Undark, Sandy Pool

1916

Next time you fumble for a switch, bark

your shins on furniture, wonder vainly what time it is

because of the dark—remember Undark.

Today, thanks to constant laboratory work

everyone can benefit from this

most unusual element. Twenty-three

years ago, radium was unknown. Today,

it serves you safely and surely. You must

ask yourself this: what would you like

to see in the dark? Fishing lures? Clocks?

Buckles on bedroom slippers?! Most assuredly you do.

Undark takes care of the dark, so you don’t have to.

You may ask plainly: does Undark contain real radium?

Of course it does.

From Calgary writer Sandy Pool comes her second poetry collection, Undark (a blewointment book / Nightwood Editions, 2012), a follow-up to Exploding into Night (Guernica Editions, 2009), which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. The eighth title in Nightwood’s blewointment book series, she includes this brief note at the opening:

In the early 1900s, thousands of women between the ages of eleven and forty-five were employed painting glow-in-the-dark watch dials for soldiers and civilians in both Canada and the United States. Under the guidance of the paint’s innovator, Sabin Von Sochocky, they kept their brush points sharp by “pointing” the tips of the brushes with their lips.

Several years after leaving the plant, these women developed a variety of mysterious medical conditions, including completely necrosis of the jaw, severe anemia, intense arthritic-like pains, and spontaneous bone fractures in the arms and legs. A few of the former workers became lame when their legs began to shorten. When the women visited doctors, some were told it was syphilis that was causing their symptoms. Sabin Von Shockocky was forced to remove his own thumb due to necrosis, and eventually died of radiation-induced anemia.

Though many women tried to sue the company, the lawsuits were largely unsuccessful. Many of the women died before receiving compensation. The final demise of the US radium dial-painting industry did not come until Canadian production was halted in 1954, and the extraction plants in Belgium shut down in 1960.

There aren’t that many poetry books that can claim a glow-in-the-dark cover, and one can only presume (and hope) that neither process nor result are the kind of toxicity depicted inside. Pool subtitles her work “An Oratorio,” suggesting the collection is operatic in composition, written expansively and joyously so. Pool’s Undark exists with a cast of characters, “Dramatis Personae,” including Sappho, “Radium Women,” “Chorus,” and the scientist Sabin, writing out very much a score of operatic proportions. “Undark” also appears as a character, reciting and repeating lines from propaganda, as does the character “Hatsepsut: (1508-1458 B.C.) foremost of noble ladies, fifth pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt.” Undark unfolds and stretches out through a sequence of alternating voices and styles, composing a lyric narrative of fragments, each of which further an accumulation of story. Throughout the collection, the years (which make up either part or all of poem titles) progress as a series of strands from 1905, 1910, 1919, 1916, 1912, 1458 B.C., 1921, 1917, 1458 B.C. and so on, with each page including, instead of page numbers, a countdown of days, hours and minutes to a final demise.

Nox, New Jersey: 1998

Beyond the range of the human ear

the cemetery clicks into being.

The earth groans. Each one to herself.

Silence. Rather, they whisper.

Skeletal lace, the larynx.

Worms undoubtedly disturbed

by the echolocation. Women

are speaking. To have lived

is not enough. They have to

reverberate like elbows

poking through undergrowth.

The rate of pulses rising

to terminal buzz. Women

like whale music, singing

under the newly mowed lawn:

lick tick lick tick lick tick.

To be dead is not enough.

The Doppler shift of history

buries them deeper. Geiger

counter clicks into being.

For her Undark, Pool composes characters, a chorus and lyric asides that merge into an entire performance, providing voice for those who have previously been voiceless. As she writes in her “Notes and Acknowledgments” at the back of the collection, she includes “found text” from Anne Carson’s Fragments of Sappho (2008). Given that one of the characters in the collection is called “Nox”(“a striking dark-featured woman in her late sixties, reminiscent of Marie Curie”), one can’t help but conflate the character slightly with Carson’s subsequent on grief and her brother’s death, Nox (2010), especially given the poems underneath the character’s name, such as “Nox, Lucerne: 1905” or “Nox, Newark: 1919.” This work is a striking performance of grief and compassion, sung as an acknowledgment of those who suffered at the hands of progress. As “Nox” says in the two-line final poem:

Nox, Epilogue

Since then, I’ve hated

the dark. I never turn off the lights.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Sandy Pool

Sandy Pool is a writer,editor and Creative Writing instructor based in Toronto.  Sandy holds a degree in Theatre Performance and English from the University of Toronto, as well as a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University Guelph.  Currently, she is a holder of the prestigious Killam scholarship in poetics at the University of Calgary, where she is completing her Phd.  Sandy has been published in various literary journals and was most recently anthologized in The Best Canadian Poems in 2011, published by Tightrope Books. Her first book Exploding Into Night published by Guernica Editions, was long-listed for the 2010 re-lit award and short-listed for the 2010 Governor General’s Award for poetry. Undark: An Oratorio was recently published this fall with Nightwood Editions. 

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

Having my first book published was both thrilling and traumatizing.  It certainly allowed me to crystallize the questions and concerns that I wanted to address through poetry.  I think, in my case, I simply needed to write my way into a second project that addressed the questions I couldn’t answer in the first book.  There was another manuscript I trashed entirely in the meantime.  There was this sense with Exploding that I couldn’t get it right, no matter how hard I tried, and I struggled with that.  This time around was sort of “ Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better” as Beckett would say.  I’m hoping to fail better this time.  To fail with more grace, if I can.  

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I think that poetry was always a natural language for me.  Especially when I was younger, I saw huge freedom and potential in poetry to think through ideas in a dynamic way  I was seduced instantly by the way language was used in poetry – how it could play on the page. 

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 tend to write very slowly these days.  I suffer through first drafts, and then put them away, and pull them back out again many times before I’m happy with them.  I don’t really do any note taking, but there is certainly ‘mental note-taking’, which goes on for a copious amount of time prior to the ‘birth’ of the poem, if that counts.

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?

I’m not sure.  So far, I’ve been drawn to book-length projects.  I do enjoy having a sense of where I’m headed.   Even then, I have to write individual pieces to see what will ‘happen’ in the manuscript.   I’m never sure when a man with a gun will walk into the poem, and I want to be open to that.   So I guess I’m writing books where I know the story, but not the plot?  Does that make sense?

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
That’s an interesting question.  I wouldn’t say they are part of my creative process, exactly.  I don’t find them particularly generative.    I enjoy giving readings, but sometimes I’m not sure how much I learn from them?   What I really love is when hearing a work aloud can foster a dialogue between writers and readers.  I’m always interested to know what people hear when they ‘hear’ a poem.  I think that kind of feedback can be incredibly valuable. 

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 like to let other people figure that out, otherwise where’s the fun?  I like what E.B. White said after hearing a particularly academic review of Charlotte’s Web.  When he took the stage (a bit dazed) he said, “it makes me realize how lucky I am (when I was writing the book) that I didn’t know what in the hell was going on.”  I think I relate to that in my own work.  I write very intuitively, and make connections between concepts, but I find they are never the same questions/connections that readers identify.  I find that disconnect fascinating.

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?

I think the role of the writer should simply be to write good books.  All acts of writing are political acts of translation and I think that is essential to our larger culture.  

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

Coming from a theatre background, I am used to harsh criticism.  I get excited to work with editors, to see the work through different eyes. For me, that is where the fine-tuning begins, and I find that very essential and rewarding.  I was lucky to work with many fine editors on Undark and I enjoy hearing from different writers with different aesthetics. 

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

“ Don’t be afraid to write from a place of insecurity.”  I think young writers can get caught up in hiding what they don’t know.  As I get older, I become more and more obsessed with what I don’t know, and I like to use that insecurity in my writing process.  It’s not insecurity towards craft, but it is a way of working with a poem– insecurity as an approach to writing poetry, as a poetic disposition.

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

I think it’s pretty seamless.  I find libretto encompasses my favourite elements of theatre and poetry. Libretto exploits dramatic voice, and pairs it with the more sensual language of poetry.   I find this ‘theatrical poetry’ very appealing. 

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 usually set aside some time to write each day.  I don’t have a routine, but I tend to work early in the morning and late at night.

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

For me, reading widely is the key to writing well.  I turn to all kinds of writing when I’m stuck. I read non-fiction, fiction, poetry, drama, science textbooks, news articles…  basically whatever I can get my hands on.  I also listen to music, bake, exercise, go out for dinner, exercise more.  To me, it’s all part of the writing process. 

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Palmolive, rancid tobacco.

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?

I think music certainly influences my writing.  I’m interested in how rhythm works, and I turn to music to imagine how a line of poetry could be imagined, or re-imagined.  I’ve also done a series of collaborations with visual artists, including Blair Prentice, who designed the glow-in-the-dark cover of Undark.  I find an aesthetic connection with visual art, and specifically black and white photography.  There’s something in the awkward static-ness of old photographs that I find endlessly surprising.

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

I usually go on tangents, and become obsessed with particular writers.  Lately I’ve been influenced by poets Robert Hass, James Tate, Simon Armitage, and Frederick Seidel.  I’m also reading Lydia Davis, Lorrie Moore, and Gordon Lish.  I try to make myself a reading list for the year and stick to it, but I’m constantly going off in new directions… 

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

I’ve spent the last two years living in different parts of Canada, but I’d like to travel more in Europe in the United States.  One day, I’d also like to try and write a novel.  

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 find the natural world fascinating, and I’d love to be a scientist, but anyone who knows me would laugh at this.  My math/science skills are completely non-existent.

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

You can ask my old bosses, but I’m pretty sure it’s all I’m good for.

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

The last great book I read was a book called Suicide by French writer Edouard Leve.  I found it striking not only as his final book, but also as an oblique public suicide note.  I really loved the use of second person in the book also.   The last great film was the A and E documentary The Imposter.  I was absolutely stunned by it.

20 - What are you currently working on?
Currently I’m trying desperately to finish my doctoral degree and I’m also writing a series of poetic micro fictions about logic. 

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

I've been longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize!

For the first time, I've been longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, for a selection of poems from the manuscript-in-progress, "household items." I'm in good company, too, alongside thirty-five others, including Stephanie Bolster, Sandy Pool (twice!), Bren Simmers, Deanna Young (twice!) and Alison Calder. Apparently the shortlist is announced on September 17, and the winner a week later. Wouldn't that be the finest wedding present ever?