ELEANOR STURM: Hi Rishona. The world is raging loud today and perhaps always. This is something which I both revel and feel weighed down by. It invites too much space and also none at all. I speak in polarity because when revisiting our poems in the latest issue there's exactly that in the perspectives we've offered. It seems you are exploring an absence of presence. “HOW TO BE THE MOON” opens up these small windows to look through in order to find this sense of seeking an undefined desire. "I forgot to mean it when I said thank you" stresses this lack of presence in the action. The hole punched sky is a particularly beautiful detail, as well. In “Vampire Fangs as Gender Affirming Care” if I'm honest with myself, I'm almost recklessly running towards being filled with a devouring. To be frank I wrote this a long time ago. I think maybe late 2019 and only did a handful of edits before sending it out into the world. When looking at it with fresh eyes all I really see is hunger. Ironically I just explored the "earlier versions" feature on google docs and its first working title was “Empty Spaces.” Perhaps my polarity analysis is already fraught.
RISHONA MICHAEL: I can confirm this weighing down feeling, and confirm that you are not the only one. I'm trying my damn hardest to stay in high frequency, through steady observations of my ivy plant growing upwards, reaching to the tree branches drooping outside my bedroom window.
Some days my body and mind deserve to feel the anxiety and anger that it feels. So today I allowed myself to wallow. The mosquitoes are still dying from a bug killer my roommate hooked up outside. Some zaps are quick and short, while some linger as if it's got a lot to say. As if its death is vital. Regardless, polarity is eternal.
As to “HOW TO BE THE MOON,” you're correct in the absence/ importance of the presence! It's so funny how our poems know more than us sometimes. When I wrote this poem I was going through a time when the world was asking me to take life minute by minute. It still asks this of me, and perhaps always will. I was busy trying to practice manifestations, trusting that the rough period of my life was setting me up for something greater. Who knows. Regardless, I was in need of staying present. Listening to frequency music seemed to be the only thing I could do. Hertz 417, Hertz 963. I needed to only think about the 10 fingers I had typing out my poems, and the two ears I was given to listen to the birds cry. The birds are awfully quiet in Brooklyn.
I’m so bad at being present. All I seem to do is think about how everything can go wrong. I dwell. I think that is what ended up appearing in my poem. An acknowledgment that not only is this hard, but perhaps it’s something I’ll never fully grasp.
I can feel the desire for devouring in “Vampire Fangs as Gender Affirming Care” and I love it. It’s done so well. From the conversations with the hickory tree (I too have been a hollowed out vessel) to the monosyllables at the bottom of the page, to the direction of “Look…” at the end. It feels that this desire is linked to affirmation. As in: to be able to make sure I’m alive, I must satisfy my desires. As in: prove to me this life, by allowing me to feel the parts of me that have been emptied. And the third person on top of it all is mwah (chef’s kiss).
Both of our poems seem to be asking from the external. Whether it be an already known devour or an undefined devour. And with the theme of the issue being mirror, I find it so fascinating how much of the external we search for to define our internals. And vice versa!
ES: You're right that polarity is eternal but thankfully the delta between is where the meat of it all is. The waters, the importance of absence, the devouring and the things we run towards. It's incredibly special that we can choose to move between poles how we see fit.
Rishona, you've said one of my least favorite phrases in all of words! "I'm so bad at being present." What does it mean? What is present? You're alive! You're living! Presently! I think the idea of what presence of mind should look like has been tainted by the digital age of aspirational culture. It's true we are often focusing on the shape of what could be but isn't that a present time experience? You can't aspire in future time. The hyper loop revolving door of what we should or should not want is constantly thrust into our consciousness but we're intaking this in the present moment. "Living in the present" has been colonized by this idea that we should all have some balanced ritual of morning meditation and breath work, limited screen time and regulated emotions but this image has been created by aspirational culture. It's been created by a digital marketing strategy to sell us color coordinated athleisure wear, greenwashed supplements and apps desired to track personal health data. Something I too am not immune to. I love my Strava data. But ultimately I think the mess of present living is where the beauty is. It's doom scrolling for an hour before bed because the world is a scary violent place. Yet, the doom scroll feeds the intake of violence. It seeps into our subconscious and appears in our dreamscapes only to fuel conscious anxiety. It's riding bikes to the park with your friends to lay in partial shade for two hours while you alternate between reading and yapping and sending each other memes to laugh about despite your head resting gently on each others' belly. The world is a giant scramble of distractions and all the mess of it IS THE PRESENT and I think that's what I love about it lately. You know, despite all the fascism and war and genocide and perhaps I'll be paying $700 a month for my estradiol patches in the near future. Yet even if you disagree, that you have not been living in the present, this absence of presence birthed a beautiful poem and meditation on that exact idea that has brought us here discussing ideas to stimulate and connect. Honestly, what a gift.
This week I read a conversation between Patti Harrison and Mitski in Interview Magazine where they discussed the progression of innovation of how and what we are putting in our ass and in the same conversation they discussed the nuance of opting in or out of engaging in resistance against an evolving fascist state. It felt like the perfect distillation of what it's like to be alive and present now. We are bombarded with an insurmountable quantity of information that our brains are forced to flip between playfulness, absurdity and intensity at alarming rates. I no longer feel the question is what are we to do about it, but rather, what tools can we build to support ourselves and our community to navigate in a way that doesn't burn us out but rather translates this information into tools of resistance. I do not have an answer yet but I suppose that's why we have these conversations. For now I'm looking for small amounts of resistance in my day to day until I can find the web that spins into something larger.
RM: You’re so right, dwelling is sometimes part of the present. There have been so many times in my life where I have later realized how important a scroll was or how important it was to dwell. I love a random and messy collage. I think what I mean more is that I really really want to feel my friends on my belly. Even when I'm drowning. Or at the very least, be able to acknowledge that yes, this pressure is from their crowns. Again, even when I’m drowning.
I think about these tools we need so much to support the polarity in our lives in the city. I see how drained roommates are from working, and then how drained they are from the world around. And then also how eager they are to continue understanding and amplifying the world around them. I think one thing that makes NYC at times difficult for me to live in is that I wish there were more fields. For my dog. For my eyes, and my body to stare at negative space. To experience just how far my eyes can see. This has always helped me with burn out. So what would be the equivalent of the feeling I get when I watch my German Shepherd run donuts in a field that also creates a tool of resistance? Maybe it is the tool of resistance.
I was watching Kpop Demon Hunters recently. Mainly because some students I had over the summer begged me to watch it. But ugh it was so good. Definitely recommend it if you haven’t watched it already. Here’s a spoiler: my only critique of the movie was that I wish in the end they figured out how to live with the demons. You see it throughout the movie a bit as the main character is both: part demon/part hunter. And as she communicated more and more with the demons she began to hesitate when she was in the midst of fighting and killing the demons. Basically understanding their humanness a bit more; understanding she, like them, holds demons too. In the end, though, all the demons end up being defeated and vanishing. How would a script where both demons and hunters end up coexisting transcribe? How do we create ways to continue bridging gaps in communities? So much to create. So much to ponder. I am in awe and appreciative of everyone's constant efforts.
ES: You're spot on about watching your German Shepherd run donuts in a field being a tool of resistance. Not the specific act but the idea that seeking a life that allows for what we need in order to be the best version of ourselves. It's kind of the cruel twist of it all, isn't it? The framework for suppressing political and working class movements is to create a set of circumstances that wears down the masses so there's no energy or resources to affect meaningful change. The intentional information bombardment causes us to not know where to direct our attention.
It’s not that far-right movements don’t value art and therefore they defund it and suppress it. Rather, they are afraid of the power of creativity because it is an unknown to them. Those that seek to make everyone a certain way that fits into their understanding of the world lack the creativity for their own life which is actually just the fear of the unknown. Their worlds do not offer space to comprehend the capabilities of creativity. It leads to not just art but all unknowns being suppressed. I used to be angry with people who hate so deeply but now I just pity them for their lives must be so unimaginably boring and void of enrichment. I also know they cannot break my spirit because I would never let someone who lacks one break mine.
Lately it feels like a lot of my writing and observing is looking for the small moments and transforming them into pillars of significance. I think I’ve always done this in my work but recently I heard it named for the first time. I was listening to the poet Catherine Barnett speak and she sighted this essay by Charles Baxter called “On Defamiliarization” that talks about this idea of misfit details. This idea that we can place copious amounts of significance into a small detail that is ultimately speaking to a larger truth. Perhaps your dog running donuts is your misfit detail to call you forward into showing up to the resistance in the form you seek.
To answer your demons and hunters conundrum, I think that you don’t have to look much further than reality to see how they would cohabitate but perhaps that’s too reductive. After all, I haven’t seen the movie and I’m merely basing this off of the idea that there seems to be a good and bad side to it. We all have a little demon and a little hunter in us. Maybe you should write the script where the good and the bad find the solution. Maybe you can offer it up to the world when you’ve written it?
At the Sundress Arts Residency
RM: There was this dog at the Sundress Arts Residency frequently hanging out with the goats, and I wondered if he thinks himself to be a goat. I think humans do this same thing. I think more than half of the far right, as you were mentioning, only think and act in the way that they do because it’s all they have ever known. I also think that many tend to be afraid of their thoughts and emotions. And most times art demands that you slow down, and feel. Which goes back to this fear you mentioned. Perhaps people are scared, or stubborn, or their dopamine is slightly too shot to imagine a more just world. Regardless, you will never be broken, and therefore, the world you crave for will never be broken either.
I love this term of misfit details. And I am such a sucker for misfit details in poetry. I’ll never forget a line that a peer wrote in my MFA class. It was written by Kate Peters, to give credit where credit is due, and it went something like “your armpit // like sucking on a penny.” Okay, I’m actually forgetting if it was armpit or kiss or something else, but this image of sucking on a penny was sooooo absurd! So specific. So random. I have never stopped thinking, feeling, tasting it.
I try to incorporate misfit details in my own work, but most times, when I’m not paying close enough attention to the world, I miss these absurd details around me. There’s a lottt of details in NYC. I used to make a list of 10 random observations a day or a week. Trying to get back into it. If nothing else, it helps me remember my day better. I’ve actually been trying to write a poetry collection about this connection between demons and “hunters.” Trying to find a balance, connection, or tie between them as a means of figuring out how to coexist or better yet, create and build together. Like you said, there is a demon in all of us. And perhaps if we could love and accept this side of us instead of shunning it away, we can create more, grow grander. I’m hoping if I can write into these poems, I will find answers. Kinda like what Rilke said about living into your questions. Like you—I can’t understand how to live near the far right. I usually just turn my head and try to pretend they don’t exist. But, I’m afraid this hasn't been working as effectively as I would like it to. I would love to offer these understandings to the world.
ES: It's astounding that we all continue to produce art in a world constantly accelerating. I was at the Printed Matter Art Book Fair and was observing how so many of the books were showcasing long ago work from artists long ago dead. I think these two ideas are related. How to be an artist is so often to be loved for being dead. Death being the ultimate slow down perhaps.
This line by Kate makes me think about armpits as a form of currency. Intimacy beyond the marquee so to speak. There's this access barrier that's present in all relationships that is only reached once intimacy is firmly established. Armpits feel as if they're beyond this barrier. The tasting or smelling or whatever else your creativity alights. The atypical intimacies are where the true depths of love and vulnerability present themselves. I think about all the languages that must live in the quietest of places people share. Virginia Woolf said something to that effect although I believe she was speaking of longing for a language of her own rather than reflecting on the one she spoke.
Tell me more of this collection. What are you learning about the demons and the hunters as you explore further?
RM: I just saw the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and was absolutely flabbergasted at this piece of work. I've seen a fair amount of cathedrals so far but OMG to this cathedral! It's set to be the tallest cathedral in the world once they finish it. Every time I looked at it, it would take my breath away. When I was in Milan during college, Dulcea, a professor and art historian, informed us that some cathedrals were built tall for the intention of being closer to the heavens. And boy does this one seem to be proof of that motive. It's cool that a higher power has always existed above us. I'm interested in the higher power existing within us.
And then if this higher power exists within us, well--all of our high power's lust and envy and gluttony also lives within us. I am a believer that all parts of everyone deserves to be loved. Understanding this, might help us use our individual higher power more effectively. I don't know. This idea and statement is a bit naive, I'm aware. It keeps being tested as it should. Ultimately, I think this collection is teaching me how to forgive.
ES: Whenever I see or think about la Sagrada Familia it's hard to ignore how astonishingly full of whimsy it is. It's outlived generations of contributors and the abstraction of the architecture is obviously something to behold. As for Dulcea's tidbit I'd have to remark that there's also whimsy in chasing something higher and larger than ourselves. To accept grounding in something unseen, unheard, immaterialized we must embrace at least some whimsy. I suppose the chase will outlive us as well. Do you believe this everlasting chase is a form of the forgiveness you're learning? Maybe forgiveness or rather, honesty with ourselves is the core of the internal higher power. I feel both quite strong yet also wildly vulnerable when I accept the difficult things within me. What a gift we get to incessantly discover new corners to rip us to shreds, opening up opportunities to build us back up.
RM: I love the whimsy! Everything should be whimsy. Barcelona was definitely whimsy. Whimsy is starting to feel like home. And yes! To worship the intangible, there needs to be whimsy. I'm hesitant to hear the word chase and forgiveness used together. Usually when I think about forgiveness, it involves an act of letting go, not chasing. But you said it perfectly when you said honesty with ourselves is the core of internal higher power. Not everyone knows how to accept the difficult things within ourselves, I know I don't always. It's a blessing to be able to do so. A wonderful gift to feel and discover all the worlds within ourselves. I started to understand this phenomenon last summer during my first break up. Allowing the body to be honest in what it feels and then allowing it to feel it honestly, is a wild experience. 10/10 recommend for anyone interested.
ES: You're correct in that forgiveness is often a letting go rather than a seeking. Although, letting go can create an opening to seek something anew if you allow it. I'm imagining a magnet slowly attracting the next opportunity rather than a rushing forward. Where would you mount your opportunity magnet on your person if there was a physical manifestation? I think I'd put four small ones on each pinky and both little toes. Four tiny antennas. I suppose I'd have to hope they work together rather than draw me in four opposing directions. This could get dangerous the more I think it through. I think often of the places I find myself in and the unexpected interactions I have as a result and where the thoughts that stem lead me. I find myself overanalyzing the how and why of where I've gone and where it's taking me. My pinky magnets are proposing questions rather than answering them it would seem. I like having more questions than answers.