Podcast
Rumpus Events
Rumpus Book ClubThe Rumpus Original Combo with Gabrielle Calvocoressi
I know plenty of people who think prayer is futile or ridiculous. I wonder if that has to do with their expectation of response. For me praying is not about asking for things just like writing a poem isn’t about asking for things. It is about the asking. Period. Not asking for but simply asking. The way the voice goes up at the end of a sentence when a question is asked. When I write a poem and when I read a poem that really pushes me and when I pray I am moved into the deepest space of questioning. I am thinking of who is speaking? Through what mask? For what purpose? Those are the three questions Lucie Brock Broido told us to ask our poems. I am implicated in the silence. I think that is a tremendous gift and kind of freedom. I don’t need God to be my friend any more than I want a poem to just give over to me and please me. That’s what I have Glee and Crunch and Munch and Katy Perry for (God bless her. Seriously).
To me real transcendence comes from speaking alongside the unspeakable and pushing into it and doubting. In that way I think most serious artists I know could be qualified as people of faith. And conscious atheism is a kind of faith too. Atheism that is deeply thought out and pushed against and considered and studied. The opposite of transcendence (to me) is simply anyone who just makes pronouncements or qualifies themselves without doing the deep, ongoing work of inquiry. And that’s a kind of hell to me (who doesn’t even believe in hell) and must feel terrible most days.
Gosh. I’ve gone on. Yes. The answer to your question is Yes.
Rumpus:One of your recent tweets said “I know folks hate to travel but I love this intersection of language and food and friendliness. Liminal world. I dig it.” That’s great for 140 characters, but could you expand on it a bit?
Calvocoressi: It’s probably fitting that I’m answering this on a plane and also sitting next to Alicia Jo Rabins (a big figure in this interview that started by asking about all those twitters) as we make our way to Miami for the Book Fair. We’re both answering interview questions and thinking about things. At the same time I’m sort of in this other world where I’m remembering going to Miami when I was young and how my grandmother used to get really dressed up for the flight. It’s bumpy and I’m remembering the bumpiest flight of my life was a Miami flight. So I’m in a lot of different worlds. And I like that.
Of course, I got the question ages ago when I was sitting in the San Francisco airport eating Japanese curry and listening to this young Hispanic maintenance guy laugh and chat with the older Japanese guy working behind the counter of the curry spot. I love moments like that: the mix of languages, the way places that aren’t supposed to be about community at all actually have deep communities if one looks a little deeper. I had gotten to the airport a bit early and I love it when I can really sit and have a meal. I was on my 7th or 8th flight in two weeks and I got to thinking that I actually find airports really comforting. It’s this liminal space where I can actually get a lot of thinking done and also dreaming, I suppose. It’s a place where I don’t necessarily have to think about the administrative business of the day (although I also like that I can get a lot of that done there). More than anything, I just love the idea of people headed somewhere and how many different stories there are in that one place. And, at the same time, everyone is pretty much focused on the present moment of getting to the plane.
It’s not much different from the walk I take everyday in Los Angeles. The ability to be in a busy space in a meditative way. I think that was what I was getting at somehow…
Rumpus:Back to the Twitter thing. I’ve noticed two tendencies in the pieces you post–some will be enigmatic moments, asides almost, while at other times you’ll drape a narrative across several posts. From my perspective as a reader, it’s interesting because I’m never sure, at least at the start, which one I’m reading, so I’ll scroll furiously down the list populated by political links and Rumpus posts and personal notes from students to try to piece the narrative together, and often as not, there’s nothing more than the single post. How much do you plan these pieces out, and do you think they’ll become something larger? Or are they meant to exist only in the ephemeral space of social media?
Read the whole article on one page
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:37 pm
What a fascinating discussion of poetry AND religion/faith (and Twitter…). A few years ago I went to a small, intimate reading that Calvocoressi did at the Coupa Cafe in Palo Alto, where she read from the Amelia Earhart collection. Her poetry was absolutely inspiring, and I remember all of it vividly. Thanks for the great interview.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Thanks so much for this great interview! I really liked what Gabrielle Calvocoressi had to say about Bach on early instruments, twitter, Adult Drive-In, etc–wonderful!