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David Peak – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

Dear David Peak,
 
The second pot of coffee made it impossible to stay inside the house. But it also made it certain you were going to need a bathroom while outside. Every place you try to get into has a little coin-operated lock on the door.
 
By the time you do find a little dive bar without one, the toilet doesn’t even have a stall door, the blasphemies scrawled around it don’t even begin to match the abominations contained in the bowl itself. In fact, as you look a little closer, though you don’t want to you, you can’t help but try to identify the thing slowly bubbling there in the puce-colored muck, and it just might, it just might be . . .
 
YOUR APOSTROPHE CAST INTERVIEW
 
This email interview will be published unedited. Only the questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.

1) Does thinking about the future inspire you, or depress you? Or can depression be inspiring?

I think I’d probably be a better, more well-adjusted person, if the world was more like Blade Runner. I’ve often wished that things were more like Blade Runner. A world like that would definitely inspire me. Until then–it’s just depression. And I don’t know if I buy into the whole “finding inspiration through depression” thing. When I’m depressed I usually just lie in bed with the lights off and watch The X-Files.

4) How many times can you make an observation before you are quoting yourself?

This is a funny question–it resonates with me. I often say the same things over and over again. I will watch and re-watch movies and continue to comment on the exact same moments and scenes. Like the part in Blade Runner when Batty dies and releases the dove. That’s awesome every time. Or the way that LA seems to be constantly experiencing wretched weather. I’ve often wished that things were more like Blade Runner. I love bad weather.

5) Is fiction competitive?

Yes. You have to get to the end first otherwise you are dead.
 
6) Where is last place on earth you’d be caught dead? Do you speak from experience?

Last place in the fiction race. And yeah, I’m speaking from experience.
 
7) What is the most overrated virture? Do you possess it?

Patience–and no. See my answer to the question “Is fiction competitive?”
 
9) What is the longest period of time you have been alone? Where were you? Why were you there?

I’ve never thought about this before, and I don’t know the answer, but I can say that however long it was, it wasn’t long enough. Not that I’m anti-social; I really like people and being around people and talking with people, but isolation allows me to better focus my energies, streamline my thoughts.

In the future, in the Blade Runner world, I imagine that our bedrooms will act as sensory deprivation chambers. Our bedrooms will be small black boxes where we go to essentially turn off the day’s noise and light. Because the world will never stop moving–in the future. The lights will never turn off.

So we will go to our little bedroom/chambers and close the door. Things will stop moving and time will tendril its way through our subconscious. In that space, we will breathe easy.

As for now, I live in New York City, so it seems like I’m never alone–ever.

Thanks,
GBB

Click here to listen to David Peak read an excerpt from his unpublished novel The River Through the Trees for Apostrophe Cast

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2010 08 19 Guy Benjamin Brookshire fiction
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D. W. Lichtenberg – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

dwblog

Dear Mr. Lichtenberg,
 
Down by the seashore you stop into a little shop on the pier. You ask what is best without looking at a menu. You are served a cup of thick chowder.
 
You really love this cup of chowder. It’s creamy, it’s hearty, it’s got a hint of zest. Robust, succulent, savory. Plump chunks of ingredient, buttery, salty, delectable. And then you bite down on it. That unnerving density, that contradictory, yieldling dentitvity. Your nose fills with the smell. You walk over to the chalk board that advertises it, and sure enough . . . there in black and white it says . . .
 
THIS IS YOUR APOSTROHPECAST INTERVIEW
 
This email interview will be published unedited, only the questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.
 
1) What do you owe to Gertrude Stein?

I’ve never read Gertrude Stein. Is she known for repetition? I use repetition a lot, and maybe she does too. That’s my guess. And on that note, I’d like to just state my overwhelming belief in the power of repetition. Localized repetition. It’s the most powerful thing in my tool belt, the only thing really in my tool belt, the only ever only thing.
 
2) Do men and women experience ‘the hip’, ‘hipness,’ or hipitude in general in any fundamentally different way?
 
I don’t know. I think one of my greatest weaknesses as a writer is the inability to imagine what it’s like to be a woman. Which is a challenge that I’ve developed strategies for during the writing of my new book, because half of it is in the first-person of a girl. My main strategy is writing the first-person of the girl way after the boy. Which is banking on the future, which is something I rarely do.
 
3) If a word appears in a work of visual art, do you read it differently? Can you explain how?

I’m art-dumb.
 
4) What book should someone read if they have just discovered they have a serious disease?

Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
 
7) Is there any poet or writer you enjoy, but cannot think of how they influence you?

J.D. Salinger is the writer I maybe most admire, for the soundness of his work, and the stubbornness of his vision. I don’t really think my work is sound or stubborn, but he maybe firmed my belief that a very narrow vision and a first-person story perspective can be wildly successful. Or maybe that any ambition can be attempted in that mode.
 
8) What was the last major music purchase you made?

The last records I bought were the new ones by: The Books, Joanna Newsom, The National, Sonny & the Sunsets, Moonface, and maybe some more.
 
9) Do you like where you live? Why or why not?

 I’ve lived in San Francisco for two years. I don’t love it. I’m an east coast bred liberal type, and in a lot of ways I fall into the stereotypes. I usually don’t get along so hot with native Californians. The culture in SF sort of discourages responsibility & accountability, in lieu of being “laid back”. I’m neurotic as hell, so I tend to have little patience for that sort of thing. Or maybe I just hang in the wrong crowds. I’ve been yearning for that New York City no-bullshit attitude. But SF has a literary scene that New York can’t touch, so there’s that, and it’s a blast.
 
10) Is there anything someone can do to improve their taste in coffee apart from drinking more expensive coffee?

Grind the beans and brew the cup on the spot. Or just start sleeping with a barista.

 
THANK YOU
GBB

Click here, to listen to D.W. Lichtenberg read an excerpt from his novel-in-progress, tentatively titled Time Flies In Ways.

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2010 07 30 Guy Benjamin Brookshire fiction
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David Goodwillie’s (Subversively?) Audio Interview

americansubversiveSpecial guest interviewer, Ken Hamm asks David Goodwillie some questions about his new novel, American Subversive, available now from Scribner.

(Ken Hamm) What were some of your inspirations for the characters?

(David Goodwillie)

 (KH) What was the most personal part of the novel for you?

(DG) 

(KH) Having the two separate voices ends up being a very intimate and separate political thriller. Was that by design? What was the reasoning behind that?

(DG)

(KH) What do you want people to take away from this book experience?

(DG)

(KH) Tell us about your writing process.

(DG)

(KH) Can you even think about what’s next?

(DG)

(KH) How different was the experience for you between approaching a memoir and a piece of fiction?

(DG)

(KH) Are you looking forward to going on tour? How’s the sales part of this process?

(DG)

(KH) Alright, now plug your book.

(DG) 

Listen to David Goodwillie read from American Subversive for Apostophe Cast, by clicking here.

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2010 05 06 Amanda fiction
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Lily Hoang – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

lilyhoangfull

Dear Lily,

You can’t remember when the humming started. At first, you thought your ears were ringing. But no, it definitely got louder when you opened you front door and walked down the street. Other people, too were opening their doors and looking around, asking people they may have never seen before “what’s going on?” It sounded so close, just the next street over. You follow the noise to the parking lot of a school. There is a parked car in the otherwise empty lot. Some people stand at the edges of the blacktop, looking at the car, but only you approach. It is as though you must. No one is sitting in the car, that you can see. The car is not running. As you get closer, you hear people calling to you, but not what they are saying. Are they warning you? Are they asking you what you see. When you are close enough to open the door, you notice the faint glow from the passenger-side floor board. And then you see it

YOUR APOSTROPHE CAST INTERVIEW

This email interview will be published unedited. Only the questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.

1) Do you like museums? Do you prefer art museums to science? What is the last history museum you have been to? What is the strangest museum you have ever been to?

Yes. I prefer art to science museums, but I like them both. The last “history” museum I went to was the Studebaker museum, if cars count as history and I’m not entirely sure they do. I’d like to go to a strange museum. Can you recommend one?

2) Do you live closer to your mother’s parents or your father’s parents? How has that affected your development?

My parents’ parents are all dead, and I only knew my mother’s mother, who lived two backyard fences away from me as a kid. My other grandparents died in Vietnam, long before I was born.

3) Where was your first apartment? What is the worst living situation you ever had to endure? If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

My first apartment was in South Bend, Indiana. The worst living situation I’ve had to endure was also in South Bend, though not my first apartment, but curiously, three doors down from that first place. I lived between a crack head, literally, who accidentally burned down his house, and a witch, again, literally, who displayed coffins in her living room.

4) Have you ever said you didn’t like a book, film, or music when you actually did enjoy it? What was it and why did you deny it? have you ever said you liked something when you really didn’t?

I’ve been criticized for being “too nice.” I try to find redeeming qualities, so I usually “like” things, even when I dislike them. That being said, I dislike more than I like. I dislike most of what I read, but I end up saying I like it, which isn’t a lie, because I like portions of, but very rarely the whole.

5) If you felt profoundly inspired to write something, and wrote it, and felt that it was really very well done, but realized that it might offend many people you know, would you still try to publish it?

Yes.

6) Is there any author that has had an influence on your work that you think other writers may have never heard of? Is there any author who’s work you would plagiarize if you could be certain you would never be
caught?

I’m not nearly as well-read as many of writer-friends, so I wouldn’t want to plagiarize, mainly because the social shame o  being caught would be crushing.

7) Have you ever written about a dream? Have you ever written about someone else’s dream?

In the past, I’ve written about dreams I didn’t have. Now, I dislike writing dreams, and even more than that, I dislike writing about dreams.

8) How old were you when you started being interested in love and relationships? How old were you when you had your first crush? How old were you when you had your first break-up?

My first crush was in fifth grade, Aaron. He was pompous. My first real crush was in eighth grade, Douglas, who played Lalo’s cello concerto like fire. Last I heard, he’s gay and very happy. My first break-up was in ninth grade. (I can’t remember his name, sad, right?) He’s now a woman. Bad luck and poor taste, what can I say?

9) When you see people doing something and think, “I will never do that,” what are they doing?

Probably something profound or important.

10) What is the hardest you have laughed in the past month? What were you laughing at? How hard were you laughing?

I was over at a friend’s place, someone started laughing at a story, so I asked what the story was. After being assured it was a positively banal story, I demanded to hear it, and it was the most boring story but somehow hilarious. So I started laughing. Then, someone else asked, and the cycle continued. I was crying by the time she told her story the fifth or sixth time. It really was a banal story, and I admit, I wasn’t nearly as sober as I could have been.
Thanks,
Guy Benjamin Brookshire

Click here to listen to Lily Hoang read from her novel, Evolutionary Revolution, available July 2010 from Les Figues Press.

Support your local Apostrophe Cast Author – Buy their books!

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2010 04 22 Guy Benjamin Brookshire fiction
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Kristina Marie Darling – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

kristinamariedarlingapostrophecastDear Kristina Marie Darling,
 
You are walking through the woods on a crackling winter’s day. You hear the frozen ground crunching beneath you. Or was there something crunching behind you? The wind on the back of your neck suddenly gets hot. Wet. The odor is nauseating. It can only be a living thing. You are afraid to turn, but there is nothing else to do, as wave after wave washes over your neck.
 
So turn you do . . .
 
And so you see . . .
 
YOUR APOSTROPHECAST INTERVIEW
 
This email interview will be published unedited. Only those questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.

3) Have you ever written a poem just to use a word, or to put it another way, has a single word ever inspired one of your poems?
 
When I first started writing, this was how I started nearly every piece.  It’s certainly dangerous for poetry to rely too much on a story, since this is the really domain of prose.  Dazzling images, feats of alliteration and assonance, and evocative language are the heart of nearly every poem I enjoy reading.  Since a single word is the smallest possible manifestation of these things, it seems like a perfectly logical place to turn for inspiration.  

5) Who is the most poetic philosopher? Who is the most philosophical poet?

Most writing teachers will tell you that every image, word, or phrase in a poem must serve a purpose—like Chekhov’s assertion that if you introduce something into the world you’ve created, then as a rule you must use it in some way.  In this respect, Hegel is definitely the most poetic philosopher.  Everything in history serves a purpose for him, and contributes to the realization of Spirit.  As a result, works like The Philosophy of History read like the most perfectly executed poem. 

On a different note, H.D. is the most philosophical poet I’ve ever read. She uses the image as a point of entry to questions about autobiography, history, and consciousness.  By doing so, she’s able to seamlessly transition from the particular to the universal.  And isn’t this what every philosopher strives for?
 
6) If you were going to punish someone, what would you make them eat?

A copy of Michel Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge.

7) Is there something necessarily morbid about philosophy? Is philosophy any more or less morbid by its nature than poetry?

Considering the fact that there’s a “Philosophy and Death” class offered at some universities, I’d have to say that there is something morbid about philosophy.  All of that thinking about human nature, history, and consciousness kind of detaches a person from the world around them.  And isn’t death just another kind of transcendence?  With that said, I’ve always thought of poetry as being morbid in a fairly similar way.  In what’s being published today, there’s this fascination with the ineffable, a sort of gesturing toward the things we’re not capable or articulating or understanding in this life.  For me, it’s no coincidence that the two disciplines often go hand in hand. 

8) What is the silliest thing that has made you cry?

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but one time when I was an undergraduate, I cried in workshop. That particular week, I had turned in a story that progressed through associations between images.  I thought it was really cool–there were biblical plagues and toads, and it even had a Faustian motif.  But my classmates were completely puzzled.  They kept going, “Where’s the rising action?!  And no denouement?!  Oh dear God, the lack of character development!”  And as I reached for the Kleenex box, I realized that I’m definitely a poet.

9) Which nation’s philosophy do you find most appealing? Which nation’s literature do you find most appealing? If they are different nations, can you account for the difference?

I love our country’s literature and philosophy.  I think I find American poetry so appealing because, rather than striving for universality, these writers think of themselves as taking part in a conversation.  Marianne Moore once said that the job of a literary journal is to perpetuate a dialogue between literary artists.  For me, this statement embodies what I see in our poetry and publishing.  And what’s really exciting is that technology—DIY publishing, online journals, and small presses—is making this conversation more diverse and accessible than ever. 

Along these lines, pragmatist epistemologies have always appealed to me.  I like the idea that we, as a society, actively create truth through a conversation of sorts.  For me, American poetry and philosophy really emphasize the individual’s agency and ability to contribute.  And what’s not to like about that?

10) Have you ever been to a ball, gala, debut, opening, or other event where you had to wear fancy dress? What did you wear? Who accompanied you? Did you enjoy it? Did you wear a hat or gloves? Did you arrive in a limousine or other impressive vehicle? Did you dance?

The first time I ever went on a date, a guy took me to the opera.  I wore these shoes that had four-inch heels, looked like corsets, and were excruciatingly painful.  I arrived in a Toyota and refused to dance.

Thank you,
GBB

You can hear Kristina Marie Darling reading her poetry for Apostrophe Cast anytime you like, over and over again, by clicking here.

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2010 04 08 Guy Benjamin Brookshire interview
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Danielle Sellers – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

Photo by Chris Hayes

Photo by Chris Hayes

Dear Danielle,
 
The house you just moved into used to belong to a professor of botany who vanished on sabatical, and the yard is stil full of the strangest plants you have ever seen. One in particular, a strange fleshy shrub, has caught your interest, as it seems to be growing a strange pussy boil on the swollen expanse of its it’s topmost apendage. You can’t identify it online. As Spring rushes in, the boil grows larger and larger, the plant itself more and more humanoid in its fine-haired, beige coloration, it even seems to have body odor. You decide you must take a picture and take it an expert for identification.  Just as you lift the camera to snap your shot,the plant seems, to shudder, the boil swells to bursting, and just as it seem it can’t get any bigger, you see
 
YOUR APOSTROPHECAST INTERVIEW
  
This email interview will be published unedited. Only those questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.
 
1) Do you have a muse, or a relationship with The Muse? Must one cultivate a relationship with a muse? Can a person drive a muse away? Is there one Muse with many masks or many muses with many more masks?

I do have a muse, sometimes. For the poems in the book, the island was my muse, my dead, and memory also served as inspiration. For the poems I’m writing now, old boyfriends. my ex-husband serve as muses. My daughter is a type of muse. Often she’ll give me a certain look, and it will inspire a whole poem.  I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I do think people can drive away inspiration. When I’ve got a heavy teaching load, I lose the time I need to write mid-semester. It depresses me to no end and I find myself dreaming of poor summers spent in the scorched backyard with piles of books, revisions, and empty diet coke cans.
 
5) What would need to happen for poetry readings to be primetime network entertainment? Do you think the poetry would be any good?

I’m not sure how it would happen, but my friends and I often dream about a poetry workshop reality show. The poetry would have to be mostly bad, mostly accessible to mainstream America, but the judges would be simultaneously loopy and harsh. I can think of a few Simon Cowell wannabes, who will remain nameless until taping. Oh, but what would the winner win? A book contract, a sceptre, and a residency at an art studio.
 
6) What is your favorite genetically heritable trait running in your blood-line? What family members display it?

My favorite trait is certainly not the oddly-shaped toes and thick waists which seem to run in the family, but strength of character is an admirable one. All of the women in my family put up with very little bullshit. They’re do-ers, whether “doing” be quilting, pie-making, singing in the choir, raising orchids, or volunteering. It’s important to stay busy. I never want to be seen as weak, or idle.
 
7) Why are flies so much faster than we are?

I don’t care for flies, but am terrible about swatting them. One of my mother’s greatest traits (and joys in life) is swatting flies. She also likes to burn ants. There’s a poem in there somewhere.
 
8) Did you ever fake being sick to get out of doing something? What symptoms did you choose to fake and how did you fake them? Did you pull it off? Why didn’t you want to do what it was you were faking to get out of?

I played softball in high school, first base, which I loved, but I hated running laps. My friend once faked an asthma attack and I pretended to take care of her so we could get out of it. I have all sorts of excuses for not exercising. It’s a sickness, really.
 
 
10) How do you think the world will end?

I’m really annoyed by all this 2012 business. I get sucked into watching “Life After People” on the history channel, even though I don’t see the point of shows like that. If I thought the world was going to end, what would be the point of doing anything? I certainly wouldn’t write if there was a possibility it wouldn’t last. Everything would be a colossal waste of time, and I can’t imagine that it’s all for nothing. I do think we need to seriously be good shepherds of the planet, though.

Thanks,
GBB

bookbonekeyelegies_thumb

Click here to listen to Danielle Sellers read poems from her collection, Bone Key Elegies, available from Main Street Rag.

Support your local Apostrophe Cast Author – Buy their books!

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2010 04 08 Guy Benjamin Brookshire interview
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Scott McClanahan – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

six-toes

Dear Mr. McClanahan,

Christmas has been canceled. The manhunt is on. Santa Claus, if that is his real name is the subject of a global criminal investigation going back at least a hundred and fifty years and possibly over two thousand. As the public service announcements have advised, you sit next to your chimney with a loaded weapon. Santa has gone rogue.

Just as you start to nod off, an avalanche of soot tumbles down the flu. You bolt upright, cock your pistol, aim it at the cloud of ash dust billowing out of the fireplace, and wait. As the dust settles, you start to make out a shape stranger than you could have imagined. There it is.

Your APOSTROPE CAST INTERVIEW

This email interview will be published unedited. Only those questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.

What is the most important element of phone etiquette?

You should probably stay away from statements such as, “Hey Bob.  Can I call you back?  I just shit my pants.”

By literary standards what is the best Christmas short story?  Have you ever celebrated Christmas in a way that would make a good literary Christmas story?

Being a young Jewish woman, I’m getting really sick of these goy like questions about Christmas.  If pressed though, I’d have to say “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” or Shaft.

Does Coffee, Alcohol, Tobacco, or any other substance figure in your writing process?  Is there a time of day or week or month that is more or less conducive to your writing?

Juicy Juice and methadone have always worked for me.  Also, Tuesday in the month of February at 10:32 a.m. right after Regis and Kelly usually spells literary gold.

Have you ever dressed up as Santa Claus?

Does the fact that I’m wearing a pair of silver Santa panties right now count?

Do you hang mistletoe?  Have you ever used strategically placed mistletoe to kiss someone you might otherwise have had difficulty kissing?

My sister.  Is that weird?  For some reason I feel like you’re trying to make me feel weird about that.

What is the worst character flaw a person can have?

I would say someone who is into homicide is never a good thing.  If you have a nice personality though, that’s all that really matters.

Have you ever noticed someone you know has a terribly outdated picture of themselves posted on social media websites?  How often do you update pictures of yourself on social media sites?

I weigh 570 pounds now.  I guess you’re trying to drop me a little hint.  Okay, I’ve gained a little weight.  Excuuuuuuusssseee me Apostrophe Cast people.

Real or fake tree?

As Oscar Wilde and the aesthetics point out, “All art is useless.  That’s why we should celebrate the plastic Christmas tree.”  Besides that I’m from West Virginia.  We’re always rocking the fake tree from Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart is the modern day Oracle at Delphi if you ask me.

Merry Solstice, and so forth, etc.

GBB

stories-ii

Click here to listen to Scott McClanahan read “THIS IS A STORY WITH A PHONE NUMBER IN IT ” from his collection, Stories II, available now from Amazon.

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2009 12 17 Guy Benjamin Brookshire fiction
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Caitlin Doyle – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

apostrophecastpicdoyle2

 Also in this blog entry: Caitlin Doyle’s poem “If Siegfried and Roy Had Never Met” (following interview)    

Dear Caitlin Doyle, 

The sound is something between a drain sucking and a madman snickering. You’ve never heard anything like it and you can’t tell where it’s coming from. Turning off all appliances, you eventually trace it to the crawlspace entrance panel in the closet. So close to the source, it is loud, clear, and yet maddening unidentifiable. Hunched and cramped down in the closet, you bite your lip and pry the panel open with a claw hammer. As soon as you loosen it, the panel begins to slide without any help form you, and there in the darkness you see . . .

YOUR APOSTROPHE CAST INTERVIEW

This email interview will be published unedited. Only those questions you choose not to answer will not be published.

1) What is uglier to observe in others: cruel ambition or rank laziness?

I was reading about Eleanor Roosevelt recently and I came across the following quote by her: “So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins, such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects, that too little attention is paid to the passive sins, such as apathy and laziness, which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.” I’m struck by the truth in her statement, and so I have to answer by placing rank laziness further on the ugliness spectrum than cruel ambition. However, if your question addressed these two qualities as observed in oneself, rather than in others, it’s possible my response would be different. 

2) What is the highest elevation you have achieved, and how far have you been below sea level?

The greatest height I’ve achieved, combining both physical and spiritual elevation, is my hike to Robert Louis Stevenson’s burial spot at the top of Mt. Vaea in Samoa. I climbed the mountain on a burning day, nearly hallucinating from the heat. Since Stevenson was a much-loved figure during my childhood and adolescence, I was thrilled to see his resting place and read the famous poem inscribed on his grave. I won’t quote it here, but I encourage everyone to look it up. As for the second part of your question, I have never been further below sea level than a snorkel would allow.
 
3) At what age did you stop believing in Santa Claus? Who or what convinced you otherwise? 

I stopped believing in Santa Clause at eight years old, after discovering a pile of presents in my mother’s closet two weeks before Christmas. I asked her about them and she told me that Santa sometimes delivers gifts early in order to lighten his Christmas Eve workload. Her logic convinced me. But when I went snooping in the closet again a few days later, to see if Santa had dropped off any new surprises, I found the receipts. I showed them to my older brothers, who gleefully squashed any and all visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. 

4) What is the best decision you have ever made?

I’m torn between two entirely opposite answers: my decision to attend film school and my decision to leave film school. Both choices were fitting ones for me, made at exactly the right time in my life. Immersion in film taught me about the narrative and emotive power of imagery, and my departure from film allowed me to focus those lessons on an art form truer to my sensibility — poetry. 

5) What poem should someone read if they have just discovered they have a serious disease?

The work that immediately springs to mind is “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas. “Fern Hill” may seem like a strange answer to this question, since it hardly provides comfort for a person coming to terms with the temporal nature of existence. But I think a seriously ill individual needs and deserves to read poetry that deals with mortality, rather than work presenting an everything-will-be-alright worldview. Someone who has just been diagnosed with a serious disease might find sustenance in the poem’s vision of life as both darkened and sweetened by loss. 

6) Have you ever cried tears over the death of an animal? What was it and how did it die?

Growing up, I had a succession of pet hermit crabs, bought from a boardwalk shop during summers in Ocean City, NJ. Once, a crab somehow got loose from the cage and disappeared in the house. I searched for days, never finding it. I wasn’t attached in an emotional way to this particular pet – I can’t even remember its name – but the thought of it starving to death behind some piece of furniture, or meeting its fate under a careless shoe, upset me enormously. I shed tears, not so much out of mourning for the crab itself but for my failure to keep it safe from harm. 

7) Is there any world leader you think deserves more power than they currently enjoy?

Since I think of a “world leader” as a person spearheading crucial social change, not necessarily a politician, I would propose Dr. Sima Samar as the answer to this question. She received a nomination for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and I was disappointed when she didn’t win. Samar is an Afghan woman who has spent her life battling for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Persisting through death threats, she has established a series of schools and hospitals for females in Taliban-controlled areas. If I could grant one public figure a larger sphere of global influence, who better than Dr. Samar?  

8) If you could replace the global monetary system with some other means of exchange, what would it be?

I think it would be naïve to believe that I could alter human nature by replacing the global monetary system with some other means of exchange. Anything traded as currency in a free market —- whether concrete objects like baseball cards or intangible entities like words —- would eventually take on all the sacred and profane properties of money.
Thank you,
GBB

 If Siegfried And Roy Had Never Met

 

No flaming ring. No disappearing elephant.

   Siegfried behind a circus booth in Munich, half

 

an apple on his palm. He holds it out to show

   the children it’s real. See the seeds.

 

Roy at the Bremen Zoo, locking

   eyes with the tigers, making sounds

 

that straighten their ears. They tilt

   their heads. Their tails craze with flicking.

 

             And Siegfried: a silk scarf in his other

 

hand. He whips it through the air

   until it blurs into a wheel. The apple will be whole

 

again on the count of three. One. Two.

   But an ice cream bell. The children running away.

 

             And Roy: reaching through the bars.

 

No theatre rigged with mirrors, no double-

   chambered boxes. It’s only in Siegfried’s dream

 

a trapdoor opens on him like a mouth,

   only in Roy’s dream a mouth closes on him

 

             like a trapdoor. The tiger’s teeth

 

sink into nothing, obscured

  by smoke. The applause is never ending.

 

 

By Caitlin Doyle

Black Warrior Review, No. 36.2, Spring/Summer 2010

 

To listen to Caitlin Doyle read this and other poems, click here for Apostrophe Cast episode 57.

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2009 12 10 Guy Benjamin Brookshire interview
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Weston Cutter – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

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Dear Weston:

When your friends invited you to this restaurant, you could tell they had a big suprise in store for you. You just weren’t sure what it would be. It wasn’t your birthday. And it probably wasn’t an intervention. The whole time you’re eating your friends are sharing a strange smile and hinting darkly about dessert. When the waiter comes with the big silver tray, your heart skips a beat. He lifts the silver dome with a flourish. You can’t believe your eyes. It’s . . .

YOUR APOSTROPHE CAST INTERVIEW

This email interview will be published unedited. Only the questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.

1. Were you ever a picky eater? Is there anything you absolutely will not even try? Why?

I’m actually a really picky eater (out of a mashy combo of fear and a pretty [I assume] basic if-it’s-not-broken compulsion re: the foods I already enjoy). Foods I’ve only tried relatively recently (~6 or so months) include clam chowder, sushi, a Rueben sandwich, hollandaise sauce, apples with peanut butter, goulash, Thai food of any sort, bagels with cream cheese, Bloody Marys…it’s sort of embarrassing. There’s no food I absolutely won’t try, mostly out of the same sort of sporting hope anybody’s got re: opening mouths to newness. I will say that having someone to share new food with makes the whole prickly endeavor a hell of a lot more fun.

2. Do you feel any enmity for Bret EASTON Ellis?

For the name? No. For the bad writing? Yes.

3. There are Christmas poems. There are Easter poems. Why aren’t there Thanksgiving poems? Or are there? Have you ever written a poem and read it to your family on a holiday?

The obvious zag to this question’s zig is to note that, in fact, all good poems are, in some way, things which give thanks, which in some fundamental way express gratitude, but that’s a softy humanities answer (and one which should be acknowledged as stealing ideas from Hyde’s “The Gift”) and yr asking specifically about the holiday, so let’s skip it. I’d guess there aren’t Thanksgiving poems because Thanksgiving’s maybe the only major holiday that doesn’t have some element of the miraculous, or at least of the capital-M Miraculous (unlike, say, a dead person rising, or savior of humanity being born). Who knows. Maybe it’s the tryptophan and we’re all too tired to write much with our tummies swollen and the game on in the background. No to the family/reading/holiday thing.

4. Where do you go when you feel lonely?

Chicago. Or, upstairs, where the puzzle is on the table, half-done but getting there.

5. What author would you take to accompany you to a desert island? And remember, it would be nice if they were handy with a hatchet. Are you handy with a hatchet?

Yes, I am handy with a hatchet. If we’re being inclusive with notions of authorship here, I’d pick Ellen Anderson, an author of all sorts of rad research stuff about cities and a woman quite handy in hundreds of ways, hatchet (I’d bet) included. If it’s limited to authors-of-books, it’d be, I don’t know, somebody like Matthew Zapruder or Aimee Bender or C.D. Wright or Ed Falco–people I’d be interested in spending time with and would likely not get bored of/by. If it’s dead authors, DFWallace or Norm Maclean.

6. What was the last poem you read, not your own, that made you laugh?

I laughed out loud almost once a page while reading Cate Rosemurgy’s upcoming collection “The Stranger Manual,” which is gonna be 2010′s best book of poetry.

7. I had a film professor tell me once that “poets were jealous.” He said this with great sadness and some distaste. I’ve always wondered if he was right. What do you think?

I don’t know what poets’d have to be jealous of, though this question’s weirdly infectuous–I don’t know what to think, but I keep thinking and wondering about it. If poets were jealous, I think any prof who aired that bit of news’d be right to sound sad and distasteful saying it, but, still, I think he’s probably totally wrong. That said: I know maybe a dozen real-life poets, and they’ve all got little in common other than 1) a (likely) aversion to the tag ‘poet,’ and 2) absolutely great senses of humor. I’ll go ahead and grant that those facts likely have as much to do with me and my own tastes in folks as they do with the folks I know who write poems, but there it is, either way. If it matters at all: the thing I keep thinking of is that line in one of cummings’s intros about his poems competing with the 4th of July or roses or locomotives or some other awesome batshit mumbo-jumbo of his.

8. What book should someone read if they have swine flu?

I was sick as hell in Spain, in January of 2005, and in 3 days read M. Robinson’s “Gilead” and Powers’s “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” while drifting in and out of fevered sleep and light eating, and I’m not saying those books cured me or anything, but I remember them real specifically, along with the cigarettes I smoked and oranges I ate and coffee I drank, and it was the best time I’ve ever had while sick. Extrapolate.

9. What figure from Thanksgiving folklore do you find the most interesting? Why?

T-giving’s my older sister’s holiday (her birthday occasionally falls on it), so she’s who I think about re: that specific holiday. She’s not an historical figure other than the fact that she’s older than I, and I find her interesting because she’s 1) hilarious, 2) a really good mom, and 3) in her 30′s and still has a fantastic sense of wonder.

10. Do you play any games? Are you good at them?

I’d like to think I’m decent at cribbage, ditto hearts. I used to be pretty alright at that old Macintosh game Spectre, and I was, for a few months, a champ on that old XBox Star Wars game, the one where yr Obi-Wan. I used to be pretty A1 at darts and sometimes still have the couch. My girlfriend and I both occasionally kill time with that insanely addictive ipod/iphone game Flood It, but, like most things, she’s far better at it than I am. If staying up late and reading and listening to music is a game, I totally win.

Thank you,

GBB

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2009 11 18 Guy Benjamin Brookshire Uncategorized
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J.A. Tyler – The Apostrophe Cast Interview

jatyler

Image by Sam Pink

 Dear J. A.,
 
It was dark when you realized you needed more red wine for the tomato sauce. You decided to drive to the grocery store just down the road.
 
It was jumped out in front of you, whatever it was. You felt the thud and crunch even before you saw the tail flap up in the head light’s beam. The dark shape flew off into the ditch. Skidding to a halt you, consider driving on, but you can’t.    

The piteous mewling sound leads you on, and low in the gloom you see something you never saw before . . .
 
YOUR APOSTROPHECAST INTERVIEW
 
This email interview will be published unedited, only the questions you choose not to answer will be deleted.
 
1) Has pornography gone mainstream? Are obscenity laws obsolete? 

Yes and yes. Mainstream because the internet is it, right? Isn’t that where everyone goes for the porn now? Sure, you have to click on something that says ‘yes, I want to look at porn,’ but that is just bullshit lawyer ass-covering. Though if you run on a football field buck-naked you will still get a ribcage full of electricity, though I am not sure if they will cite you with obscenity.   

2) What might someone who has never been to Colorado do by innocent mistake and not live to regret?

I don’t know about regrets, but: 

We have a nasal ‘a’

We are not all skiers or snowboarders

We are not all cowboys

We do not live on farms

We do not have sweet tea  

3) What book should someone read if they have been betrayed by a friend?

The Anarchist Cookbook 

4) Have you ever gone to a party uninvited? Have you ever thrown a party and had uninvited guests?

No and no. I am not that social. Plus, no one wants to hang out with me that badly, to crash a party.  

5) What is the tiredest you have ever been? 

Our first son, about three months in, nothing is as tired as that (except for our second child, about three months in, which will happen in about May) 

6) Is there any literary movement or time period you have absolutely no interest in?

Old school British lit. No thanks.  

7) When was the last time you rode a horse? Rowed a boat? Rote memorized?

Horse? When I was about 13. Boat? When I was about 16. Rote Memorization? I am a teacher, so just this morning. 

8) Do you have a favorite joke?

Why did the monkey fall out of the tree? Because it was dead. 

9) Have you ever been injured playing a sport?

Nope. Though I did crack my head open on a fireplace once. I was jumping in a sleeping bag. That isn’t a sport. 

10) Which writers frighten you?  

Blake Butler for his level of output.

Peter Markus for his willingness to repeat and chant and pray in lit.

Tao Lin for his army of interns.

James Chapman for his unbelievable ability to write. 

Michael Martone and Brian Evenson both for their quality of writing and their level of good-heartedness.

Thanks,
GBB

Listen, Listen, Listen . . . to Apostrophe Cast, episode 55  featuring J.A. Tyler reading from his new novella A MAN OF GLASS & ALL THE WAYS WE HAVE FAILED, forthcoming 2011ish from fugue state press.  

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