Musicality, Movement, Punch, and Writing as Wrestling

2014 has been busy for past-Puritan authors. No fewer than 10 of their books have been published recently. So we decided to check in on them and ask them one question each. This time, we talked to Aisha Sasha John, Nancy Jo Cullen, Angela Hibbs, and David James Brock. Click here to see our questions for Chris Hutchinson, Peter Norman, Suzannah Showler, and Mike Spry.Aisha Sash John was featured in Issue 14 of The Puritan. THOU, her second collection, was published this spring by BookThug. We suggest you check out the video of her book launch reading.Phoebe Wang: In THOU, it seems the instigating moment of the book arises out of a need to address the other, though the poems evolve into something stand-alone. Do you feel that there are thoughts and ideas that can only find expression in conversation? In social interaction, or in movement?Aisha Sasha John: I used to argue that all my thinking happened in conversation—with an imagined other or between distinct parts of myself. That isn’t true. The kind of thinking for which I imagine an other is usually rhetorical—the other I imagine serves as an ally or a contrarian, a tool for a desired kind of explication or narrative emphasis.Do I think there are ideas that only find expression in social interaction? Absolutely. This is friendship. This is intellectual intimacy—a collaborative thinking impossible without the loved one. It’s why we need to talk to certain people to work through particular experiences or ideas. I consider collective thinking an important part of love.There is also, definitely, material for me that must be worked through with movement. I can’t think—not deeply—without writing or (actual) conversation; I also can’t think in a spiritual sense without dance. I’m not sure I know how to express joy without dancing. Or certain kinds of mourning. I’d say there’s a wealth of data—emotional, yes, but not exclusively—that movement allows me to encounter and consider.

Nancy Jo CullenNancy Jo Cullen’s “Ashes” was published in Issue 13 of The Puritan, and was selected for the Journey Prize Anthology. Her first collection of short stories, Canary, published by Biblioasis, was nominated in 2014 for the CBC Bookies.Shawn Syms: In an interview following the publication of your third poetry collection, Untitled Child, you discussed your hiatus from poetry and the experience of writing the award-winning short-fiction collection Canary. You stated that “writing short fiction [...] is more like poetry than one might think.”Clearly there are thematic resonances across your poetry and short stories, for instance substance abuse and its impact on relationships. Can you expand a bit more on your personal experience of the similarities in writing between these two genres, either from a formal perspective or the point of view of your writing process itself?Nancy Jo Cullen: I find the genesis of stories very similar to the genesis of poems; for me, both tend to begin with a single word, sentence, or image. I like to take that little seed and think and write around it until I’ve worked it into something I’m happy with.I think another quality that stories and poems share is that they have a tighter focus. For instance, it’s unlikely that I would add a sub-plot to a short story unless I was writing a longer one. I look for a story to pack a kind of punch and I look for the same from a poem. To quote Raymond Carver, I like to “Get in, get out. Don’t linger. Go on.”At this point in my life short stories are the form I love to work with. It pleases me to finish a story and then begin to think of another. It pleases me to work on more than one story at a time. (Perhaps this speaks to my distractible nature more than anything.) I have the same pleasure reading stories. When I connect with a short story collection it is like discovering a little smorgasbord of author ideas and experiments.

Angela HibbsAngela Hibbs was featured in Issue 23 of The Puritan. Sin Eater is her third collection, published this spring by ARP Books.E Martin Nolan: Sin Eater contains a number of replacements and reversals. The opening poem, “In Which Sin Replaces Culture,” repurposes lines from T.S. Eliot’s Notes Toward the Definition of Culture, replacing not only “culture” with “sin” but also “enemy” with “virtue”, “priest” with “politician” and more. “Bariatric Surgery” describes a weight-loss procedure as a meal, “Photograph” replaces “composition” with “decomposition,” etc.Then, in the final poem: “I dip onto the shoulder [of the highway]; it dips into me./ The weather keeps me company.” I sense some comfort there, like the book has engaged and recontextualized our traditional sense of sin not to repudiate the past but to learn from the past to make the present more bearable. It becomes a question, then, of updating, rather than replacing, cultural forms. I sense a similar relationship to poetic form, and not only in Sin Eater, but in Wanton as well. That is, I am reading you as a poet who is willing to use traditional methods like refrain or rhyme, but in a way that is unmistakably not backward looking. So my question is: in terms of both poetic and cultural form, is there a parallel reconciliation of past forms to new realities?Angela Hibbs: The starting point of the book was an observation that tabloid culture (which is generally thought to be low culture) is interested exclusively in ethics, particularly sloth, gluttony, greed, avarice, which I think of as high cultural concerns. Really, the Enquirer could be called Sinners! and it would be a more suitable title.  So, with that in mind, I wrote about things that have changed with regard to body image, that we can now get bariatric surgery to solve the problem of the sin of gluttony, per se.  We no longer have to be good if we can hide the evidence, perhaps. When I was researching, I saw that there used to be tape worms to help you with weight loss and though this didn't make it into the book, the sense that what is appropriate can become insane is always a good reminder in the era of shooting botulism into your face.As for “Photograph,” I think decomposition is essential to composition. Also, one of the themes of the book is death which leads to the subject of “the poem is dead” (literally decomposing) so the language of the poem uses the word in several senses. If it is composed it can be decomposed. Even if it is uranium. I'm not interested in strict adherence to any written forms. I write bloated villanelles and I undo sonnets into free verse as normal parts of daily practice. I think of poems as evidence of practice. I am drawn to insight in writing and I use refrain and rhyme when they enhance the cause. I like songs. I like repetition. It increases the word count and adds bulk.  Iambs are meant to tie poems to our heart beats. Rhythm is the main way that I am able to make my poems physical. I get tired of reading things that are very predictable rhythmically and find myself cutting a lot of lines where I'm doing that. Writing is wrestling in that way. How cheesy do I want to be? How intellectually inaccessible do I want to be? Who am I writing for? Why am I writing? I have written a lot in the confessional tradition and so writing about sin and not confessing anything at all was really a great game for me.

David James BrockDavid James Brock was featured in Issue 17 of The Puritan. His first collection of poetry, Everyone is CO2, was published in 2014 by Wolsak & Wynn’s newest imprint Buckrider Books.E Martin Nolan: Given that vocalization is the physical manifestation of a written word, does your relationship to the spoken word change when you write poetry, because—as opposed to plays and libretto—there is a strong possibility that it won’t be spoken?David James Brock: I’m still sorting this out, but generally, I approach things in roughly the same manner, which is with an eye for clarity. Across genres, I want people to understand the text. Accidental ambiguity is a problem. So speaking a poem aloud after it’s down helps me shape it (and later, helps me figure out which ones are suited for public readings). This goes back to a piece of advice from Sean Virgo I received in a second year fiction class at the University of Victoria, and one I often share now that I’m a writing instructor: that our outer ear is a more reliable editor than our inner ear. I like considering how audible clarity can be reflected on the page.If anything, I’m more concerned with whether or not the text is intended for music. That affects the writing for sure. Libretto demands more restraint than playwriting and my current brand of poetry. I think that difference is apparent in Sewing the Earthworm and Gilgamesh, the two libretti included in Everyone is CO₂. Music will carry the text the way white space, line breaks, or more text simply can’t.