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