Travis Sharp, Monoculture

 

in the distance, a man
            body flexing in labor
            standing so far from the combine
            he looks nearly of  size with it

 

              they’re plants, they’re
              people, they’re planted

                                    potted one
                        dutifully pruned
                                    new growth cut back

                        “to be fucked
                        in the fruits
                        of some labor”
                                    and in deep

                                    debt to the sun

The author of the full-length debut, Yes, I Am a Corpse Flower (Knife Fork Book, 2021) [see my review of such here], the poetry pamphlet Behind the Poet Reading Their Poem Is a Sign Saying Applause (Knife Fork Book, 2022) and the chapbooks Sinister Queer Agenda (above/ground press, 2018) and One Plus One Is Two Ones (Recreational Resources, 2018), the second full-length collection by American poet and editor Travis Sharp is Monoculture (Greensboro NC: Unicorn Press, 2024). Composed as a book-length lyric suite, I have to admit that, even beyond my enthusiasms for Sharp’s work, I’m already partial to any collection that opens with a quote by Denver poet Julie Carr, a quartet of lines pulled from 100 Notes on Violence (Ahsahta Press, 2010; Omnidawn, 2023): “Under the immense pleasure of conformity, I find myself / delivering // flower boxes with body parts // Under the immense comforting plane of conformity— [.]”

Sharp’s Monoculture works a collage-effect, weaving the elegy across American histories, including the interwoven histories of slavery and commerce, specifically the cotton industry, “(and how it’s still felt,” he writes, “encroachment of / overwhelm, even to this / day, today, it’s all too / much, there is danger / there, danger, there, it / comes up, again, / danger, there, and, this / throat, cottoning up, in / the face, of— // still—) [.]” Set as a book-length lyric suite, the poems of Monoculture are tethered together across the length and breadth of eighty pages, yet clustered into untitled groupings, each poem an untitled fragment that adds to an accumulation across (as the back cover offers) “the economic, social, racial, religious, and sexual dimensions of currency in America. Travis Sharp begins with cotton crops in the South and follows the tendrils of consequence wherever they lead: into the food we eat, the work we do, the prayers we pray—and into the hungers that are never sated, the work that is never done, the prayers that are never said.” The effect is accumulative, allowing one to open the book at any point and see the line stretching out across both directions, from the ending all the way back to the beginning, wrapping critical observation and archival material with the most beautiful music. “we live among the plants we love among the plants we graze among the plants we gaze / among the plants we thrive among the plants we dive among the plants we strive among the / plants we plead among the plants we please we please oh please among the plants [.]” Through the shape of this single narrative thread, this long, accumulative poem, Sharp questions and examines the implications of such supply chains, especially those underplayed, yet essential to both American development and growth, all the way back to those original foundations. As Sharp asks, mid-way through the collection: “and what does it mean to hold cotton / unformed by labor? and what does it mean / for the cotton unformed by labor to be the / product of labor? and what does it mean / that father child labored in those fields for / his own father who unlabored for rich men / to bag that cotton? and what does it mean / that after the beatings he came to pick / faster and faster, his arms slashing/ through the fields?”

 

Concetta Principe, DISORDER

 

Like Emily who bound
her disorder to her last

reclusive poet years, wearing
walls of her room as a plaster

hijab, anachronistically applied
here

she veils herself with brick
and mortar

on foundations
that weep (“SAD THIGHS”)

The latest from Peterborough-based “award-winning poet, and writer of creative-non fiction, short fiction, as well as scholarship that focuses on trauma literature” Concetta Principe is the poetry collection, DISORDER (Guelph ON: Gordon Hill Press, 2024), following her collections Interference (Toronto ON: Guernica Editions, 1999) and This Real (St Johns NL: Pedlar Press, 2017). DISORDER is composed with a focus on neurodiversity, the focus of which is quite unique, and an important one; working meditative stretches while attending an open conversation aimed toward dismantling stigma. Composing her DISORDER, Principe offers poems not as the opposite of “order,” but through a structure requiring its own attention, composing crafted lyrics on what isn’t a problem to be solved but a difference of perspective. “Just so you know knots / are the pyrotechnics of appetite // repressant;,” she writes, to open the poem “ICING ON THE CAKE,” “a kink in the intestine / of this birthday cake // wrapped in frosted lake; [.]” Principe utilizes the lyric as a sequence of narrative threads that work to examine, unpack and document the way she thinks and moves through the world, and there are echoes in her meditations that remind of works by Pearl Pirie, or Phil Hall, attempting to discern how the world works (or doesn’t work) through language (including a stellar cluster of prose poems). As she writes as part of her “Notes and Acknowledgements” that closes the collection:

This project came together retroactively. I had been writing these pieces to document experience, frustration, rawness, daily trouble and their scabs. The diagnosis changed my perspective on what I’d been doing and highlighted for me what I’m calling the product of a high functioning BPD: some pieces pretend to be ‘normal’ and other pieces struggle with ‘normal,’ and underlying this is the child playing against the brick wall of ‘normal.’ It is thanks to Shane Neilson, who has been supporting my work for several years now, that this project of an atypical ‘a-normal’ life has an audience. I am so very grateful and indebted to Shane for creating this forum for disabilities discussion in which I, among others, may have a published voice.

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Julie Paul

Julie Paul’s second book of poetry, Whiny Baby (2024), follows the 2017 release of the poetry collection The Rules of the Kingdom, both published with McGill-Queen’s University Press. She is also the author of three short fiction collections, The Jealousy Bone (Emdash, 2008), The Pull of the Moon and Meteorites (both Touchwood Editions, 2014 / 2019).

Julie’s poetry, fiction and CNF have been widely published and recognized; The Pull of the Moon won the 2015 Victoria Book Prize, The Rules of the Kingdom was a finalist for both the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and her personal essay “It Not Only Rises, It Shines” received TNQ’s Edna Staebler Personal Essay Award.

Unless she’s visiting her daughter in Montreal, Julie lives in Victoria BC, where, in addition to writing and playing with paint, she works as a Registered Massage Therapist.

1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

My first book, The Jealousy Bone, was short fiction, and it taught me how to get behind my writing in a way I hadn’t before. Since then I’ve published two more books of short fiction as well as two poetry collections, including the brand new Whiny Baby. Both poetry collections are largely personal, confessional & intimate; the first one, The Rules of the Kingdom, felt scarier than this one, just because it was my first foray into truth-telling within the covers of a book. I have, however, published a number of personal essays over the past decade, and those are even more revealing!

2 - How did you come to fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?

I came to poetry first, as a pre-teen, but then got pulled into the fictional world, enticed by the freedom of making stuff up and having more space to work within.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

The starting is the easy part—love me a fun first draft! Sometimes, the final draft comes fast as lighting. Other times, years and years (I’m looking at you, novel manuscript).

4 - Where does a poem or work of fiction usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

All of my books thus far have been conceived after I’m well into writing various pieces; however, I’m currently working on a novel and a book of poems that have specific parameters, so we’ll see how that goes.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I do enjoy readings; it is always such a gift to hear any kind of response to my work, esp. in “the real world.” I try to leave my imposter syndrome at home.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Current concerns: How to live in the world despite the world. How to love. How to wrestle with dissatisfaction and recognize privilege. How to make amends.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

Reflectors. Mirrors. Comforters. Provokers. Entertainers. Not necessarily at the same time.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

I find it essential, and overall, I’ve had very good experiences with editors, both informally in my writing circles and with my publishers. They see things I cannot, being too close to the work.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

This is one I give myself: There is room for everyone.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to short stories)? What do you see as the appeal?

I love variety in life; I’m a restless soul. So moving around in multiple genres suits me really well.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I’m not much of a routine follower, but I do try to write most days. Preferably when I’m the only human at home and the cats are napping. Cookies help.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I go for a hike, or pick up a book and open it at random. Having the support of various writing buddies really helps, and I’ve had the good fortune to have taken two weekend retreats with them this year. Or I take a course; I’ve had so much fun doing Yvonne Blomer’s fabulous online classes over the past couple of years, and they’ve helped me to generate plenty of poems. Currently it’s National Poetry Writing Month, so those prompts can help get the juices flowing, but right now they’re piling up, unexplored…

13 - What was your last Hallowe'en costume?

I’m not a big fan of this holiday, truth be told, so it’s been years. But my favourite costume from when I was a kid was Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard, complete with plastic cigar. Now I’m showing my age…  

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

Knowing what I know of the body, from my training as a massage therapist, has made it into my work in all genres. Nature is always an influence, and the nature of behaviour, both human and otherwise.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

Such a hard question, to narrow things down. I’ll offer a list of recent inspiring works: Snow Road Station by Elizabeth Hay—set in my original neck of the woods. Anything I’ve read so far of Maggie O’Farrell’s. Eula Biss is a fantastice ssayist. Claire Keegan’s quiet intense fiction. This Strange Garment, poetry by Nicole Callihan. Ellen Bass’s Indigo. Abigail Thomas’s books. The novel Astra by Cedar Bowers.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Make croissants from scratch. Try oil painting. Publish a novel.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Visual artist, baker, café owner. I play around with paint a lot these days, as well as baking, esp. sourdough (thanks, pandemic).

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I think it’s an innate affinity for words. Or maybe a tendency to overshare. When I don’t write, I get really grumpy, so possibly it’s self-preservation above all.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I loved Maggie O’Farrell’s novel This Must Be the Place. And Poor Things—what a wild ride of a movie!

20 - What are you currently working on?

I’m currently rewriting my novel, and slowly working on a collection of personal essays, as well as a book of poems. Oh, and there’s a loaf of bread proofing in the kitchen.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Hamish Ballantyne, Tomorrow is a Holiday

 

practice instrument
practice    merest doing
the Holberg photograph is
as Julian never ceases saying a
return of the repressed as Julian
never ceases saying is an excess of
life the act preceded endless times
in a company town soon declared non-viable
awaiting showtime. AWAITING SHOWTIME
whether that’s annihilation of all practices
        or the moment to put your
into practice    until
performance at last denoted by
the um, tragic
then bacon it’ll
be as is our custom
for unexpected
  visitors (“Hansom”)

I’m intrigued by the quartet of sequences that make up Vancouver poet Hamish Ballantyne’s full-length poetry debut, Tomorrow is a Holiday (Vancouver BC: New Star Books, 2024), a title that follows his chapbooks Imitation Crab (Toronto ON: knife|fork|book, 2020) and Blue Knight (Durham NC: Auric Press, 2022). Composed across the sequences “Hansom,” “Luthier,” “A&Ws” and “ROCK ROCK CORN ROCK,” Tomorrow is a Holiday is, as the back cover offers, “a witness at the margins,” all of which provides a curious and amorphous shape to that absent, outlined centre. “a letter from jimmy buffett to / benjamin treating the form,” he writes, as part of the third sequence, “of appearance of movement arrested / in the billboards advertising / billboard space: a whale encounters / an enormous incarcerated krill in a submarine [.]” There’s a lustre of the Kootenay School of Writing language-infused work poetry across Ballantyne’s lyrics, one that acknowledges labour, even across the patina of holiday, comparable to recent works by Vancouver poet Ivan Drury [see my review of his full-length debut here], Vancouver poet Rob Manery [see my review of his latest here], Winnipeg poet Colin Smith [see my review of his latest here], Windsor-based poet Louis Cabri [see my review of his latest here], Roger Farr [see my review of one of his latest here] or Vancouver poet Dorothy Trujillo Lusk [see my review of her latest here]. He speaks to the things around those things that are also around those things, writing rings around rings around that absent presence of centre.

what’s attempting escape when shaking
surprised by your own response
seized by something in the air
and the airs of the body
my brain contains insane architectures that compare
to the formation, timeliness, and cultural import of flying
crows in this part of the city
we must ask what’s in the box
who put it there and the box
there
we must ask why there’s a skeleton on a throne
not what he’d look like with skin (“A&Ws”)

The evolution and trajectory of “work poetry,” a term coined from within a 1970s British Columbia terrain of poets including Tom Wayman and Kate Braid, was one that emerged out of a focus on and acknowledgement of labour and labour issues through a relatively straightforward lyric. Other poets, interestingly enough, that moved through this cluster of poets included Erín Moure and Phil Hall. There are some that might forget that Wayman, and this work poetry ethos, was a co-founder of The Kootenay School of Writing, although this focus on a more straightforward lyric was one eventually jettisoned by those members of KSW that followed. Curiously, the attentions to labour became fused with the language-informed poetic that KSW would be known for (anyone interested in further conversations around the history of The Kootenay School of Writing should pick up either Michael Barnholden’s anthology around such or Clint Burnham’s critical work on same [see my review of such here]. Think of writing by Michael Barnholden, Jeff Derksen, Lisa Robertson, Christine Stewart, Deanna Ferguson or Judy Radul. Through an attention to a particular flavour of language and labout, Ballantyne’s Tomorrow is a Holiday, then, becomes not only one of the inheritors of this particular sequence of traditions, but an impressive feat in how one moves forward.

If some poems, some collections, give the appearance of including everything, then that is the space around which Ballantyne’s poems exist: focusing instead upon everything else, attending the minutae of side moments, sidebars and margins across a wide distance. As the sequence “A&Ws” continues: “As property grew they moved / forever to outside edge of the fence / even after they were out of sight / of bend in the river they / liked so much [.]” I’m fascinated by the poems in the final section, “ROCK ROCK CORN ROCK,” subtitled “Three Translations of San Juan de la Cruz.” Also known as Sant John of the Cross, the Spanish Priest and Mystic was born in Castile in 1542 and died in 1591, being one of the major figures in the Catholic Church for his writing, three sequences of which sit at the end of Ballantyne’s collection. Through Ballantyne’s translation, these meditatative sequences offer further ripples across his own “restless curiosity,” continuing an abstract conversation around a kind of moral authority on attention, being and being in and of the very moment, as the seventh of ten poems that make up the third and final sequence, “DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL,” reads:

porch light
night crouched low in the truck bed
church light
wife light
dream light (kid is or hitting
piano  swimming
pool
skinny horse
loved loved loved loved loved
(there are other
lights too)
via some grammatical weft suddenly
hear own pavement footsteps
I am in the dark
passing the store
passing the pet store