These set of poems I entitled “Linger” were worked on in the beginning half of 2007 under the guidance of the poet Donna Masini.
While the poems of 2006 dealt a lot with the feelings of “distance” and “fear”, I feel like in these poems I began to face many of my own taboos. What I mean by that is I started writing more into the subject of the “self”, regardless of whether it’s myself or the “self” of others.
Donna Masini also played a big part in inducing this poetic change for me. Masini is a bit less of an “image poet” as Gabis (in my opinion), in her poetry I think she tends to focus a lot more on the energies of physical interaction. “Words are physical,” she said to me once, and that poetry is something that she reads with her heart. I think during that time I interpreted her styles as working with a kind of muscle memory, to convey emotions through bodily reactions to matters.
Let’s look at “Your Carousel”.
This poem was interesting for me to write because it’s on a subject that I have thought and written about for a bit of time. I was addressing a friend of mine who passed away in high school, while remembering my fascination with the gothic and macabre. A lot of the images I used here are very meta-physical, and by that I mean they were created from memory but of association. This probably sounds a little weird, but in a way it can be seen as embellishments to my memories, but to me I feel like I wrote from an interpretation of the physical feelings I have felt for the situation.
When I look at the images I am sometimes still a bit surprised at the things that I wrote. Things like:
“the black lace parasol you used to hold in the rain for an excuse to drown.”
or
“children running into your unlit carousel”
and even
“silence only for the occasional tears rolling down powdered faces”.
I think I was mostly inspired by my friend’s character, and kind of her perspective and her approach to sickness and ultimately death. The syneaesthesia I created in the poem was almost like my answer to her suffering and her passing, the beauty that I believed was involved in her pain.
The process of writing this poem was very different from what I had been doing previously. I think I allowed myself to be more aware of the part of me that was still grieving, letting my subconscious speak in metaphors. It was almost like I was establishing a “self” out of that side of me, a persona if you will.
I never really noticed how this “period” of my poetry explored the different facets of me. Another piece that I found to be very important during this time was “Exhibition: Self-portrait on Canvas”.
I’m not sure what went through my head while I was writing this, but it probably had something to do with that Plath that I was reading. (Typical, I know) Masini was big on Plath, and the one thing that she always talked about was her ability to perform on the page. I was actually getting into the idea of performance art during that time, which may have contributed to this poem as well. But I digress…
This is not a poem that I am very proud of; I wouldn’t say it’s a finished piece by any means, but I do enjoy the roughness it brings. The poem explicitly explores a bodily relationship, an empathic connection between the speaker and the subject. The speaker is deeply affected by the physicality of the subject, and he/she is eager to understand the causality of the subject’s actions.
There are lines that suggest a strange kind of intimacy between the two:
“Screaming helps him concentrate” “…trembles at the sight of blood”
But also lines that suggest distance, criticism, and unfamiliarity:
“Thick red syllables\That clog too quickly” “Skin rips, his stroke angry and\Too verbose for the canvas”
The speaker narrates the every action of the “painter”, and the poem ultimately gets lost in a whirlpool of the speaker’s obsession and the subject’s passions.
I find the discourse in this poem quite intriguing because it is an attempt to understand a “self” by indirectly addressing it on the page. It is almost as if the speaker is attempting to crack the subject even though there is no direct interaction between the two, and it’s more than just an address, there is the desire to redact.
. . .
I also started writing tiny poems like “Before” around this time. They are almost like imagery exercises, and they’re great for learning to compress language, I think. And again, this poem is clearly very egocentric, and contains a lot of physical eros (as Masini would say).
I think overall there’s a feeling of daring desperation in this set of poems, especially compared to the work of the previous year. Even Masini had told me to “relax” in her comments, and I think she had seen the impatience that I wrote with throughout this course. It’s as if I have been imprisoning many voices inside of me—capturing moments, images, voices, as I have in the past and then I finally decided to let it all out to speak for themselves.
Showing posts with label Donna Masini. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donna Masini. Show all posts
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
A bit on Donna Masini
Donna Masini
-Born: December 13; Flatbush, Brooklyn.
-Grandparents from Italy; Paternal (Florence), Maternal (Potenza).
-Mother came from a family of ten, Father from a family of four.
-Came from family of four; being the oldest.
-Neither parents finished a college education.
-Attended Catholic elementary school until 4th grade, then Catholic high school; only child in her family to go to Catholic school.
Education:
-Hunter College BA Phi Beta Kappa, major: Honors, concentration in English and Classics.
-NYU Masters in Creative Writing (Poetry)
Quotes from a 1996 interview:
“It wasn't until I was writing--in the very politicized atmosphere of the eighties--that I tried to figure out what "class" I came from. Indeed when Adrienne Rich blurbed my book and called me "working class," I was upset. I felt branded, dirty, exposed. The underlying assumption that my work would be less intelligent. (This of course despite my love for the work of many other working class writers)”
“Despite the fact that I write about my family, oil burners, etc. I was always afraid of being found out. At Hunter College I was afraid teachers, other students from educated families, would sense I was an imposter. Ironically, one of my most important teachers at Hunter--James Wright, who is from Ohio--appeared to me to be so refined that I would never have suspected his background, and in fact took pains to hide my own from him.”
“I am primarily heterosexual (though of course one can always “visit”…)”
Communion
We called it “receiving,” and each of us in our bridal
white, walked down the aisle toward the Body
of Christ, our poofy dresses and veils floating, crowns
on our heads, clutching our rosaries and bouquets—those
carnations we'd lifted out of green tissue from the florist’s
box.
(Does any flower have a fresher smell?) I led the procession
with Kathy Creamer, rows and rows of tiny brides.
We had not eaten. We had not drunk. We had confessed
the day before. We were pure. We would never be so pure
again
once the body had entered us. We made our way back
down the aisle. I held the disk my body
had prepared itself to carry, lightly on my tongue, careful
not to let my teeth graze the host. I know I smiled an idiotic,
beatific smile.
Later I’d say it was because I was receiving
the Lord (I’d bow my head and say the name) Jesus,
but even then I knew I was acting, faking it, my spirit rising
above the aisle—looking down on the rows of us to see how
I looked
now I had received. Maybe that’s why, back in our pews, we
were told
to put our heads in our hands—to keep us from drifting.
To keep us in our bodies. We knelt, face in hand, and
waited.
Or maybe It was too much to see that very man—the
incarnation
stretched before us—naked but for the floating cloth—
those beautiful legs stretched across the altar and we girls,
having received,
kneeling under the groin vault. Or maybe we just couldn’t
let anyone see our faces when finally, after years of waiting,
we held it in our mouths—Corpus Christi—that first time,
that first man we took into our bodies.
1) Where do you put the line between poetry and fiction?
I think that when I’m working with a poem, technically… sometimes I stop thinking about the people or the subject matter and I’m working with the play of the dynamic of line and syntax, the dynamic between what the line is doing and what is the sentence or fragment or what the crumble of syntax is doing.. But I can say that about fiction too, I mean the character is right there… I had a funny thing happened to me recently where somebody recognized a character in my book, it was a minor character and it was a complete projection on her part because the only thing that was right there was the red hair and a name… which was funny to me, I had a very different picture of what that character was, but people bring to your work ideas about you or their feelings about you.
2) How has Catholicism affected your writing?
I think it would first of all be the sense of mystery… I mean that this psychic gate of growing up Catholic at that particular time… there was a real sense of mystery of transformation, or someone who died and resurrected, and that you were a witness to the mystery of self, the examination of conscience. Fear, all those things are kind are very palpable darkness for me was connected to what my father did, he repaired oil burners, he worked in basements, he was in the muck of it, those two things were both mysterious to me, and they were both transforming… Catholicism was about the transformation and the spirit, but yet to a kid it was very much about fear, guilt and fear… and beauty… also confession, the making of a narrative, of what you had done… atoning for that, all of that was really intriguing and frightening… I think it’s where my imagination was forged…
3) To whom are you writing?
Well I sent an email this morning to… just kidding… it depends…
In poems, I don’t really think about who I’m talking to, I know some people think about that a lot, I’m just trying to see it, I’m just trying to get it down on the page, in some ways there are certain things I love, a diorama, a particular jello mould, just silly things, or memories of something, and I just want to get it on the page, I just want to make somebody see it. So it’s really, I guess there’s a reader that I want to see it… different poems will have different kinds of address…
4) Please name several poets that are important to you.
Gosh… Audre Lorde and James Wrights were like parents to me… June Jordon is a dear friend…
And poets who I read and are really important to me… that shifts from time to time, there was a time when Lorca was huge and Neruda, I would say Elizabeth Bishop, and of course Whitman and Dickenson… I think about poets I teach a lot, they’re not always poets I love deeply, Hopkins, Elliot, Frost... I’m starting to love Frost more and more.
For more contemporary poets… Brenda Hillman, somebody I love, Anne Carson. Of course Mark Doty, I read him almost exclusively for a period of time… I think he’s technically brilliant and a really important poet … you know and then there are close friends whose work means a lot to me…
5) You allowed yourself to become more vulnerable from your first book of poetry to your second, would you disagree?
I think you’re right… I felt a real difference between the speaker, I felt connected to both speaks in both… I think that there was a way especially when I was working on that first book and was really under the sway of Whitman, I remember Li Young Lee saying me to me once… “How do you manage that large voice?”, we were doing a reading today, it was a huge voice, and I don’t think I always quite inhabited that voice, it let me say certain things, and let me write about certain things like Vietnam which was something I really wanted to write out of I guess I would say, Vietnam was something I really wanted to address… but I think towards the end of that book… I came more to a daily language, less incantatory, and I was really interested in particular versions of the self in Turning to Fiction, self and story… so you’re absolutely right, it’s a different register in a certain way.
6) How has becoming a teacher affected your writing?
I have to learn a lot more when I become a teacher. There was a lot I had to teach myself about how to, I think my dynamic with people is good, but you know you want to help people with their poems, so I had to learn how to help different students get through to their imagination. So it was a lot of technical things… I really feel privileged in a way to be working with the imaginations, the inner lives of so many different kinds of people, and actually be able to in some way service that or help that, it gives you that kind of intimacy… It has taught me a lot about people, the differences between people. I’ve also seen extraordinary imaginations different from my own. Now I can say that about my friends certainly and with other poets, but with students you’re almost fostering their own relationship with their imagination and I’ve also been amazed by the kinds of breakthroughs people have had, I’ve been challenged by my students… It’s interesting to me, on the other side of it is, it’s really hard to maintain an intimacy with my own imagination while I’m teaching.
-Born: December 13; Flatbush, Brooklyn.
-Grandparents from Italy; Paternal (Florence), Maternal (Potenza).
-Mother came from a family of ten, Father from a family of four.
-Came from family of four; being the oldest.
-Neither parents finished a college education.
-Attended Catholic elementary school until 4th grade, then Catholic high school; only child in her family to go to Catholic school.
Education:
-Hunter College BA Phi Beta Kappa, major: Honors, concentration in English and Classics.
-NYU Masters in Creative Writing (Poetry)
Quotes from a 1996 interview:
“It wasn't until I was writing--in the very politicized atmosphere of the eighties--that I tried to figure out what "class" I came from. Indeed when Adrienne Rich blurbed my book and called me "working class," I was upset. I felt branded, dirty, exposed. The underlying assumption that my work would be less intelligent. (This of course despite my love for the work of many other working class writers)”
“Despite the fact that I write about my family, oil burners, etc. I was always afraid of being found out. At Hunter College I was afraid teachers, other students from educated families, would sense I was an imposter. Ironically, one of my most important teachers at Hunter--James Wright, who is from Ohio--appeared to me to be so refined that I would never have suspected his background, and in fact took pains to hide my own from him.”
“I am primarily heterosexual (though of course one can always “visit”…)”
Communion
We called it “receiving,” and each of us in our bridal
white, walked down the aisle toward the Body
of Christ, our poofy dresses and veils floating, crowns
on our heads, clutching our rosaries and bouquets—those
carnations we'd lifted out of green tissue from the florist’s
box.
(Does any flower have a fresher smell?) I led the procession
with Kathy Creamer, rows and rows of tiny brides.
We had not eaten. We had not drunk. We had confessed
the day before. We were pure. We would never be so pure
again
once the body had entered us. We made our way back
down the aisle. I held the disk my body
had prepared itself to carry, lightly on my tongue, careful
not to let my teeth graze the host. I know I smiled an idiotic,
beatific smile.
Later I’d say it was because I was receiving
the Lord (I’d bow my head and say the name) Jesus,
but even then I knew I was acting, faking it, my spirit rising
above the aisle—looking down on the rows of us to see how
I looked
now I had received. Maybe that’s why, back in our pews, we
were told
to put our heads in our hands—to keep us from drifting.
To keep us in our bodies. We knelt, face in hand, and
waited.
Or maybe It was too much to see that very man—the
incarnation
stretched before us—naked but for the floating cloth—
those beautiful legs stretched across the altar and we girls,
having received,
kneeling under the groin vault. Or maybe we just couldn’t
let anyone see our faces when finally, after years of waiting,
we held it in our mouths—Corpus Christi—that first time,
that first man we took into our bodies.
1) Where do you put the line between poetry and fiction?
I think that when I’m working with a poem, technically… sometimes I stop thinking about the people or the subject matter and I’m working with the play of the dynamic of line and syntax, the dynamic between what the line is doing and what is the sentence or fragment or what the crumble of syntax is doing.. But I can say that about fiction too, I mean the character is right there… I had a funny thing happened to me recently where somebody recognized a character in my book, it was a minor character and it was a complete projection on her part because the only thing that was right there was the red hair and a name… which was funny to me, I had a very different picture of what that character was, but people bring to your work ideas about you or their feelings about you.
2) How has Catholicism affected your writing?
I think it would first of all be the sense of mystery… I mean that this psychic gate of growing up Catholic at that particular time… there was a real sense of mystery of transformation, or someone who died and resurrected, and that you were a witness to the mystery of self, the examination of conscience. Fear, all those things are kind are very palpable darkness for me was connected to what my father did, he repaired oil burners, he worked in basements, he was in the muck of it, those two things were both mysterious to me, and they were both transforming… Catholicism was about the transformation and the spirit, but yet to a kid it was very much about fear, guilt and fear… and beauty… also confession, the making of a narrative, of what you had done… atoning for that, all of that was really intriguing and frightening… I think it’s where my imagination was forged…
3) To whom are you writing?
Well I sent an email this morning to… just kidding… it depends…
In poems, I don’t really think about who I’m talking to, I know some people think about that a lot, I’m just trying to see it, I’m just trying to get it down on the page, in some ways there are certain things I love, a diorama, a particular jello mould, just silly things, or memories of something, and I just want to get it on the page, I just want to make somebody see it. So it’s really, I guess there’s a reader that I want to see it… different poems will have different kinds of address…
4) Please name several poets that are important to you.
Gosh… Audre Lorde and James Wrights were like parents to me… June Jordon is a dear friend…
And poets who I read and are really important to me… that shifts from time to time, there was a time when Lorca was huge and Neruda, I would say Elizabeth Bishop, and of course Whitman and Dickenson… I think about poets I teach a lot, they’re not always poets I love deeply, Hopkins, Elliot, Frost... I’m starting to love Frost more and more.
For more contemporary poets… Brenda Hillman, somebody I love, Anne Carson. Of course Mark Doty, I read him almost exclusively for a period of time… I think he’s technically brilliant and a really important poet … you know and then there are close friends whose work means a lot to me…
5) You allowed yourself to become more vulnerable from your first book of poetry to your second, would you disagree?
I think you’re right… I felt a real difference between the speaker, I felt connected to both speaks in both… I think that there was a way especially when I was working on that first book and was really under the sway of Whitman, I remember Li Young Lee saying me to me once… “How do you manage that large voice?”, we were doing a reading today, it was a huge voice, and I don’t think I always quite inhabited that voice, it let me say certain things, and let me write about certain things like Vietnam which was something I really wanted to write out of I guess I would say, Vietnam was something I really wanted to address… but I think towards the end of that book… I came more to a daily language, less incantatory, and I was really interested in particular versions of the self in Turning to Fiction, self and story… so you’re absolutely right, it’s a different register in a certain way.
6) How has becoming a teacher affected your writing?
I have to learn a lot more when I become a teacher. There was a lot I had to teach myself about how to, I think my dynamic with people is good, but you know you want to help people with their poems, so I had to learn how to help different students get through to their imagination. So it was a lot of technical things… I really feel privileged in a way to be working with the imaginations, the inner lives of so many different kinds of people, and actually be able to in some way service that or help that, it gives you that kind of intimacy… It has taught me a lot about people, the differences between people. I’ve also seen extraordinary imaginations different from my own. Now I can say that about my friends certainly and with other poets, but with students you’re almost fostering their own relationship with their imagination and I’ve also been amazed by the kinds of breakthroughs people have had, I’ve been challenged by my students… It’s interesting to me, on the other side of it is, it’s really hard to maintain an intimacy with my own imagination while I’m teaching.
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