The Monitor

Feature by | Charlotte Keenan

O-You don’t drink beer?
C- Well, I haven’t eaten dinner yet.
J- The slow beginning is very important, I’m told.
C- I don’t know
O- What’s that you’re drinking?
C- This is water.
O- You can’t drink water around me…or I’m not talking to you….  If you drink water…
J- No comment!
O- …end of conversation….
C- I can’t do that.
O- …then there is no reason for conversation….
J- This is great, then you’ll do an interview with me, and at the end we’ll say, “Obi was not available for comment [laughs] because the interviewer wouldn’t have a drink.”  That would actually be a perfect Monitor interview.
C- Probably, yeah.
J- That would mean I would have to shoulder it on my own, though.  I don’t feel up to it.
O- Yep, alright with me.
J- What a great interview, you just plunk the recorder down on the table…
C- Yeah, just let you talk.
J- …and it just spins out of control.
O- [inaudible, something about C needing a beer]
C- I’ll take a PBR.
[J leaves to get beer]
O- See, then the conversation will begin.

…

C- I do want to ask you about how you go about writing, though. For me, I don’t ever do any creative writing, and even just starting to write [non-poetry, a news article] can be scary.
O- Well it depends upon what you mean by scary.
J- I keep thinking about this poem that Obi showed me today. Can I mention this? I mean really, this is like a glimpse of a brand new poem, fresh off the conveyor belt, about his son fishing. His son caught a fish this weekend. Obi and I caught nothing, not even a cold. We didn’t even get sniffles. And so it was this poem, so I had the chance to see this poem kind of come out of the very recent past, um, and it’s really beautiful. It felt just like a fish. It was exactly like that moment of your son pulling that fish out of the water, because one second before he caught this fish he dropped his pole in there, and luckily, because it was a Transformers, kind of a child’s, young person’s, fishing pole, you know, kind of fun, it floated! I guess. And so we fished it out as if it was a fish that he caught, and we joked about that being an offering to the deities of the sea. And so not only did a fish come out of it, but underneath that was a poem, and it was a really cool birth to see. And then he released the fish.
O- Yeah, and it went back to where it came from. For me writing, it’s not, I don’t measure. Sometimes when I’m trying to write, I try to sweat it out. I get naked. And it’s true. I become restless, and I get naked, you know, truly naked. And I sit down and I start writing. Sometimes nothing comes to me…. Writing for me is the magic of itself.  It comes when it comes, and when it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come.
J- I actually put on more clothes when I write. You have no idea how many cummerbunds I have on now.
O- This discussion of making myself nude is figurative and sometimes true, too, but the point is that I am restless when I write, and I am often attempting to find words.

…

J- Do you carry anything around with you…or can you keep it in your head for when you go sit down later, or is it something you’re not hearing until you start? …I guess I have a really bad memory, so I have to maniacally scribble down….
O- I do not carry notes. …What I have noticed, Jamie, is that you are very piratical with words, you are a collector of words.
J- Yeah, a pack rat, essentially.
O- You actually scavenge words, you’re very conscious of the magnificence of words and the potential for using them.
J- Yeah. Oh holy shit, that’s right.
O- You know, I’ve lost quite a lot, and I’ve regretted it, but…I’m aware that the word does not belong to us.

…

O- I told some of my students to attempt to record themselves talking, telling themselves a story, put it aside and write a story and see and see how their natural voice is different from their artificial voice, and see which one works.  Because I think a lot of times we lose in the attempt to create artifice.

…

C- Obi said before that he usually writes spontaneously, but what sets that off for you?
J- Um, I would say that what usually sets it off for me is that sometimes I just get lucky and I just have time and I’m thinking, “Okay, for the next two hours I’m going to go to the coffee shop or sit at my desk and try and write something.” But I think the thing that sets it off for me is language, something in language, some kind of combination that I didn’t expect or some strange texture that I didn’t, it didn’t seem like I was writing when I was just generating things. And then from that, you know, I start to get more and more interested in it, you know.  The thing I love about it is how much failure, how much just stuff that isn’t working with what you’re trying to write, that kind of gets pushed to the periphery, how when you come back to it at a different time, it seems like that might be where the poem is.

…

O- Every time I think about my writing in any way – which is not usual, which is not very frequently, because after I write, I let it go – every time I think about it, I imagine myself as a chronicler, yeah. In a sense I am…keeping records for the future, for those who will come in a hundred years, who will say, “What the hell was this guy talking about?”

…

C- What’s some advice you have for student writers?
O- Don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t assume that you’re the greatest writer in the world, yet. I’m serious. Do not take yourself too seriously. Read, and read the work of your contemporaries. Learn the language of the streets. Also learn the language of the deities. That’s my advice.
J- Good advice, totally. I would say of course read, you know, just read a lot. But also write in ways that you’re getting your writing out in front of people, so they can kind of respond to you, and you can view your writing as something that you’ve put inside someone else’s head. Right, and so people come up to you and say, “Man, I really like what you wrote for the Monitor.” Not this article, but…
O- But if you don’t want to put your work out, don’t feel compelled to do it. I would prefer that people share their work among their peers and talk more among themselves…. And do it as an act of faith. Also listen to yourself, because I think that our instincts are our best editors. …Also, acquire a basket for your rejection slips, and don’t take it to heart because somebody says, “This is not it.” Because that is not quite always true….
J- I would add one more thing and say recognize that your tastes are gonna change. …Think of the ways in which music you like, books you like, movies you like, parachute pants that you swear are gonna be cool forever or whatever, you know, that you’re gonna have different tastes. And it will still embrace some of those, but receptive to the possibility of liking some shit that right now you hate.
O- And really open up to the possibility…enjoy life and don’t hide from it. You see, be a sinner, all right? Because there’s nothing more inspiring than the life of sin.

…

O- You have such a nightmare interview.
J- Because I ask questions?
C- That’s okay.
J- I guess that’s true. Tell me about the Monitor. Where’d you buy this tape recorder? Is that ink?!
[laughter]
J- I write with my hands, too!

Published in the Monitor Volume 15, Issue 3. September 29, 2008.