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 called, Strong Armed Angels. It is a highly personal reckoning with becoming a new father to my son, the grief of having a stillborn daughter who died right before birth of court entanglement, and moves on to celebrate the birth of our second child, a girl who still feels like a gift. Yet the book also wrestles with having a friend struggle with depression for over a close friend who murdered his ex-wife’s lover, and then took his own life. But even in my first book there are outward turning poems that try to give voice to the dispossessed and marginalized: a Vietnamese woman whose husband has left; a Russian Orthodox priest; a poem in the voice of a dog. Here’s a playful poem from that book, “Warnings”.
A can of self-defense
pepper spray says it may
irritate
the eyes, while a bathroom heater says it’s
not to
be used in bathrooms. I collect warnings
the way I used to collect
philosophy quotes.
Wittgenstein’s There’s
no such thing
as clear
milk rubs shoulders with a box
of rat poison which has
been found
to cause
cancer in laboratory mice.
Levinas’ Language is a
battering ram—
a sign
that says the very fact of saying,
is as inscrutable as the
laser pointer’s advice:
Do not
look into laser with remaining eye.
Last week I boxed up the
solemn row
of philosophy tomes and
carted them down
to the used bookstore.
The dolly read:
Not to
be used to transport humans.
Did lawyers insist that
the 13-inch wheel
on the wheelbarrow
proclaim it’s
not
intended for highway use? Or that
Curling
iron is for external use only?
Abram says that realists render
material
to give
the reader the illusion of the ordinary.
What would he make of
this injunction? Shin pads
cannot
protect any part of the body they do not cover.
I load boxes of books
onto the counter. Flip
to a yellow-highlighted
passage in Aristotle:
Whiteness
which lasts for a long time is no whiter
than
whiteness which lasts only a day.
A.A.ers talk about the
blinding glare of the obvious:
Objects
in the mirror are actually behind you.
Electric
cattle prod only to be used on animals.
Warning:
Knives are sharp. Thank you!
What would I have done
without: remove infant
before
folding for storage, Do not use hair dryer
while
sleeping, Eating pet rocks may lead to broken teeth,
Do not
use deodorant intimately?
Goodbye to all those
books that sought to puncture
the illusory world—not
unlike the warning on the
polyester Halloween
outfit I bought for my son:
Superman
costume will not enable you to fly.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I started writing poetry as an adolescent. I’ve also written plays and screenplays. When I try to write a novel, it keeps coming out as poetry. Something about the personal that I find threaded through images is revelatory for me. Poetry also allows me to explore multiple perspectives, as in my two books about the Iraq war, in the voices of US soldiers and citizens, and in the voices of Iraqi soldiers and citizens. In the first, Every Seed of the Pomegranate, there are even poems in the voice of angels—creatures shared by Christians and Muslims alike. The second book, Black butterflies over Baghdad, is largely about Iraq after we left. I wanted to include their voices, so there are nine poets I co-translated with friends who speak Arabic. A poem from Seeds:
The Day the Beekeeper Died: Sulaymaniyah
By David Sullivan
His
daughter pulls on
her
father’s frayed dishdasha
to go check the bees.
Today
she doesn’t
carry
the smoke canister
with her to the field.
She
opens a tray
while
talking down their high whine,
breaks off honeycomb
and rubs
it over
her
face and hair, over white
cloth, down to her feet.
Each of
her hands holds
the
crumbling comb like a sponge
while she waits for them.
When the
first one comes
she
feels wings against her toes,
a tongue unscrolling.
She
wills herself not
to
laugh as the next alights
on her neck, tickling
her
hairs as it walks.
Then
they descend to shoulders,
forearms, chest, thighs, eyes
she
shuts—she feels the
thousand
tongues on the cloth.
Feather-like wings churn
in her
ears, rustle
and
hum with agitated talk.
Never been so loved.
Her
father’s alive,
she’s
a torch of burning bees,
tears course across cheeks.
When her
mother sees
the
apparition of bees
walking towards their door
she
falls on her knees.
It
is the end of the world.
But when the angel
speaks
with her daughter’s
voice
she’s not amazed. Mama,
how do I end this?
Her
mother brushes
bees
away from her eyes, pulls
them from her hair and
undresses
her child,
hanging
the winged dishdasha
on the clothes line.
Carries
her naked
girl
into the house to bathe.
The bee-like angels
take all
day to strip
honey
from the robe, return
it to their tiered home.
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 always felt that my poems and books have chosen me. Some image or voice compels me, I take down notes, and find myself already halfway down a path. Much of it forces me to listen to other voices, do a wealth of research, and read and read and read. The same thing is true for the writing. I may have landed on initial ideas, but the poems need to be reworked over and over again, until I feel it exhausted my ability to make them better.
4 - Where does a poem 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?
The image. Sometimes a word. Or a phrase. It is as if I have grabbed hold of one thread and I begin to pull on it. The tapestry only slowly comes into focus the more I weave with what I’m given. Sometimes a poem comes to me in a dream, or is jotted down when half asleep. Those are the gift poems. I don’t take credit for them.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I love reading. My own work, and others. I think there’s a whole other art to performing poetry. I try to avoid the sing song preciousness of the Poet’s voice, and instead embody the work of the poem in a new form. I co-host and open mic reading series, and I’ve been deeply moved by some of the spoken word poets, who are now my friends.
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 think I don’t know what I’m thinking or feeling until I’ve written about it. The act of writing is first for myself. To understand my place in the world, and the world inside me. But I’ve also found writing can push me out into the world, make me interview others, learn from them. Before writing comes listening. To the sounds of nature. To wildlife. To the person sitting opposite me. Some of my good poet friends are Iraqi. I’m humbled by what they’ve shared with me, and what they’ve said about my feeble attempts to give voice to their experiences. Here is an example:
Calculations
Occupying forces allow us 1 Kalashnikov
per family, 3 families per house, 1 improvised
bomb shelter. We acquire gas masks times
number of residents.
Local governments allow
1 ration card per adult: kilo rice, kilo flour, kilo
dried beans. Bread is improvised, sawdust
a viable substitute. 1 guard dog
(average).
1 adult per 4 children, 2 eyes
per family member (average), average
life expectancy 39 (men), 46 (women).
This is not how it was.
This is all I’ve ever known.
This is for your own good.
This is for good.
For goods.
For God.
This has never been good.
We calculate blast radiuses, annual
rainfall,
chances of making it to the grocer
(and back).
Estimate the wait in line
for petrol, the, percentage increase the boys
hawking petrol will charge.
We count
supplies: valium, cotton swabs,
band aids, ace wraps, gauze,
needle and surgical thread,
scissors,
Advil,
Codeine,
Phenazepam,
cotton
balls
Qu’ran, prayer rugs (times number
in family), a Bible to placate foreign soldiers,
a Torah, one citizen card per adult,
numbers
for calling on local Sheikhs, local
police, the local hospital, local
morgue.
We collect dark jokes:
How’s
every Iraqi joke begin?
By looking over your shoulder.
One ski mask. One parachute.
Rope as long as the well is deep.
Stolen flexi-cuffs. Hoarded bullets.
Rifle grease. Cloths.
Phrases
foreigners will find inoffensive.
Cigarettes (for barter). Cigarettes
(for the end of days).
One
roll black tape.
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?
Poets are the lightning rods of society. They channel harsh dark forces, and protect others. They give voice to the marginalized, the under representative, the ones who have been silenced. They are vital because they see the complexity of the issues, and don’t trust didactic claims. Instead, they delve in the minutia of lived experience. Not delivering answers, but asking the crucial questions.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Some of my books have had editors that have helped me revise and change the entire manuscript. Others have been more handoff. I’m always looking for critical voices that help me articulate my own.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
My painter friend from Palestine, Thea Abuelhaj, and her Vermont studio, once said to me: “sometimes you just need to paint through the doubt and the uglies”.
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 write wherever and whenever I can. Often alone while walking in the woods, or going on a run in nature. I dictate phrases and whole poems into my cell phone’s dictation app. Only later do I get to a computer and find out what I’ve spoken out loud, resembles a poem and deserves to be worked on. Here’s one that started out by being spoken aloud, “Permission Granted.”
You do not have to choose the bruised peach
or misshapen pepper others pass over.
You don’t have to bury
your grandmother’s keys underneath
her camellia bush as the will states.
You don’t need to write a poem about
your grandfather coughing up his lung
into that plastic tube—the machine’s
wheezing
almost masking the kvetching sisters
in their Brooklyn kitchen.
You can let the crows amaze your son
without your translation of their cries.
You can lie so long under this
summer shower your imprint
will be left when you rise.
You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.
Cook plum and apple turnovers in the
nude.
Revel in the flight of birds without
dreaming of flight. Remember the taste
of
raw dough in your mouth as you edged a
pie.
Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
Each beat of the world’s pulse demands
only that you feel it. No thoughts.
Just the single syllable: Yes …
See the homeless woman following
the tunings of a dead composer?
She closes her eyes and sways
with the subways. Follow her down,
inside, where the singing resides.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I recently heard the spoken word Poet Saul Williams read. Someone asked him about writer's block. He said, “I don’t believe there is such a thing. If you’re stalled in writing, it just means you have an absorbed enough. It’s like trying to take a shit without having eaten. Ingest the world. Then write.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Pine pitch. I would often go running through the woods of Vermont behind the farmhouse I grew up in.
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?
I pull from anywhere and everywhere. The book that just came out from carbonation press, Magpie on the Gallows: Poems on the art of Bosch and Bruegel, was created with my Art historian mother. Features ekphrastic poems, including one of mine. I’m also deeply influenced by music, as I was a DJ in Chicago for six years.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I’m currently writing poems and the voice of Emily Dickinson and her circle. I’ve unstuck her from space and time so she wrestles with having a cell phone, and the modern world. Her work has been crucial to mine, as well as the poems of Walt Whitman. But also the Iraqi Poets, that I’ve co-translated, the work of Paul Celan, Rilke, the prose poet Taylor Gorman, and the novels of Celeste Ng. But there are hundreds of others I could name as well.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Learn Iraqi Arabic well enough to translate from it!
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?
A painter. A watercolorist. An engraver of dreams.
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Writing is the way I placed the world in myself, and myself in the world. Nothing is a satisfying is finding the right word or image. Here’s a poem that recently clicked into place, and says something essential I needed to hear: “Tympanic Membranes”.
Every square foot of space—occupied,
unoccupied—is song, or a stilled melody
bracketing silence.
I tell myself not to dwell
on the ostentatious beauty of the buzzy colibrÃ
plundering the electric blue salvia spray,
but take in the pointer finger and thumb
pinch snagging a six-pack from ice,
the wing of a duct-taped side mirror
flapping
over a speed bump, the strew
of possessions arrayed around the filched
briefcase that now flutters the gully with
legal briefs and pie charts.
I try to listen:
tune in to a nearby wheel of gulls shrieking
a metallic music as they survey the dump,
and kids that pick through hubcaps and
bed springs—
one girl chi-chings! when
she finds metal that will become money,
and a boy peels up a poster to decorate
a plywood home—what someone deems
useless still makes music.
Our parents’
songs sing through us, ache of addictions/
benedictions/afflictions/connections: as
when my father dropped the receiver
to fall
into my mother’s arms and sob:
Pressman checked into a hotel, downed pills.
When those came back up he threw himself
through the plate glass window.
Never’d
seen him cry before, never knew it was in
him, never loved him so much. Jazz riffs
are left for us to improvise on. No end
is given.
Get out of the way, sounds say,
let us play through you, let the scruff
of your feet on the old woven doormat
that once read W E L C O M E,
brashly
scrape your ears until the music stings.
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Celeste Ng’s latest novel, Our Missing Hearts, a dystopian look at what might happen if the Chinese were blamed for all our problems and children were taken away from their families to avoid Chinese immigrant influence. They recall the Chinese exclusion act of the late 1800’s, but updated, and frightening. I was blown away by the illegally filmed It Was Just an Accident. The seeds for this astonishing, darkly funny, and terribly real story came from director Jafar Panahi's second prison stint, from July 2022 to February 2023. Everyone should subject themselves to it, then start working to end oppression where they live, and everywhere.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m finishing a manuscript about Emily Dickinson. I wrote my dissertation on her poems, and the poetry of Killarney Clary. It is time to find a form for the ideas I had back then. Here’s one that was recently published, “Emily Dickinson’s iPhone”.
You’ve
surpassed your message quota for the month.
May
we recommend the Unlimited Option?
Unlimited plan – is Heaven –
but comes at a hefty price –
steals away those we love
prisons them – in Paradise.
I make my way – among the Living –
tender electric currencies –
value what can be stolen
and horde the Gift – of Fees.
So keep your paltry coffers –
I’ll dwell in this limited plan –
what rakes the heart’s hearth –
pressure of a Parting Hand.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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