I threw away
everything I had and knew
and even some of the things I liked
but oh I could never throw
away a thing I love
nothing I have loved
has been that light.
So beginning on March 13th, Ryan MacDonald and I will be hitting the road for our first reading tour together. Ryan will be promoting his brilliant collection of short stories The Observable Characteristics of Organisms and I'll be promoting my new collection of poems, Wallop, out soon with Magic Helicopter Press. On the way we'll be reading with such killers as Emily Pettit and Rachel B. Glaser and Seth Landman and Stella Corso and Christy Crutchfield. The dates/places are in the video. I am a hamburger. Ryan is a dancer. Please give it a watch and come see us some night if we're in your town.
Abraham Smith is an American poet originally from Ladysmith, Wisconsin. Hank (2010) is his second full-length book of poems, after Whim Man Mammon (2007), both from Action Books. He now lives and writes in Tuscaloosa, AL, and teaches at the University of Alabama. This interview was conducted by Stella Corso on May 9, 2011.
Abraham Smith: hulloooo
Stella Corso: I have to confess I've never used G-chat before!
AS: me maybe only a few times .. so here we are .. dos novices
SC: So the cat came back...
AS: is a folk song .. and a bless-ed reality!
SC: And now we are dressed in our finest and our furry creatures abound...let's talk about Hank!
AS: okayyy shooot .. lob .. catapult
SC: What was different about writing this book compared to Whim Man Mammon?
AS: that first book is a bouquet .. the stink and the pleasantly fragrant from many years .. lotta hick stuff .. and lotta lotto snow hickey stuff from provincetown winter .. it was stretchy as per the years .. and the themes tho dire (animal) love is probably the theme ..
whereas i set out to write hank .. that is i set out to write an obelisk of noise
SC: In the 129 pages that make up Hank, we have, ostensibly, 11 long poems divided by conglomerations of keyboard symbols (which you have previously described as "gibberish cuss[es]")... would it also be fair to think of Hank as one long book-length poem?
AS: yeps .. yepps .. those little snap off points .. these @#*%$@ .. were something like: shit i have gone on long enough .. tho i was conscience of ending and beginning poems .. so .. soo .. well .. yes .. the whole deal is pretty much you tip a ten gallon hat over and out run all the stuff Noah could not squeeze on the ark .. another name for the book might be Noah's Orphaned Amblers ..
noah's orphaned slitherers .. etc etc
SC: How much were you thinking about Hank [Williams, Sr.] himself when you were writing... and how much were you just experiencing the poem(s) through your own contexts?
AS: that's a fine line .. better writ that's a muddy swath .. i love that word for animal paw prints in the earth .. to pug the ground .. so that's some heavily pugged earth .. i mean the question of whether i am tasting the boot heels of hank always or maybe i slip in and hank gets to go in the bar and drink a few 1,000 .. maybe that's the best way to think about it .. it's all about hank in all caps .. it's all HANKering .. but sometimes i let his old exhausted self set down .. and do some fishing or whatever he wants to do while i carry on yowling like some evening sky bats calligrapher
SC: I ask because I can read several pages without thinking much about Hank, even though it is heavily peppered with his history.... did you do much research on his life before this book or has it always been a part of your consciousness?
AS: oh i think that's rite .. it's like the idea of a yoyo .. he gets far and little in there .. but he always snaps back up i hope hard against the ham of my hand .. hopefullly .. as per hank research .. i listen(ed) to him religiously .. and yes i did read all the biographies all the history of his kerosene dipped toothpicky self ..
SC: Are we to assume Hank is the "you" addressed throughout the poems?
AS: hmm .. neigh .. nay .. probablee we are to assume that a word rhymed with you occurred maybe within 13 words of you .. and that the you is maybee the audience .. whom i am trying to tense up .. to tensile their steel so to say .. y o u .. i shake too much to hold that tight to the you .. that's a rain slicked chameleon you if i ever saw one ..
SC: That's for sure! How about the "she" who appears in the first few pages and then quickly disappears...
AS: oh that she is his mama .. but i think that she is pretty much there right the way through .. wraith or in bold print .. she's always about to whack you in the head .. i had a hard time writing those she's .. i was raised by women .. not men .. and it stung to write anything biting about women .. but the bottomline (as my dad says, the bottomline, means he is about to tell you the taaaaRuth) the truth is that his mother was .. from my view .. not a nice person .. ditto his wife audrey ..
SC: So it seems…
I am, of course, curious about your work style... did you take many breaks while composing this piece? And what did you do in the way of editing (if at all)?
AS: as lopsided and all leanin tower of babble as they indubitably feeel .. yeps i did edit they a lot .. probably wrote them all fast .. but that was just skeletal .. then i pretty much impersonated a bee yoyoing nigh the leg of a wind wagging flower .. that is .. i made great big thin leg wobbler poems fast .. had some carotid notion for what the pulse of them should be .. and then spent weeks months batting sound into the sides of them .. without letting 'em get too wide .. didn't want them to lose their high blood pressure vibe .. so yes .. tall tower fast .. then daub no better said .. drunkdrove sound into the curbs of the poems ..
SC: Ahh.. so I shouldn't feel so bad for not being a stream-of-conscious babble-on genius?
AS: heee heeee .. i .. was .. of course .. lying to you .. i wrote the entire thing in one go one rainy night nigh a fine hearth with a strapping fire .. having gathered the embers .. i placed each into my mouth .. and pretty much translated that scald onto the page .. the whole book is one long ember multivitamin .. my tongue is yet recovering ..
SC: When I first read your work it made me think of those people in Brooklyn who started knitting collectives where they knit giant cozies for like, trees and buildings and stuff...I though of your poetic style akin to knitting a giant bootie for the state of Alabama... it just keeps gaining mass in this somewhat controlled but insanely colorful way…
AS: oooh .. could i get one? know where i could get one? i could use one for my chillly soul!
haaaa .. i love that image!
blesss you .. tho you have not sneezed .. you have murmured pure duende! aaaamne!
aamen
SC: So if your writing IS indeed a giant knitted bootie (I guess I'm taking liberties) does every line hold equal value and weight? If you removed even one line, would it start a run in the so-called stocking?
AS: yes it might .. altho .. welll .. ya know .. the poems are occurrences .. .. ah that occurred to me .. and then that .. and then that .. and then that .. and so .. well .. hmm .. i guess you could dam a part of it .. pluck some trickle out .. and still have some sense of the limb .. darn darn darn .. i guess what i am saying is that there are lot of sound bridges where i am waiting for the next thing to happen .. sooo .. maybe some of them bridges could be burned but then .. well .. now i just don't know .. them poems are snake-trains .. and if you pull a car then i think the track is gonna be like we ain't got the right weight crying on us any longer anymore ..
SC: Fair enough- and I am certainly not suggesting you lose even an ounce- merely that your style is so dense with language, and as you said, barrels forward like a freight train without looking back…
AS: yups that's the idear .. oui that's the notion potion quotient .. that's the hoped for .. yer very berry kind .. yuppers those are walmart poems .. now i'd like to write little frog poems .. i am tired of ten hundred cans of beans down every aisle .. aaaamen ..
SC: You seem to be doing something different than most of your contemporaries... is there anyone you can think of who has a similar style?
AS: it sounds like a stumblin bumblin to say .. but i don't read too terrible much present day poesy .. i know that sounds
either snobbish or somehow an irresponsible luddite-type archaeologist answer .. but sew it goes! .. anyhootski .. that's
the ruth truth on that one .. but my poems are high blood pressures and yaa can't find the pharmacy where they have
free blood pressure cuffs where the machine talks to yee: if the pressure bothers you please press stop is more or less
what the machine says while it snake farms yerrr arm for a pulse ..
SC: Do you ever worry about starting a "trend" in poetry where others will begin to emulate your style?
AS: oooph .. really? high blood pressuring is 'hip' thigh calf toe? .. note: high blood pressure leads to stroke or heart fiber
fall apart right round o say 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 .. most folks i know are gunning for 80 ..
SC: What current writers do you admire?
AS: that's back to my idiotic anxiety that if! i am! not reading! olllld! stuff! then i am eating leaves without a good core of the root choir ..
my point there is this: i have always been adjusted to the world via the world not the book .. days i remember just sort of
cruising around outside not really doing anything while my sister mummified in a quilt and read and read .. that juggled
with my otherwise undergrad major meant means i balance on a podium not a plinth ..
aka: my omnivorous readings of older things will likely go on forever ever ever ..
cannn you believe i've nevvvvver read richard the third by wm shakespeare? well i haven't but i am right nowww .. cannnn
you belieeeeeve i've never read aristophanes? .. i hadn't but i am rite nowski .. cannnn you believe i make people fall
asleep at parties whilst carrying on and on and on about thomas hardy BUT i have neverrrr read 'return of the native' .. that, deer chum,
is true, but it won't be my thimble fulla pebbles secret by july first! .. cannn you beliieve i'd only read maybe 30 yeats poems ..
whereas i have read 100 more in the last few weeks .. i guess that's a windsock of an answer to say: i heart mildewed tome…
(later)
on my jog i was thinkin that answer wasn't the greatest grape ..
so here is a better crush of daffodils ..
15 or so years ago .. grazing bookstores .. i ardor-ed the arbors of nicholas christopher .. jane kenyon .. mary oliver
in grad school i loved michael burkhard .. but mainly susan howe .. and some somewhat heartshaped over fanny howe ..
these days sometimes i am into aaron kunin or brenda hillman she just pure dee slays me ..
and we have a secret cache of perfected yetis down here in tuscaloo ..
some of my fav local favorite meadowland creatures: joseph p. wood .. nathan parker .. ashley mcwaters ..
joyboats to you, smithy
Stella Corso is a poet in the MFA program at UMass Amherst. Her recent work can be found in Tarpaulin Sky, and collaborative poems with Alex Phillips are forthcoming from the Peacock Online Review. She is an Editorial Assistant for jubilat.
