March 8th, 2010 / 5:47 pm
Author Spotlight

Zucker 5


1.) Rachel Zucker has a webpage pretty snazzy. I just read Museum of Accidents (Wave Books). This is the first poetry book of motherhood/professor-hood/adult-at-this-age I have P-rused in a long while. Sometimes the poetry I read keeps caterwhomping subjects same. Museum more mature tone/thunk yet no fields/piles of snow o o o and no wine bottles (or very little) god no chats or BRAND NAMES (or very little).

Bam review here!

2.) What is experimental? In poetry, 2010? Is there still someone hiding their secret sex fetish? Someone afraid to wear a lobster as a hat? No. They just do it and talk out loud. What’s my point? How many more books of line cut/jagged enjamb/white space/concrete forms/codpiece/canon-chop/punctuation verve/retro-madness? Look, mama, no ground! How many books, year, decades before we can drop the term experimental? Stop it.

3.) Well, why don’t you fucking interview the author?

Jesus. OK. I wheel (rolling, rolling…). Answers in bold.

Q: It is cold as fuck in Muncie, Indiana. I went out to the front step and a pudgy, yellow envelope was in the snow at an odd angle. I rescued and opened the envelope and it was your book and I thought “What is this?” but I often drink and order books late into the night so shrugged and took your book inside and started reading. It hooked me good. Persona asking me (the reader) questions right off, the speaker told me things, advised me (“The world is a place to buy things./Resist.).

Can you discuss techniques you use as poet to reach off the page, to snatch the reader by the sleeve, to tug a bit closer?

I have no idea.

Q: Is an allusion an expression of hope?

I don’t understand this question. Do you mean, if one alludes to something, is that a hopeful act? Hopeful to whom? In what way? I’m confused.

Q: What is your favorite poem?

This changes everyday. Today I will say, “The Prophet” by Alice Notley.

Q: I am about to quote Woody Allen and lots of people detest him. If you spleen Woody Allen, just ignore this question or maybe pretend I said “Josephine Baker” not “Woody Allen.” Woody Allen said, “Marriage is the death of hope.” Like all quotes, this is a bit easy, but I also think it holds a grain of truth. Your opinion?

I love Woody Allen. Why is marriage the death of hope, though? Hope for what? Sleeping with someone else? Married people sometimes do that. Marrying someone else? Married people sometimes do that too. Maybe marriage is the birth of hope? The birth of the hope of worrying about something else for five minutes. I have a lot of questions about and problems with marriage but I don’t think it’s the “death of hope.” Not for me anyway.

Q: A friend of mine said she saw you in Brooklyn one day drinking a big-ass mug of coffee. How much coffee do you drink a day, and what is your favorite type?

I love coffee but rarely drink it. I doubt it was me that your friend saw. I have recurring insomnia and feel more justified complaining about it when I’m not drinking coffee. I really like how coffee smells. Little tiny cups of espresso. The bitter smell. I do miss coffee…

Q: Is writing a poem enjoyable?

In the past, I’ve felt that the act of writing is a “clean” space — a mental space free of self judgement and outside of the “this is fun” or “this sucks” dichotomy. But, I’d like to work toward feeling pleasure when I write.

Q: When I first emailed you, I received an automated response (Spam Arrest!) with directions on how to verify myself so that my message could reach your computer. This seemed both routine and Orwellian. Your poems I think capture our time well—it seems everything is moving so fast, computer speed fast (Moore’s Law: processors doubling speed every two years, something), and how do we capture our bewildered lives as they blur by? Is this a function of your poetry (or Poetry, in general)?

I’m not sure what the function of poetry is, but I like the idea of poetry helping to slow us down. I’m trying to stop multi-tasking all the time. It’s making me crazy. I find it very difficult to just “be” in the moment or be present in a calm, patient way. I’m not sure if that’s a product of this age or of my temperament. Perhaps I would have felt this if I were living in the Victorian era. I’d always be doing needlework.

Q: Lorrie Moore says having a kid was “an atomic bomb on the village of my life.” I think your poems speak to this, the tension between the self (still selfish) and the expected parental role (selfless?). What do you think?

I love Lorrie Moore. Birds of America is one of two books of short stories that I love (usually I prefer novels). I’ve always aspired to write like her. Yeah, kids change everything. They’re supposed to.

Q: I think you do a lot of really smart and interesting structural things on the page—I mean the page viewed from feet away. The columns, white space, the clumps and shreds and little eyelashes of sentences and words. Is the white space around the words as meaningful as the ink? What is the blankness on the page?

Well, in a very literal way, the white space is what makes the words mean something. It would be almost impossible to understand language iftherewerenospacesbetweenthewords. Is more space more meaningful? Not necessarily, but it does change our understanding or reception of the words and phrases and music.

Q: A friend of mine has spent years developing a Sadness Museum. This is not a question. I just thought you might enjoy. http://www.buckbeeawriter.com/sadnessmuseum/

This is an amazing project. I’ve forwarded the link to many people (and I HATE forwarding things). I now think about this idea all the time.

4.) Hmmm…slap! The poet seemed underwhelmed by my questions. I emailed her and thanked her for answering and said, “Your tone in answering seems to think my questions dumb.” I then said I didn’t mind; I’m sure they are/were dumb. The poet replied she did not think them dumb and I could ask additional questions if I would like. I said, “No, no, that’s not necessary and thank you for your time and the book.” Overall the exchange made me think the poet as kind. (I’m still not convinced my questions were not weak tea/under-tipping.)

5.) My favorite poem in the Museum ended with this word: cocksucker!

I do approve.

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10 Comments

  1. Blake Butler

      excellent post Sean. I’ve been stoked about this book, now even more so.

  2. Blake Butler

      excellent post Sean. I’ve been stoked about this book, now even more so.

  3. Brian Foley

      THAT photo wins pic of the day on my part

  4. Brian Foley

      THAT photo wins pic of the day on my part

  5. Blake Butler

      agreed

  6. Blake Butler

      agreed

  7. Jhon Baker

      great post/ interview. I truly enjoyed it and thank you for the link as well, I’ll peruse when I have time. as an answer to your question about what is experimental poetry in 2010 – I think the most experimental thing we can do now is with silence as the majority of so called poets are getting louder and louder and less and less poetic while closer and closer to to prose out loud. It may be time that we start the experiment on meter again or rhyme, rediscover what poetry really means and dispense of the so called – learn to revere the poet as they are in other countries.
      what am I blathering about? nothing of course.Experimental is stuck in time like any other art movement and it is time that we look for the next. I am willing to lead the charge but I think that charge would be filled with people unwilling to commit to one idea or style – try to get these people to charge toward something. forget it, too busy charging themselves with unique masturbation.

  8. Jhon Baker

      great post/ interview. I truly enjoyed it and thank you for the link as well, I’ll peruse when I have time. as an answer to your question about what is experimental poetry in 2010 – I think the most experimental thing we can do now is with silence as the majority of so called poets are getting louder and louder and less and less poetic while closer and closer to to prose out loud. It may be time that we start the experiment on meter again or rhyme, rediscover what poetry really means and dispense of the so called – learn to revere the poet as they are in other countries.
      what am I blathering about? nothing of course.Experimental is stuck in time like any other art movement and it is time that we look for the next. I am willing to lead the charge but I think that charge would be filled with people unwilling to commit to one idea or style – try to get these people to charge toward something. forget it, too busy charging themselves with unique masturbation.

  9. htad

      your style of questioning is pretty funny. I really love this book, I can’t stop smiling when I read it, I try to explain it to my friends but all that comes out are weird sounds of painful happiness mixed with “jesus”, “so good”. It’s weird because I shouldn’t really relate to most of the poems, being a 21 year old male. but her poetic style achieves the speed and urgency that I want so terribly, the style that I feel encapsulates this generation so well.

  10. htad

      your style of questioning is pretty funny. I really love this book, I can’t stop smiling when I read it, I try to explain it to my friends but all that comes out are weird sounds of painful happiness mixed with “jesus”, “so good”. It’s weird because I shouldn’t really relate to most of the poems, being a 21 year old male. but her poetic style achieves the speed and urgency that I want so terribly, the style that I feel encapsulates this generation so well.