12 or 20 (second series) questions with Danny Snelson

Danny Snelson is a writer, editor, and archivist. He is the author of Radios (Make Now Press, 2016), EXE TXT (Gauss PDF, 2015), Epic Lyric Poem (Troll Thread, 2015), and Inventory Arousal with James Hoff (Bedford Press/Architectural Association, 2011). His editorial work can be found online at UbuWeb, PennSound, Eclipse, and Jacket2. With Mashinka Firunts and Avi Alpert, he is one-third of the academic performance group Research Service. He is currently at work on a memoir entitled Apocalypse Diary. See also: http://dss-edit.com

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

My first “book” was a hacked blogspot called My Dear coUntess (2007), which, in its production dramatically revised my sense of what could be done with contemporary formats and poetic form at the intersection of creative thought. In many ways, I’ve been working backward since, toward the realization of this first work, operating among elements of choice, process, performance, and history. Recent works have gone about this task by rearticulating lost histories, performing database queries, and structuring chaotic information. Every project is different.

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

I came to poetry as a scanner. Getting paid as a federal work study student in my freshman year of college, I was lucky enough to begin generating images for Craig Dworkin’s Eclipse. I recall scanning pages of Lucy & Jimmy’s House of “K”—which were, at the time, entirely indecipherable to me—as a real inspiration to continue the study (and production) of poetry.

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?

Inspiration often comes unexpectedly. The writing of any project usually takes a few years, with many projects working simultaneously. The performance of writing typically dictates that the work progresses according to a set of rules until it is complete, with no revision to previous revisions of the input material. This is not always, or ever, entirely the case.

4 - Where does a poem or 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?

All my poetic production begins with research questions that can’t be answered otherwise.

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

The poetry reading is a genre of performance quite distinct from the arts of publication, transmission, and dispersion. Unless those arts are scripted into the reading itself. I often write “works” exclusively for the poetry reading, and likewise generate texts based on reading performances. 

So many. Variant queries. Questions always include the politics of race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, nationality and other coordinates of human life in a horrific global present.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

The writer creates new ways of making meaning. Most writers, like myself, are also educators. The writer has a pedagogical role to introduce critical and creative thinking that can operate in the present and continue to shape the future.

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

Rarely have I had the pleasures of this difficulty formalized. When editing, alone or in groups, I have found manifold difficulties alongside the essential characteristics of the writerly activity.

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

Togh mi bartsi vra tseranak.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?

Genres have different strengths and weaknesses. There are things one might do in a live performance that are impossible on the page or the screen. Similarly, one might embed values impossible to address in a linear format like prose or speech when working in expanded media. Many important questions cannot be asked in an isolated genre. My favorite works move between many genres, including performance, cinema, poetry, essay, mixtape, publication, installation, and so forth. 

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?

No routine.

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

The source text, then secondary literature, and finally my own notes. 

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

“The Great Salt Lake Effect.”

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?

Many forms.               

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

http://eclipsearchive.org : http://writing.pennsound.edu : http://ubu.com http://monoskop.org/ : http://p-dpa.net : http://trollthread.tumblr.com http://gauss-pdf.com :  http://hystericallyreal.com : http://jstor.org http://muse.jhu.edu : http://jacket2.org : http://aaaaarg.fail/

…

20 - What are you currently working on?

A memoir called Apocalypse Diary, which takes as its premise the realization of every prediction I can find about the end of the world from my birth in 1984 until the present. Every end of the world scenario is entertained, as though they all truly happened: untold asteroids, floods, fires, aliens, and religious events, among manifold catastrophic conclusions to the planet. Among these speculative facts, I’m writing my own remembrances, within and against a wide range of sources, voices, and anticipations for a doomed future.

                

12or 20 (second series) questions;

Michael Dennis, Bad Engine: New and Selected Poems

birds in the trees like madness

you are walking down a big city street

in a town that is not your own

you are beside a mental hospital

there is a park and in the park

all of the trees are bare of leaves

it is fall and almost winter

but the trees move

and you are astonished

to see they are thick with beating

the trees are alive with wings

thousands upon thousands of birds

are in the trees

and now swooping out of the sky

it is like it is raining birds

and it is only now

that you hear them

their voice one sound

loud

It is good to see the release of Ottawa poet Michael Dennis' long-awaited Bad Engine: New and Selected Poems, “edited and introduced by Stuart Ross” (Vancouver BC: Anvil Press, 2017). Given I was the editor of Dennis’ only other volume of selected poems, This Day Full of Promise: Poems Selected and New (Fredericton NB: Broken Jaw Press/cauldron books, 2003), I’d been intrigued to see what directions Ross might head into for this new volume. Apart from the immediate difference of Ross conducting line edits on the poems (something Dennis hadn’t allowed before), Ross was also given access to a wide variety of unpublished and uncollected work, opening up the possibilities enormously for a volume of work by a poet far more productive than even his multiple book and chapbook titles over the past four decades might suggest. As Ross writes in his introduction to the collection: “And so Bad Engine offers up revised versions of just about all the selected poems, as well as a big complement of recent works. The couple thousand poems I read to concoct this mixture drove home to me that Michael Dennis is the real thing when it comes to poetry without artifice: poetry delivered directly from the various organs of the gut.” Earlier on, he offers a perspective of Dennis’ overall work:

            What is the greatest appeal in Michael’s work? I’d say it is his conviction, his directness. And as brave and no-bullshit as he usually is, he’s the first to admit to his own fuck-ups. Here is one of us: a human, but telling it like it is – like it is for him.

            Michael belongs to a tradition of poets who do exactly these things, in their different ways: Charles Bukowski, of course, and Lyn Lifshin; Milton Acorn, Tom Wayman and Al Purdy; Eileen Myles and Sharon Olds. To me, a surrealist/absurdist, it’s a precarious path to walk, because, well, it’s so raw. But that also means that to successfully pull off such a poem is a pretty mean feat.

            When we embarked on this volume of selected and new poems, at various times I nudged Michael to take a dip into surrealism, or experimentalism; I gave him assignments to get him to get him to produce cut-ups. I could tell his heart wasn’t in it, though, and why would it be? For him, perhaps there is enough surrealism, absurdism, and disjunctiveness in real life. Besides, Michael has experimented: there are some visual poems in his early books, but it clearly wasn’t a route he was interested in following.

Ross as an editor has been interesting over the past decade or so, editing volumes for Mansfield Press and now Anvil, and has been responsible in many ways for a revitalization for a number of poets’ careers that had otherwise fallen by the wayside (for a variety of reasons), most notably David W. McFadden, who went on to win the Griffin Poetry Prize (I would argue Jay MillAr has done much the same revitalization for numerous other poets through BookThug, such as for Phil Hall and Victor Coleman). Opening with some two dozen pages of new material, Bad Engine provides less of a linear trajectory to Dennis’ forty-plus years of poetry production than an exploration into a short list of concerns that have occupied his writing throughout the years, from more personal poems on and around various members of his family, commentary on his current reading and poems that write out the immediacy of his day-to-day, from doing dishes to sitting in pubs to reading the newspaper. One ould say that Michael Dennis is a no-nonsense and straightforward poet of plainspeak and the immediate, and there is something curious about how not a single piece in this collection feels dated, irregardless of date of composition. His view may have gained depth, wisdom and widened his scope over the intervening years, but Michael Dennis is a poet who has cared about what is immediately in front of him, right now, for a very long time now. Here’s hoping his perspective continues.

pork pie hat in a minor chord

ever since I saw a photo

of Lester Young in a pork pie hat

I’ve wanted one of my own

Charles Mingus wrote

“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”

with Joni Mitchell

Porky Pig wore a pork pie hat

and the irony of that

cracks me up

Dexter Gordon

Charlie Parker

all those cats

they wore them

now

I’ve got one

still no connection

between me

and the greats

but

hell if I don’t like

tipping my hat

12 or 20 (second series) questions with D.S. Stymiest

D.S. Stymeist’s debut collection, The Bone Weir, has just been released by Frontenac House. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, including The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, Dalhousie Review, and The Fiddlehead. His work was featured as the Parliamentary Poet Laureate’s Poem of the Month (February 2015) and was short-listed for Vallum’s poetry prize. He teaches poetics, crime fiction, and aboriginal literature at Carleton University. He grew up as a resident of O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, is the editor and founder of the micro-press, Textualis, and is the current vice-president of VERSe Ottawa, which runs VerseFest, Ottawa’s annual poetry festival.

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

Strangely enough, what began the process of writing poetry was putting my daughter to bed when she was a baby. Until she went into deeper sleep, I had to stay up with her, and she would fall asleep right on my chest. For long periods of time, I couldn’t move, or get up. This situation of having to be physically still led me to start playing with lines in my head. Considering the constraints of the situation, I couldn’t work with longer forms. Later in the evening, I’d try to jot these lines, sound sequences, or phrases down.

A few days later, I might play around with what I’d written until a poem fell out. So I guess I owe a lot to my daughter. She’s a peach.

About the same time, I heard Robert Pinsky read at the Ottawa Public Library as part of the Writer’s Festival. I’d always loved his work, but what really grabbed me was how after the reading he talked about how he grew up in small town New Jersey without being really aware that there were people who wrote poetry for a living. He liked to doodle with words, play around with them, rearrange lines and syntax just for the sheer pleasure of it. For me this idea of doodling with words was really important. I’d written poetry in my late teens, but as I became more aware of poetic traditions and the strictures of form I became more intimidated by it. Pinsky’s ideas about doodling with language helped to deflate some of that intimidation.

2 - Do you have any concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?

Among my many, many other concerns, I have a strong interest in revisiting indigenous legend to reimagine our national landscape. These sacred stories and traditions have a lot to teach Canadians, all of us.

I grew up on a Cree reservation in Northern Manitoba in a household of mixed heritage. My stepfather was Cree, my mother is Northern European, and my younger siblings are metis. While there is some Choctaw blood in me (a few generations back), I’m mainly a white guy that grew up as a part of an indigenous community. Living in the Northern bush, and living off that land has given me some insight into the importance of having sacred stories that write the genesis of geologic forms and landscape. These stories are significant to my sense of self and place, and part of my role as a writer is to share this sense of significance.

In many other parts of the world, the land is tied directly to particular legends and myths. There are many indigenous stories that write the origins of local topographies, but these stories are either generally not very well known or have lost their resonant significance for most Canadians. Even among many first nations communities, there has been a tremendous loss of tribal knowledge due to religious conversion and the residential school system. There is a growing hunger and need for these stories.

There are many great Canadian writers like Gregory Scofield, Armand Garnet Ruffo, Thompson Highway, and Thomas King who write from perspective of re-purposing and adapting traditional legend for contemporary meaning. The mixing of cultures and traditions can be a potential strength of our country, something that defines us as a nation, but this can happen only if our culture as a whole starts acknowledging, valuing, and utilizing indigenous knowledges.

3 - Where does a poem usually begin for you?

It may sound utterly banal, but a poem begins with some subject, idea, or experience that I’m passionate about. For example, one of my abiding interests is the complex interconnections between animals and plants in specific environments. Animals don’t simply evolve—they co-evolve with other species.

When I found out that the pronghorn antelope, one of our iconic prairie animals, co-evolved with the American cheetah, I was taken with the idea that we live in an age of ecological ghosts.

Everywhere we look in modern habitats there are species that no longer exist but their biologic effect is still present in the bodies of other plants and animals.

After writing an elegiac ode to the American Cheetah, I subsequently wrote one about the Avocado, a central American fruit that you can find in any grocery, but one with an interesting biological history. As the avocado’s natural partners in its seed dispersal died out about 10,000 years ago, it has become largely dependent on human cultivation for continued survival.

While we are currently experiencing one of great extinction events in our planet’s history, from the very inception of humanity as a distinct species, we’ve been implicated in the extinctions of many species—Mastodons, Mammoths, Giant Sloths, etc, etc. This is the inheritance of the Anthropocene.

Some of my poems attempt to grapple with this legacy. Part of that elegiac process is bearing witness to the impact of our presence, our activities. Another part is to celebrate and pay homage to ecological ghosts.

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

Yes, if anyone has seen me read, I think it is readily apparent that it is something I enjoy. Public performances are essential to the task of my writing—the expectation that the written has to become oral shapes how the poems are composed.

I’m not a fan of opposing the term “page poet” to the “spoken word poet.” We are all poets, and the genetic origins of poetry ultimately lie in orality. That historical link to oral culture has a huge influence on how I go about constructing and reciting a poem

Homer was not writing for the page when he composed his versions of the Odyssey or the Iliad. The Nordic Scops who belted out early versions of Beowulf or the Sagas for their fellow tribe-members were not writing for the page. In a communal, aural environment, narrative meaning, rhythm, and sound become essential.

While I have great respect for concrete and visual poets, I write primarily for a public, oral audience. It’s always a privilege to get to share the work, shout out the words, while I still have voice.

5 - 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?

It depends on the subject and mode of a particular poem. Some poems, often the more lyrical or personal ones, often come quickly. Even a six page rant like the “401 Series” only took a couple of frenzied hours to jot down a first draft.

Other poems, like the ones that revisit forgotten moments of colonial history or excavate ice-age extinctions often take months of research before I come to actually sit down and write.

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

At times it can be difficult, but it is definitely essential. I rely on editors noting when I’ve completely gone off the rails. I thank them for their work.

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

Definitely what Robert Pinsky said about poetry as doodling with words.

Also, I say to myself: “there is no absolute need to write; write only when it feels necessary.”

8 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)?

It hasn’t been all that easy to move between different forms of writing.

In order to be successful, even in a limited way, at grad school and then as an academic, I found that I had to crush most of my creative impulses. To write critical work that would be publishable in peer-reviewed journals not only demanded all of my energy and time, it demanded that my thinking be rigorously analytic.

Over time, I believe that my mind became habituated to particular ways of thinking. When I began to write creatively, it was difficult to avoid some of the habits of the academic mind. The last few years have been about strengthening atrophied creative neural pathways. It has become easier and easier to write poetry and creative prose, but this transformation was certainly not without its pain.

9 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one?

I only find time to write when all my other responsibilities have been taken care of. I like to find blocks of undistracted time, but this can be very, very difficult. Moreover, I don’t write to a program or a schedule. If there isn’t something that is urging me to get it down on paper, I will not write.  

10 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn, or return, to for inspiration?

I place no pressure on myself to write. To “stall” implies that there is an abstract desire to write something of import. If you have something to say, then say it. If not, then be silent.

If I have a spot of time to write, but find myself listless or under-motivated, then I will read, or revise older work (or have sex, or go for a hike, or bake some cookies—there is always something good to do with your time).

11 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

I like the way that some people have a sense of home. I’m not sure I do.

12 - 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?

Pop music. The lyrical sister-art of poetry. Speech, inflection, rhythm.

Arcade Fire, Talking Heads, Serge Gainsbourg, Gorilaz, Massive Attack, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Guided by Voices, Daft Punk, Iggy Pop, Pixies, Sigur Ros, Charles Mingus, etc, etc, etc.

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

This is an overwhelming question. I’ve been thinking lately of Yusef Komunyakaa’s object poems. I’ve been drawn to the genre of the object poem in my own work (“The Levelois Point” for example). I like how meditation on a material object can provide a welcome relief from the confessional self as it is posed through the lyric form. 

Komunyakaa’s object work on artifacts, such as “The Helmet” and “The Catapult,” is astounding—so precise, chiseled even. The paradox, of course, is how much these object poems reveal about humanity. 

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

Write a good novel.

15 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be?

My health now precludes the attempt, but if I could, I might have been an archeologist, or paleontologist. Something to do with uncovering the buried, I think.

Remember that career test that we took in high school, the “Strong Interest Inventory”? I remember that my closest match was Female Army officer. Perhaps there’s still time…

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

I’m reading Paisley Rekdal’s Imaginary Vessels. Some of the poems make me sick with envy.

We live in the golden age of the independent mini-series. I’m watching Fargo right now, to my great delight.

17 - What are you currently working on?

Poking at a few poems. Hopefully, in a year or two, a collection will drop out. We’ll see.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;