So far, we're managing, and both each in similar low-energy fogs. And we're keeping the children home from school until Monday, at least. We shall reassess then.

Barbara Tomash, Her Scant State

 

the history of her marriage and its consequence died
three years after the grey American dawn of not believing
a word she said

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________
In life there is love, the moment becomes a single, melted together and into
pain. Her hands raised, clasped, slowly moved his face.
                                                                                        “I believe I ruined you.”

The fifth full-length poetry title by Berkeley, California poet Barbara Tomash, following Flying in Water (New York NY: Spuyten Duyvil, 2005), The Secret of White (Spuyten Duyvil, 2009), Arboreal (Berkeley CA: Apogee Press, 2014) [see my review of such here] and PRE- (Lafayette LA: Black Radish Books, 2018) [see my review of such here], is Her Scant State (Apogee Press, 2023), a book-length assemblage of erasure poems that focus on Henry James’ 1881 novel The Portrait of a Lady. It is curious to think that at least two Apogee-published Berkeley poets have been focusing on book-length poetry projects that rework and even reconceptualize literary works by others, from Tomash’s collection to Laura Walker’s recent psalmbook (Apogee Press, 2022) [see my review of such here] that reworked Biblical text, or even Trevor Ketner’s recent reconceptualization of Shakepeare’s sonnets through their The Wild Hunt Divinations: a grimoire (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2023) [see my review of such here]. As Tomash writes in her “Source Notes” at the back of the collection:

Her Scant State is an erasure of Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. I kept strictly to word order but allowed myself free rein with punctuation and form on the page. The first half of the novel runs across the top of each page of Her Scant State. The second half of the novel runs across the bottom of each page. “Note” is an erasure of “Note on the Text” in the Oxford World’s Classics edition of the novel. “Face” is an erasure of James’s 1908 preface to the New York Edition.

“The Portrait of a Lady / was in twelve parts / of thousands of small disruptive / processes, classic reader,” Tomash’s opening “Note” reads, “the / significance of some of these / is discussed [.]” Tomash’s Her Scant Suite works through an array of language erasure, description and disruption that flicks between a language and tone from the contemporary to the nineteenth-century, simultaneously existing in neither and both spaces. Through such, Tomash manages to compose an entirely new almost nether-space from which this new portrait emerges. “squandered      gambled      daughters,” she writes, early on in the collection, “a proof modified / by pain // she danced very well // the choreographic circle constituted / the limits of her own power [.]”

rob’s clever substack : Lecture for an Empty Room

For those unaware, I’ve been posting weekly-or-so over at a substack I began back in November, constructed to prompt further thinking into a potential book-length essay, “Lecture for an Empty Room.” I had started scratching note-fragments somewhere across those first two years of Covid-19 lockdown, thinking upon literary community, reviewing, notions of work, connection, responsibility and various other scattered thoughts. I’m attempting to post something weekly, with every third or so as a paid-subscription-only piece, with the rest offered gratis to anyone who signs up (free subscriptions are the bulk of the subscriptions, which is fine also). I’m aiming to post self-contained fragments of this work-in-progress as I attempt to move forward, interspersing these with occasional other pieces, whether short stories, possible fragments of this novel work-in-progress as well as a chapbook-length essay I worked across the same original lockdown period, a kind of notebook on a call-and-response poem collaboration that Denver poet Julie Carr and I were working on. I had thought back to an essay I saw once by George Bowering, composed as journal entries during a period he was working a novel (I can’t recall which book this was in, or which novel, naturally; was this an essay on/around composing Caprice?), or even Robert Kroetsch’s The Crow Journals (Edmonton AB: NeWest Press, 1980), a book-length journal composed around the composition of his novel, What the Crow Said (1978). I’d always envied that particular form, wishing to echo an element of it somewhere, somehow, and there are some wonderful observations through that particular non-fiction work (I would recommend you find a copy and go through it, even if you haven’t read that particular novel of his, which is actually still in print, by the way).

Here's one of the recent fragments of “Lecture for an Empty Room” I posted over at my clever substack (sign up here for free (or for a wee bit of coin), if such interests). I am curious to see where this project might end up, myself.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

A conversation. All these little echo chambers.

At the end of December, 2022, Matthew Walther’s “Poetry Died 100 Years Ago This Month” appeared in The New York Times. Why is it so important for opinion writers to return, once again, to declaring the death of poetry? Perhaps they wish to claim credit, whether through a kind of critic-assisted end of literary suffering, or wishing to be seen to have the clarity of childlike wisdom, akin to “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Walther speaks of modernism, a contemporary dearth of MFA programs churning out literature professors, and an endless array of chapbooks. Nothing useful since TS Eliot; remember TS Eliot? TS Eliot was cool, right?

Circa 2001, Ken Norris suggested to me that MFA programs throughout the United States had caused the death of American poetry. Given my broader reading experience since, I’d say I disagree with that statement, but I don’t know what he might have seen since 1985, the year he landed to teach at the University of Maine. I’m sure writing programs everywhere churn out an array of unremarkable writers producing semi-publishable work that later end up littering the landscape of journals, chapbooks and trade collections, but I don’t see American programs doing this with any greater percentages than their Canadian counterparts. It might simply be a matter of scale. Layli Long Soldier emerged from a program. Megan Kaminski emerged from a program. Sarah Mangold emerged from a program. Jericho Brown emerged from a program. I don’t think the issue, if there is one to be discussed, is that of the MFA program.

But still: given so much activity, productivity and production, why declare the state of the union, as it were, past tense? Oh, Matthew Walther, literature isn’t there to do what you think it should, or you heard once that it might have. It isn’t there to obey your rules. Literature remains in constant motion. It evolves, just as much as language and culture, from pop to human. We should never think of any of these as absolutes, or fixed. Stagnation, not evolution, is what causes the death you are in such a rush to declare. But I want things to be as they were, they say. This creature is already dead. Instead of bothering to understand the art on its own terms. Matthew Walther, have you a difficulty with an art that includes both Rupi Kaur and M. NourbeSe Philip?

Every article on the death of literature, whether poetry or the novel, exists as a variation on the same: the misunderstanding that any art is not a fixed point, nor is it meant to do, whether solely or otherwise, what it is that you wish. Adaptability, for both the reader and the practitioner, remains key. What was American poetry before Walt Whitman? What was Canadian poetry before bpNichol? What was literature before Dionne Brand? Each of these changing the very foundation of how the literatures they lived in was heard, written and seen. Arguably, every poet writing shifts the foundations and boundaries of literature, even if only a little, so the very notion of the fixed point. Declare your intentions! the traditional poets blast at the avant-garde. They counter: We can’t declare what won’t stand still.

Alice Notley, Jordan Abel. Lisa Robertson. Fred Wah. Anne Carson. Margaret Christakos. Andrew Suknaski. Stephen Collis. Jack Spicer, Lorine Niedecker or Robert Creeley. Ron Silliman. And then those in the nebulous between-states, working experimental texts across more subtle landscapes: Judith Fitzgerald, Kathleen Fraser, David Donnell. The long sentences of between of Monty Reid.

Call this a mantra, if you wish: my literature includes difficult work. To comprehend the centre one has to examine the edge.

Rupi Kaur: she seems an easy and lazy target for literary archers. I don’t care for the lyrically uncomplicated statements of her poems, but she might have allowed more young readers into literature than most of us combined. Maybe?

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Kim Chinquee

Kim Chinquee grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, served in the medical field in the Air Force, and is often referred to as the “queen” of flash fiction. She’s published hundreds of pieces of fiction and nonfiction in journals and magazines including The Nation, Ploughshares, NOON, Storyquarterly, Denver Quarterly, Fiction, Story, Notre Dame Review, Conjunctions, and others. She is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and a Henfield Prize. She is Senior Editor of New World Writing Quarterly, Chief Editor of Elm Leaves Journal (ELJ) and co-director of SUNY—Buffalo State University’s Writing Major. She’s the author of eight books, most recently (her debut novel) Pipette.

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first book, Oh Baby, published in 2008, taught me a lot about the process of book publishing. It also taught me that I can write a book! It made me feel more like an actual writer, too. Pipette, my most recent work is a novel, whereas Oh Baby seemed more like stories with some recurring themes. They are both told in the flash fiction form, though I believe Pipette's chapters are a bit more fleshed out.

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
I took a fiction writing class in college before taking any poetry or nonfiction classes, and I just fell in love with the genre. I still do enjoy writing poetry and nonfiction, yet I prefer the craft of fiction, and making things up, and seeing how a story can change by just adding/changing a character, a place, or event.
 
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I guess it varies. Though it's usually a slow process. I tend to write using prompt words and exercises, and sometimes craft various pieces together and write a short series of pieces and string them together and then reshape. First drafts rarely look close to their final shapes.

4 - Where does a work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I rarely work on a "book" from the very beginning, though I've tried, and am still working on a few! I love the satisfaction of writing a short piece, and then maybe building from there.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I do enjoy readings! I see them as part of my creative process. Sometimes, I'll edit a piece while reading, based on the response of the audience, or deciding I'm bored with certain parts, or realizing maybe a story needs to end a lot sooner.
 
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
Good questions! I don't see myself as answering questions with my work, as most of the work, as I write, begs more questions. Mostly about character, plot, language, all the elements and how they work together.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I believe roles are different for every writer. Rendering sensory details and brining the reader into the human experience. (And perhaps the experience of nature.) And maybe the beauty of language. And to find the truth. I don't think the role of any writer should be completely subscribed, as long as the intentions of the writer are integral.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I find it pretty essential. I welcome editorial feedback, as it can help look at the work under a different light, and may help the work become stronger. And not every edit needs to be accepted, though it's important to consider.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
I can't actually think of one that is the "best." But lots of accumulated advice that adds up. As far as writing, I often return to these 39 Steps by Frederick Barthelme, who I studied with at the USM Center for Writers. https://www.frederickbarthelme.com/nonfiction/the-39-steps/

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (flash fiction to short stories to non-fiction)? What do you see as the appeal?
It's a challenge for me. Sometimes when I attempt to write a longer piece, it ends up as a flash--as it appears the story might be done before I never really got to tell the story I had intended in the first place. But then I realize maybe that's not the story meant to be told.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I've been hosting an online writing group on Zoetrope since about 2002--I post five prompt words and a first sentence. I usually just string them together. A typical day for me starts by answering emails and doing the "business" of writing. Editorial duties, reading work by others. I don't have a set time for writing, but I tend to do most of that at night. I like to get in at least some exercise every day, and when I'm in triathlon training, that often takes up at least a couple hours, and often I craft a story based on my prompt words throughout the day. My daily  activities also offer inspiration, and time to reflect on my writing, and once my "chores" for the day are done, I like to settle into the actual writing. I'm currently on sabbatical--when not, my schedule also involves teaching, meetings, advisement, fulfilling administrative roles.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Prompts. Film. I'll return to drafts and continue to revise. Reading work by writers I admire. I rarely get stalled, as I don't really believe in writer's block.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Hay. (I grew up on a dairy farm and would help my family bale hay in the summers.)

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Film, music, nature, sports. Science. My dogs!

I love studying plot in films. I'm a triathlete, and often listen to music while running, which sometimes helps me work through story ideas, or move deeper into a story. I used to play piano a lot, and sometimes I imagine the computer keyboard as piano keys. And nature almost always inspires. I used to work as a medical lab technician, and I have written about that experience too--science fascinates me. And I have three dogs. They're always full of surprises!

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
My mentors, editors, friends. Diane Williams and NOON, Frederick Barthelme, Jean Thompson, Richard Powers. Fellow writers in my Hot Pants Writing Group. Kathryn Rantala of Ravenna Press. Lots of others in my writing community.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
I'm not sure. Feel like I've already done a lot and I am happy these days just being at home with my dogs and writing and traveling when I can.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I was a med lab tech in the Air Force before becoming a writer. I worked in hospitals and clinics while in college, and again last year, helping during Covid. I also majored in art while in college, but decided on writing--I was more committed to writing, and it seemed the path for me. I've also dreamt of being a pianist, and a competitive athlete.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
I took a creative writing in college, and fell in love with it. I don't recall any other activity, besides maybe running, that I was ever as passionate about.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Richard Powers's Bewilderment. Love all the nature in the book, the emotional complexity, the language, the lore, just everything.

I recently saw Everything Everywhere All at Once. Love the absurdity, the emotional range, and the sensory buffet!

Also FRANK.  The 2014 film directed by Lenny Abrahamson, produced by David Barron,

I share it with my students. And watch it repeatedly.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I just finished a round of edits of my novel I Thought of England. Am currently revising my novel Pirouette. Writing new flashes, and another new (perhaps nonfiction) book. And drafting a book on teaching online writing. My sabbatical ends August of 2023 and am trying to make the most of it!

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Ongoing notes: even later March, 2023: Maureen Scott Harris + Buck Downs,

Nice that folk have started sending me chapbooks again; why do so few publisher send along chapbooks? I’m looking at you, various (other) publishers I’ve already reviewed titles by. 

Toronto ON: Kirby’s knife|fork|book really does produce some elegant-looking titles, and one of their latest is a chapbook by Toronto-based poet and essayist Maureen Scott Harris, her More Than One Homage (2022). This small collection is halved through a handful of poems assembled from elements of her great-uncle Will’s diaries alongside a handful of poems composed in homage to other writers and/or their works. As she offers in her notes: “My great-uncle Will was born in 1891. I remember he had large hands, calloused and dirt-stained, and a large laugh. He was a farmer, and my favourite person in the world when I was eight or nine. He wore big boots, denim overalls, long-sleeved workshirts, and a train engineer’s cap. He laughed a lot, sitting at the kitchen table, or leaning, foot up on the running board of a neighbour’s truck. […] ‘Will’s Diaries’ arose as an interaction between the diaries themselves and Robert Kroetch’s essays and poems. The italicized lines in ‘How to begin’ and ‘Wood (Winter)’ are Kroetsch’s own words, lifted mostly from his essays.” Her poems from the diaries do have the feel of some of those early Kroetsch long poems, whether The Ledger (1975) or Seed Catalogue (1977) (both of which are reprinted in full in Completed Field Notes: The Long Poems of Robert Kroetsch, published by The University of Alberta Press in 2000), offering a kind of collage of archive and sketched-out notes through accumulated fragment. Writing out her own kind of ledger, she offers a clear cadence of moments and movements through this lyric assemblage. As part of her poem “Will’s Diaries: Wood (Winter)” writes:

each morning      a blank page
a white page
see him     swaddled          in coat
& steam              from his own breath

the days keep going on
conversations
chores
            chores
                        chores
                                    chores

fix stable          fetch hay
milk cows        fetch ice
chop oats         fetch flour
kill pigs            fix hen house
feed & water the stock

(where did the water come from
in frozen winter? that pump
in the yard, its wooden handle
the well, surely frozen too)

There’s such a concrete scene articulated through those short bursts, and I’m intrigued by these homages, these experiments, offering poems for and through her late great-uncle, and similarly, for and through and from poets including Philip Whalen, Sei Shonagon and Lyn Hejinian. The homages, as much as her poems from her great-uncle’s diaries, are wonderfully responsive, allowing the influence and rhythms of her sources to infuse themselves across her lines in a really lovely way. Her poems respond as much as they echo; and echo, as much as they provide homage. As the third of the three-stanza poem “One day before the equinox, or, Walking to work I see,” subtitled “After Lyn Hejinian,” writes:

The trees firmly leaning are not waiting for spring but absorbed busy in manufacturing what will seasonably occur. Reasonably occur. When the goose crossed my field of vision I was musing rabbit with nose twitching, Rabbit stood upright in a field (the grass was dry, beige, bent at the tips) front paws hanging limp, listening and comic peering round one ear flopped over (bent at the tip). I raised my eyes from the field of grass to the field of bare tree branches and beyond that the field of clouded sky. My glance fell upon the long-necked bird at first unknown. The goose seized my eye and carried it along the curve of its slow flight till it was obscured by the field of rooftops or lost in the field of bare tree branches. Even a squint did not clarify the blurred disappearing. I smiled through and kept walking. The cardinals wheeted. As they had for some time.

Brooklyn NY/Washington DC: Given my familiarity with Washington D.C. poet Buck Down’s work over the years, having produced his chapbooks Shiftless [Harvester] (2016), The Hack of Heaven (2017) and Another Tricky Day (2020) through above/ground press, as well as working through a couple of his collections—Unintended Empire: 1989-2012 (Baltimore MD: Furniture Press, 2018) [see my review of such here] and OPEN CONTAINER (Washington DC: privately printed, 2019) [see my review of such here]—I was curious to see what Jordan Davis had put together for Downs’ chapbook-length GREEDY MAN: selected poems (Brooklyn NY: Subpress Collective/CCCP Chapbooks, 2023). Since my familiarity with Downs’ extensive publishing history only exists across a relatively shorter span, I would have been curious to see a bibliography of where (and when) the thirty-two poems assembled here had been selected from. I know I’ve compared Downs’ work in the past to that of the late Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert (for a kind of extended, documentary-style ongoingness), or even that of New York School poet Frank O’Hara (for the “I did this, I did that-isms), but there’s something about the overview of this particular collection that paints instead a portrait of a poet comparable to a more pessimistic, even paranoid, version of the surrealisms of American poet Ron Padgett or Canadian poet Stuart Ross. As the poem “MYSELF CONTAINS MULTITUDES” reads in full: “and some / of these fuckers / have got to go [.]” The poems that sit mid-point and beyond in the collection are the structures I’ve become familiar with through Downs’ ongoing work—short bursts that wend across the page through an accumulation of short phrase-lines—so it is interesting to see the left-justification of some of these presumably-earlier poems, such as this:

TURN OFF THE PICKLE

there is a lot
of laughter going
on among the
introductions

beneath the waves
there could be
a steady under
current       as in
the realization
that the boy wonder
is a regis
tered trademark

I found a magic
vessel on the stone
beach and liquor
there inside it I knew
could restore me
to what I had once
been and so I took
off the plastic lid
and poured it in
the water