I
think of writing as a type of separation—a taking apart, a reworking, a tuning
into something that is both interior and exterior. Sometimes, my poems begin
somewhere inside my head because of, most of the time, something I have
observed. Observed meaning saw, seen, heard, smelled, touched, thought about
for a while or only for a second, etc. Hand to paper, paper to word document,
document to pdf, in no order. I constantly translate my poems across mediums to
see what’s left. Jack Spicer claimed, in his Vancouver lectures, claimed that
aliens rearrange the furniture of “the outside” to make poems. And while my
head is not full of alien furniture in the way Spicer declares it, per say,
poetry is something completely alien to me. Alien and in need of translation.
I
moved to Pittsburgh after living in Wilmington, NC, a place that was recently
declared “not reachable by land” by the Department of Transportation in the
aftermath of Hurricane Florence.
In
the same way, a road closes in my home: to be moved, to be relocated, to be
flooded, to be separated, to be thrashed, to be caught in a rising tide, to be
tangled in pig shit, tangled in snakes, tangled in the hairs of the person that
lived in your place before you, to be not reached or able to be reached; to be
out of touch, almost.
Lately,
being homesick, I write and I ache. I switch between wanting to write and
wanting to not think about writing.
For 2019, I am trying to be more positive given a lot of grief. I wrote: I want a liquor still to inhabit my head
forever. I want to not forget one fiddle tune. I want to catch brown trout on
the top water in late August in my favorite hole. I want to die in the dirt
that is shit drenched. I hope that someone
who reads my poems fall over inside themselves continuously.
The
uniformity of “process” or “production” is not a goal. To me, it’s curated by a
world of writing, rewriting, and editing in ways like a factory. Factories are
unfair labor and have damaged members of rural communities, especially
Appalachia, for years; for some, it’s worth it. It has to be. I am incapable of
rewriting most of my poems even though I try. Ice and Sorrel, again and again.
There
is an opening of the field, yet he field is scared damaged, posted, private,
but wild spaces exist. Even in the alien-like interior of the self, the horizon
meets what’s left, where the mountains tower and look at you and growl and God,
I pray that the field never ends. When there, I find little moments I get
obsessed with—mainly a word, an instance, a stretch of music that echoes—and I
obsessively think about it. Not writing is writing. I forget so many of the
lines I wish I could include. I forget my keys constantly.
I
am now standing on something I would say is reachable by land but I can’t
describe it as it is. I will try but it won’t hold up. The field is collapsing
on itself in the murk. Thoreau, in “Walking,” claims for the walker to build
their home in unsteady soil of the swamp: “the decay of other literatures makes
the soil in which it thrives.”
In
the same vain, I learned the practice of compost journals from my pal, Nathan
Hauke. I can remember talking with him where he said to generate as much
material as possible and don’t look back (ala Orpheus, ala Spicer, ala Hauke)
and reuse everything, nothing is waste. There’s
no accidents in the spirt. Say things
you can live with. Get down the line. Paddle faster. I’m not finished yet.
When
I write, I watch TV; when I write, I stand in the woods; when I write, I try it
first by hand and then by a computer; when I write, I use thoughts that aren’t
mine; when I write, I feel the empty; when I write, I feel both bigger and
smaller than the field; everything, eventually, is building up.
If
I follow a process, it’s a process of paths; roads flooded and cut by men in
reflective gear; roads into and out of everything or nothing; and the tensions
of light catch me and lull me back out of sleep.
Pittsburgh, 2019
Evan Gray is from Jefferson,
North Carolina and is the author of three chapbooks: Blindspot (the Rest (Garden-Door Press, 2018), Dusk Melody (Shirt Pocket Press, forthcoming) and BODY BIRTH (above/ground press,
forthcoming). His essays and poems have been featured in DIAGRAM, Tarpaulin Sky, Yalobusha Review, Word For / Word, and others. He currently lives and teaches in
Pittsburgh, PA.
No comments:
Post a Comment