A Conversation with Arisa White

As I read You're the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, the new collection by poet Arisa White, published in 2016, I felt that I wasn't connecting deeply enough with this work.  Although I noticed and appreciated the bravery and beauty of these poems, many of which have titles from 'a List of terms for gay in different languages' on Wikipedia, I couldn't help but wonder: am I too old, too traditional, or even too straight to really “get” this work?  When I read poetry, I want to savor the beauty of the words and their arrangement, but I also seek to understand the meaning of the poems. This is essential to my enjoyment of poetry.  Fortunately, Arisa White agreed to answer my (somewhat eclectic) interview questions, presented here.  My hope was that a conversation with her would strengthen my understanding of and connection to her work. 

A Conversation with Arisa White

1) Welcome, Arisa, and thank you for being so gracious and patient with me!  As mentioned, I struggled a bit to find connection to your work.  Who do you think is the ideal reader of this collection of poems?

AW: I think someone who can live in the interstices.  Someone who understands and knows grief, a broken heart, who pines for things to be just, who is not afraid of her well, he who goes inward, they who write for the here and sensuous logic.  She who sees and resists the restraints put on the body,he who story tells and finds other ways, they who disobey hegemonic voices and choruses on and on 
and on . . . .

Spoken like a true poet, Arisa!   :)

2) Tell me something important about this collection that I may have missed.

AW: I don’t know what you’ve missed. Makes me think of the bus driving off as you run to it. And do you keep running because it is a bus you need to catch?  I wonder, what made you late?  What were the conditions that made arriving on time, now a missing for you? The funny thing is this collection is exploring that same thing--missing. The way it leaves a certain presence in the body. The absence shapes you. And as it does it’s shaping, you learn to exist with it. You learn a new understanding of your body and its emotional terrain as the relationship matures. In that maturation, things are nurtured--the imagination, for one, and the way you maneuver language, and quiet and silence too, so it better speaks to you, is another. So the language is full with you.  Each poem explores some form of missing and the transformation that occurs.

Arisa, at least I didn't miss the missing theme, mentioned above! Your poems eloquently express longing and loss and love.

3) What gift (or gifts) do you want to give your readers?

AW: Joy.  Nuanced emotional literacy.  Rigor.  Possibility.  Inspiration.  Contemplation.  Provocation.

I'd add Harmony to your list, Arisa.

4)  Do you hope to reveal, or conceal, in You're the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, which seems to be a love letter?   How autobiographical is this collection? 

AW: It does feel very much like a love letter. A love letter that has been written in private and public places in the body and within the culture at large. A love letter written at different points on the waves of love, at different moments when you encounter a “new” way of comprehending love. A love letter to how love leaves you open and changed. This collection is not autobiographical. It pulls from my personal sphere. Too much is taken from what is around me--gossip, media, family narratives, books, popular culture, music. The I in the collection is an outward I, an I in community, in intimate relationship to the ecologies that form its making. You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened is the house made from tensions of bodies in relationship to their own and other bodies. 

5) What, if anything, did you (or an editor) edit out of this book?

AW: There were six poems removed from the original manuscript. The work had a different tone, and at times reminded me of pieces that could have gone in my debut collection Hurrah’s Nest—those poems were more autobiographical. Some of the edited-out poems were an exercise in language, and after revising them, sometimes radically, they didn’t make sense to me.  I couldn’t place their sense within in the collection. With the removal of those poems, I was better able to see the overall creative enterprise of the work, and as result I then included the suite of poems “Effluvium”; “Effluvium” brings attention to AIDS and its impact on black women, but expands itself to address violence against women.

 
6) If you could set one of the poems in this book to music, and turn it into a song, which poem would it be, and why?   

AW: Not music, and that may be because there is already “music” present in the work—its prosody, assonance, slant rhyme, etc.  However, I do see “Lady in the House: Kitchen Speeches” as short film. That persona is so irreverent and radically self-possessed that to see her embodied would be great. The setting of the kitchen is very feminine, and so knowledge has been exchanged at kitchen tables, near the stove, washing dishes.  It is a powerful creative space, a space where women cook for revolutions, commune and congregate, take time for themselves, make themselves beautiful, prepare their medicines, concoct poison and bombs.

Arisa, it's interesting that you singled out this poem and mentioned that you can see it as a short film.  It's one of my favorites in your book.  I agree that the setting of the kitchen, sometimes called the heart of the home, is both feminine and powerful (I like that coupling). To my surprise, I've grown to love my own kitchen over the years; it has become a creative and comfortable space for me. There are many profound lines in "Lady in the House: Kitchen Speeches", such as:

"I've been searching for one pure answer, one complete
thing to feed loss.  Something grown for your mouths,
a recipe my pots don't refuse."

7) How does the writing process affect you, emotionally and/or spiritually?  Why did you choose poetry over prose?

AW: Writing is an integrative act.  Different parts come together to make something, and from that making something becomes known.  Something is realized, and what that means for me is that I’ve freed myself.  In the ways we are socially constructed and therefore disempowered, I get my power back, bit by bit, trauma by trauma, generation by generation, and so I know myself more by being engaged in the creative act that socially created me.  I’m more present in my body, even when I’m told to be fearful because I’m black, woman, queer, etc.  I can write myself right as an inhabitant of this earth.  My “I” has broader (in)sight.  And poetry aligns more closely with how I see/perceive the world.

Arisa, your statement, "I can write myself right as an inhabitant of this earth", is excellent.  The act of writing, to a writer, is, of course, extremely valuable.  As far as poetry goes, you seem to be a natural poet. 

After thinking about your answers, I realized that I needed to read your poems with more freedom, meaning that although your content is meaningful, I shouldn't seek or expect a complete, literal understanding.  I was reminded (once again!) that my approach to reading poetry should be different than my approach to reading prose. This  conversation did help me to connect more closely with your work.  Thank you very much for this interview, Arisa! 
 

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Thanks as well to Serena from Poetic Book Tours for arranging this tour and for providing a print copy of this book.  For more reviews and features, please visit the other stops on the tour for You're the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened.  I've linked this review to Serena's 2016 Poetry Challenge.

Thanks for reading!  As always, your comments are welcomed. 

Why I Write Poetry, not Prose: A Guest Post by Laura Foley

Laura Foley is the author of four collections of poetry: Joy Street, The Glass Tree, Mapping the Fourth Dimension, and Syringa.  As if being a poet isn't enough, she's also a volunteer chaplain, yoga teacher, and creative arts facilitator in hospitals, who resides in Vermont with her partner, Clara, and their three dogs.  In connection with yesterday's review of Joy Street, here is an exclusive guest post by Laura Foley, which includes a poem.

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Laura's workspace

Why I Write Poetry, not Prose: A Guest Post by Laura Foley

For this blog post, I am asking the question why I write poetry, not prose.  Many of the poems in my new chapbook, Joy Street, originated in a writing group for prose writers.  I was the only poet, and I wanted to see what it would be like to try prose.  As it turned out, everything I wrote came out in little bursts of images, emotional explosions.  Some people call them prose poems, some people call them poems, some say it’s flash non-fiction. Whatever the name, writing these small stories is what I most enjoy doing, and feels genuine to my experience.  I love the process of working an image into a shape, to chip at a block of remembered experience until it shines with it’s own essence.  When I was a kid, I liked to collect postage stamps, exotic animals from Africa, a queen from Spain, an Indonesian palm leaf: lovely little worlds.  Also as a child, I had a mineral collection, each one in its own little box.  I’ve written a poem about this which I’ll include here.  Maybe it explains a little about why I write poems?  In any case, whatever I write, I hope it shines.


Little Rooms

In fourth grade I made a box
for stones, twenty little rooms, 
each gem tidy
on its cotton-puff bed: 
limonite, quartz, azurite; 
each name printed neatly on paper labels
in royal blue: garnet, 
muscovite, feldspar. 
Twenty little rooms
equal in comfort, 
labeled with certainty: 
pyrite, gypsum, magnetite; 
each owning definite properties: 
could scratch lines on another, or not, 
shine like gold, streak like chalk, 
or break glass-like
into fragile prismatic shards.


Thank you very much for your guest post and poem, Laura!  I enjoyed reading this "small story", as well as the ones in Joy Street.  Your poems truly are "like crystal: delicate, sharp, clear, full of light", as poet Patricia Fargnoli says, and they emanate joy.

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Special thanks to Serena from Savvy Verse and Wit and to Lisa from TLC for the opportunity to present this guest post.  Please visit the other stops on TLC's book blog tour for Joy Street.  

Your comments are appreciated.  If you'd like an additional entry in my giveaway for Joy Street, please indicate that in your comment here. 

Joy Street: Review and Giveaway

“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
~ Mark Twain 

Published in 2014, Joy Street by poet Laura Foley is a chapbook of thirty-three poems.  I read Joy Street quickly and intently one afternoon, then reread it on a different day, and jotted down some notes.  I read a few of the poems out loud (when I was the only one at home) because poetry is meant to be heard.  I'm never quite sure how to best read or review a collection of poems (or short stories), but I suppose there is no right or wrong way.

The poems in Joy Street are honest and personal, and could be autobiographical.  Some of the poems (or poetic narratives) are written as descriptive paragraphs, rather than in stanzas.  Below is a short example of this style, in Laura Foley's poem about writing, which will resonate with writers.


On Sense

After two beach weeks, sun-tanned and sandy, I perch, air-deprived as 
a pet canary, amidst piled books, diligently marking paper with pen, 
while anybody with any sense enjoys the air at the nearest body of 
water, as I follow the urge to make sense of surf, to make waves that 
may outlast memory. 


The title of the collection, Joy Street, is found in the poem, No GPS Necessary, although the author's profound sense of joy is present throughout the book.  Laura Foley expresses the joy she feels in various poems: while buying fruit in Springtime at the Grocery Store, when she sees her partner, Clara, gardening in Voyeur, while Clara is at the hospital in Like Teenagers, and elsewhere. This poet shares her joy with readers in a clear, direct, and distinct manner.  The collection is aptly titled, and these poems gracefully capture moments of joy.  I found the poems interesting and I enjoyed reading them.  Joy Street made me think about the joy I feel in my own life (my cup runneth over at times), and it made me feel appreciative.

Thanks to the author and TLC, I'm very pleased to offer a giveaway for this book (U.S.A. /Canada).

• To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment.
• For another chance at winning, become a follower of this blog, or indicate that you're already a follower.
• For an additional chance, post about this contest on your blog, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter.
• For another chance, share some joy!  Name "a little thing" that gives you joy (mine is panang curry with tofu). 
• For one more entry, leave a comment on tomorrow's guest post with Laura Foley.

Enter by 5 PM PDT on Monday, February 2.  One winner will be selected randomly and announced on Tuesday, February 3.  Best of luck to all!


Special thanks to Serena from Savvy Verse and Wit for inviting me to participate in this tour, and to Lisa from TLC for providing a copy of this book.  Please stop by again tomorrow for my guest post with Laura Foley.  For more reviews, giveaways, and other features, visit the other stops on TLC's book blog tour for Joy Street.

Really Random Tuesday #86: A Book Winner, and a Sassy Quotation

Please help me to congratulate Carl Scott, who has won a copy of My Thinning Years, a memoir by Jon Derek Croteau.  Congratulations, Carl!

Thanks to all who participated in my giveaway, and special thanks to TLC and the publisher, for offering a copy of this book to one of my readers.  We bloggers are fortunate to be able to offer our readers so many wonderful book giveaways!  :)

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This Really Random Tuesday post will be short.  I'm still reading Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, slowly but surely.  (This will be a book I'll miss reading when I'm done.)  I don't have a recipe to post today (although I'm dreaming of making white bean chili tonight, a recipe I found in my inbox).  I'm not sure it's in "good taste" to share yesterday's humorous quotation from my Wild Words from Wild Women calendar, although at least it's related to books, so:

Shh...

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Appearing on random Tuesdays, Really Random Tuesday is a way to post odds and ends--announcements, musings, quotes, photos--any blogging and book-related things you can think of.  I often announce my book giveaway winners in these posts.  If you have miscellaneous book news to gather up and are inspired by this idea, "grab" the button for use on your own blog, and add your link to the "master" Mister Linky on the Really Random Tuesday page.

Thanks for stopping by!  Your comments are welcomed. 

My Thinning Years: Review and Giveaway

"The force inside of me, the commander in chief that was in charge of this war I was waging, was not me, but was actually an extension of my father.  From deep within me, as he had since I was a child, he was ordering me to starve the faggot inside.  At my foundation, conscious or unconscious, I knew that my father would rather I be dead than be gay."
~ My Thinning Years, Jon Derek Croteau


In My Thinning Years: Starving the Gay Within, a memoir by Jon Derek Croteau, published in September of 2014, the author talks a lot about his father, a bully who constantly criticized his wife and three children, Jared, Julie, and Jon.  The youngest of three children who grew up in Ohio and then in Massachusetts, Jon was mesmerized by his mother's loveliness, and was very close to her.  In this book, Jon says that his father, a volunteer athletic coach,  "pushed him into the three sports that he considered manliest: basketball, baseball, and, worst of all, football", even though Jon enjoyed participating in musical theater and was an excellent singer.  Jon was belittled, taunted, and abused by his father, emotionally and physically; his father beat Jon and his siblings with his belt, and he punished them by making them skip meals.  His father often warned Jon not to eat "fattening" foods, and made him feel fat and self-conscious about his body.  Not surprisingly, Jon developed eating disorders as an adolescent; he started to count fat grams and to severely restrict his caloric intake; and he started to run, compulsively.

"I kept running and cutting food from my diet.  Oftentimes, when I'd run endlessly, suffering with determination, I would think about my father.  I wondered if he would be sad if I collapsed on the side of the road."
~ My Thinning Years, Jon Derek Croteau

No matter what Jon did, it was not good enough for his father, who called him a "sissy" (and worse names), and made him feel terrible about himself.  Jon struggled intensely as a youth, and became despondent and suicidal, largely because his father refused to accept him the way he was.  Jon's father created (or at least contributed significantly to) the homophobic feelings that Jon adopted, and to his disgust with himself as a young man unsure about and unsettled by the onset of his sexual feelings.  Jon admired girls and women, and had many female friends over the years (such as Katie, in preschool), but he did not feel attracted to them.  As an adolescent, Jon did not want to be gay.  He didn't want to be different from the other boys, who lusted after girls, yet he gradually realized that he was different, as he developed strong feelings for his best friend in high school, "Chad". 

"After everything I've seen, my mission is nothing less than to help others."
~ Preface, My Thinning Years, Jon Derek Croteau

I'm touched and grateful when people who have endured very difficult pasts want to share their stories in order to help others.  The author hopes his candid memoir will help others to stop punishing themselves and to accept who they truly are.  My Thinning Years is a thoroughly engaging, touching, and sometimes funny memoir, which presents a portrait of a sensitive and gifted young man growing up with a quick-tempered, abusive, and homophobic father.  Children are at the mercy of their parents, and they tend to internalize their parents' ideas and values.  It upset me to read about Jon's father's beliefs and behavior, and about their profound effects on Jon; his father really was a tyrant.  However, Jon's story is gripping, honest, and well-written, and it's also a hopeful, inspiring story about success.  With the help of family and caring friends, and through an empowering Outward Bound trip, and counseling, Jon learns to accept himself, and he discovers how to best deal with his father, and how to overcome his eating disorders and psychologically grueling past.

Terrific news!  The publisher, Hazelden, is generously offering a copy of this affecting memoir, My Thinning Years, as a giveaway (U.S./Canada only).

• To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment.
• For another chance at winning, become a follower of this blog, or let me know that you're already a follower.
• For an additional chance, post about this contest on your blog, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter.

Enter by 5 PM PDT on Monday, October 20.  One winner will be selected randomly and announced on Tuesday, October 21.  Good luck! 

Special thanks to Lisa from TLC for sending me an advance copy of this memoir.  For more reviews, giveaways, and other features, please visit the other stops on TLC's book blog tour for My Thinning Years.