Nikki Wallschlaeger, Houses

 

Bronze House

Statues in the concession gardens until the beachmaster hippo signaled it was time to move. He needs to learn about his male privilege but I’m actually talking about real hippos here.

This is the most miserable of all the animal prisons because it’s the largest. The barometer of the modern zoo is based on the spike in penguin mass suicides, but these places suck anyway so fuck it.

My father, who left me w/ my mother’s collections. This exacerbates into a goat barnyard in the petting area of the park. Both of them are experts in mannerisms that prevent disclosure. 

She has about 30 cookie jars now, ranging from chicken little to baseball tart. Someday I will have to sort them. I will do something strange to pay homage to what we couldn’t bridge. I will bring the pieces of

ceramic cows and giraffes and rearrange them into a pentagram on the sidewalk. As a teenager I refused to come home one night and got drunk, had sex, and passed out. The next day I was sentenced to 2 days

in the county mental health facility. When you picked me up, you didn’t say a word. So the first shared, a piece of a bear nose, goes here

I haven’t seen most of Wisconsin-based poet Nikki Wallschlaeger’s published collections, having caught only her third full-length title, Waterbaby (Port Townsend WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2021) [see my review of such here], so it is interesting to finally see a copy of her full-length debut, Houses (Grand Rapids MI: Horse Less Press, 2015). The author of four full-length collections—the other two being Crawlspace (Bloof Books, 2017) and HOLD YOUR OWN (Copper Canyon Press, 2024)—the poems in Houses hint at a foundation as a nesting book, but is far more complex, complicated. Composed as forty-six prose poems, each piece is titled as a separate house—“Little House,” “Silver House,” “Linen White House,” “Cranberry House,” etcetera—that each shape around and through a particular idea, commentary or thought; a foundation from which to begin a larger conversation on home and privilege, culture and class. “As a westerner,” begins “Yellow House,” “I will only paint thinking about Matisse. As a westerner, your poverty is romantic. As a westerner, overpopulation is the cause and not the effect. As a westerner, legwork is a numb strut.”

Edited/published by Jen Tynes, I keep telling myself that I’ve hardly seen any books or chapbooks by Horse Less Press, but a quick search through my archives finds reviews of Stephanie Anderson’s Lands of Yield (2018) [see my review of such here], Anna Gurton-Wachter’s Blank Blank Blues (2016) [see my review of such here], Kate Schapira’s Handbook For Hands That Alter As We Hold Them Out (2016) [see my review of such here], Anne Cecelia Holmes’ The Jitters (2015) [see my review of such here], Pattie McCarthy’s Nulls (2014) [see my review of such here], Kate Schapira's The Soft Place (2012) [see my review of such here], Rebecca Loudon’s TRISM (2012) [see my review of such here], Norma Cole’s Coleman Hawkins Ornette Coleman (2012) [see my review of such here] and Richard Froude’s Fabric (2011) [see my review of such here], so I’ve clearly been catching more than I’d realized, although I had not caught this.

It is interesting, that if her third collection was self-described as a collection “about Blackness, language, and motherhood in America; about the ancestral joys and sharp pains that travel together through the nervous system’s crowded riverways; about the holy sanctuary of the bathtub for a spirit that’s pushed beyond exhaustion,” then the bones of such articulations clearly sit in the poems that make up Houses. Her lyric suite of houses, beautifully and sharply composed, accumulatively write on the promise and the failures of home and community, and how the past seeps in. “Our night sweats bring active listening to the community,” Wallschlaeger writes, as part of “Silver House,” “the community who sleeps so the city becomes what we don’t recollect so we call it death. This is poor dream autophony when everything is about rent // death is not everything. It’s not the moon.”

Stephanie Anderson, Lands of Yield

03.12.14

In the dream, I talk them out of sacrifice. In the dream, exterminate and flood. The suits got on the wrong train. No contractions.

Side zip seems so practical. She’s all worked up. Think before search. At the Kewpie Hotel, the bike lot is full. Did I miss the stop?

The bulbul is shrieking love, enough smart line. I get Bar Ber now. A yoga truck as we walk to the aesthetic farmer park.

Our first close bamboo grove, maidenhair and apricot. Stand inside the yellow line to ride the robin. The frog won’t eat the fish.

She goes to the train university, capital king line. The turnstile got tired. Nine percent was you. Kit Kat quest bust. (“THE DITTIES”)

Until I went through American poet, editor and publisher (currently living and teaching in Beijing) Stephanie Anderson’s If You Love Error So Love Zero (New Orleans LA: Trembling Pillow, 2018) a while back [see my review of such here], I had no idea that she’d had another poetry title out, only a year prior: Lands of Yield (Horse Less Press, 2018). She is also the author, by the by, of In the Key of Those Who Can No Longer Organize Their Environments (Horse Less Press, 2013), as well as a small handful of chapbooks, so I feel as though I’m just behind on everything about her work. Subtitled “A Poemlogue,” Lands of Yield is constructed in the tradition of the poetic diary or “daybook,” similar to New York poet Stacy Szymaszek’s Journal of Ugly Sites & Other Journals (Albany NY: Fence Books, 2016) [see my review of such here], the ongoing work of Alabama poet Jessica Smith [see my review of her latest here], Robert Creeley’s infamous A day book (1972), or even the life-work of the late Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert. Akin to Gilbert’s works, Anderson’s book-length poem is continuous, albeit sectioned, and responds to the immediate of her day-to-day, but more abstract than Gilbert might have written: “I wake still aching but / clearer from dreams of cats / & time travel & codes / he sees an owl in bamboo / goes out to buy provisions & / comes back with bracelets wall hanging / scarves bought from Mih & Jin / my necklace purple rose” (“05.07.14,” “THE SINGING GERUNDS”). Lands of Yield is set in six sections—“TOKYO STORY,” “THE DITTIES,” “THE SINGING GERUNDS,” “MORE DITTIES,” “BINGE-READING MYSTERIES IN BED” and “MORE DITTIES MORE”—with the individual poems including date-as-titles-only, as well as set as a continuous roll of poems, beginning with “1.26.14” at the opening, and ending with “09.01.14.” Structurally, the poems in her first section appear in accumulated couplets, while the second section, which begins on the day immediately following the end of the prior section, is set in longer stanzas of short lines:

04.15.14

first sights overload, beeps

like bats using echo-

location a high chair

on a motorbike including

baby incense burning

at the tree base all are staring

Ave Maria in neon

what do the license plates say

from the pink church the men chanting

plays the lily pads like

trampolines in the park

thank you is like with one

chopping a big bag of onions

we last maybe an hour out

at the opium re-

finery, team building

information on demand a

mosquito coil at our feet

this plate like the one at

home after the lunar eclipse

professional smile

kids with bright lit bubbles

one Vinasun tows another

the night market full of headlights

Anderson’s “poemlogue” exists exactly as it describes, poem-ing her way through a travel that doesn’t exist as straight travelogue; a journal that doesn’t exist as a straight journal. For Anderson, the poem is the thing, allowing the lyric to propel the movement around and through information gathered, utilized and processed. “B writes to talk / about hours. It’s / sixty-nine years / since the bomb. F / to Z I repeat.” (“08.07.14,” “MORE DITTIES MORE”).

This is a hefty and impressive volume, and one that exists as a worthy travel non-travel exploration of self and of skin and of the intimately immediate, whether home or abroad. Still: I’m curious about the structural shifts, as well as those of the sections; do the different sections suggest a shift in geography, or of thinking? What do the differences hold between sections? Are the differences less overt, and one of thinking or approach, which allow for the shift, also, in structure? I am curious about these differences, and yet, am satisfied with the answer not being obvious; or perhaps I am simply thick-headed, and missing something right in front of me.

Tokyo is our sleep trembles

They heckled her until she cried

Tokyo is this form is an avoidance

The cause of the delay is confirmation

Tokyo is the glasses keep falling (“06.20.14,” “BINGE-READING MYSTERIES IN BED”)

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Rebecca Loudon

Rebecca Loudon lives and writes on Camano Island in Washington. She is the author of three collections of poetry Tarantella and Radish King from Ravenna Press and Cadaver Dogs from No Tell Books and two chapbooks Navigate, Amelia Earhart's Letters Home from No Tell Books and TRISM from Horse Less Press. Rebecca teaches violin lessons to children and tends three cats and a huge unruly garden.

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 changed my life in a small but powerful way financially as my editor at Ravenna Press let me pre-sell the books and keep the profit. I had just lost my job at Microsoft and was a single mother in a tight squeeze. It was also a lesson on how to choose my poems carefully for publication. I pretty much just stuck everything in Tarantella and let it fly. My most recent work is not that different than my previous. I just work more carefully and slower. I have discovered that prolificacy is not and should not be a goal for me. I still feel driven and always have.

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

My grandfather was born on Robert Burns’ birthday so I was exposed to poetry starting from the time I could walk. My grandfather had a great Scottish brogue and a deep booming voice and he read not only Burns but Don Marquis Don Blanding anything he had in his house truly. I was entranced by the music and rhythm of these poems and I was the only grandchild allowed in his study because I listened. I started writing poetry at five the same time I began violin lessons. This was such luck because I have never differentiated poetry from music.

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 wrote my third book on the heels of my second book. My writing came fast and hot. My first drafts then looked nothing like the finished poems. I am a furious reviser. The poems in Queer Wing-ed are different. They were born fully formed like ugly babies but they took forever for me to research and to write and it took me a year to distance myself from the project before I could write again or put the manuscript together. I have a ton of copious notes for my current project. Way too many notes.

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?

After my first collection which was piecemeal and disconnected I began to write as part of a continuum with a whole manuscript in mind. Radish King was written as a love letter. Even the shape of the book resembles a post card. I knew exactly where I wanted it to go. I wrote Navigate in my car every day on my way to work in the morning in a fever dream ill with pneumonia scribbling in a large notebook as I drove. Dangerous. I wrote the poems for Cadaver Dogs my fourth book one after the other in the exact order in which they appear in the book. The manuscript I’m finishing up now Queer Wing-ed has taken me almost ten years to write. To be more direct poems begin with an idea floating through my brain. If I don’t jot it down somewhere it will disappear. I used to carry a notebook with me all the time. Now I email ideas to myself with my phone.

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

Oh I absolutely love to perform my work. Before my first public reading I had my son videotape me (raise your hands if you remember videotape) practicing and I was horrified by the results it was like watching a video of myself eating. No one ever needs to see that. I had been told to make eye contact with my audience to capture the attention of every person in the room not to move or act out the words etc. This just didn’t work for me. I found that the best way for me to present my poetry was to connect with the poems themselves to be wildly in love with them to let the poems do the work to speak from the dark places from which much of my work springs. I am in One True Love with my new poems and when I read them I sing I bark I sway I move my arms around and I never make direct contact with my audience instead I pull the audience in. All my years as a professional musician all my years on stage help a great deal. I have absolutely no stage fright.

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?

In my work right now in my current book I attempted to solve a murder and to explore the inner life of the “outsider” artist and writer Henry Darger. I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams though I have yet to send the finished manuscript to a publisher. I am spending time with it. I am dancing with it. I have no formal education and barely a high school education and so have escaped theoretical concerns in my work. I tend to read voraciously and I write from the gut. I try to be fearless and engage in deep play at the same time a delicate balance.

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?

My role as a writer is to write the truth as I see it and to support other poets other presses young poets beginning writers. I taught a poetry workshop in my house for over eleven years. We met once a week. Eventually the workshop grew up and the poets either kept on writing or gave up. It was a huge learning experience for me.

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

Oh I find that process absolutely essential. I have had such joyful good fortune to work with my three editors Kathryn Rantala Reb Livingston and Jen Tynes. All three editors worked openly and lovingly with me. Lucky indeed.

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

Ignore advice.

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 want to be the person who writes every morning but this is hard to navigate for me. This has changed for me since I retired from my 40 years of factory work. I used to write at work and during rehearsals for the orchestra of which I was a member for 20 years. Now I am infatuated with living on an island in a forest. Now my forest and my beach dictate when I write. I’d still like to be the person who writes every morning. I think it’s possible since I practice my violin at a set time every single day.

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

I return to beloved fiction. When my writing gets stalled I try not to read poetry because I don’t want the influence of outside poets and writers to influence my work. I am a fierce re-reader. I read books I adore and wallow around inside them until I feel a spark.

12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Lilacs.

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 am a professional musician and music inspires me first and foremost always and forever. Visual art has heavily influenced my work especially the poems in Queer Wing-ed which are poems about an artist. In researching this book I traveled to Chicago to Vermont to New Hampshire and to New York and saw and devoured the most amazing art in these places. Nature inspires me every day but I rarely write nature poems.

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

I recently met the poet Elisabeth Workman during April when we were both participating in National Poetry Month writing a poem a day. I had not read her work before and it completely amazes me. Don Mee Choi is an incredible writer who is also doing brilliant translation work. I read every thing I can by Aase Berg. Her poetry is incredible and honest and translucent. There are too many writers to name here but those three are my right now inspirations.

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

Live on a boat.

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 would love to be a painter. I used to be one but I finally realized I would never find excellence inside painting. If I did not have writing I suspect I would have died. Art truly does save lives.

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

Music noise escape a desire to map out my brain.

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

The last great book I read was American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

The last great film I saw was David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return.

19 - What are you currently working on?

I am putting the finishing touches on Queer Wing-ed just cosmetics now it’s near completion. I’m also working on a strange hybrid manuscript that chronicles the nine years I spent writing Queer Wing-ed. It is titled Strangle Town and it includes my Henry Darger research my travels during my research as well as what it was like to write the book while losing my job and living in poverty. I also have a manuscript on the back burner titled Spokane which consists of brutal poems about my childhood.

12or 20 (second series) questions;