Tzara Untangled: The Interview

[Tzara]

Hello, Tzara

'grats on a meaty thread full of stuff to feed the mind. Now, I've been perusing your writes and enjoying the control, originality of phrasing, and visuals they contain e.g in Combine, this particular part; most specifically "the mattress of a dream" is where image and sensation combine to render it a recognised thing.

my love for you is sprayed
like paint

flung over the mattress of dream. Disordered,
as dreams are or ought to be,
but colored silly as a mirror
tinted zinc and white.

What other artist has a tired goat
for monogram?

Can you fill me in a little on the inspirations behind this write, and do you feel now, in hindsight, it could work as a shorter piece? Yeah, I'm always seeing how other people's writes could lose bulk without losing impact, but suck at doing the same for my own once they've been written.

Hello, Ms. b.

"Combine" is an elegy for the American artist Robert Rauschenberg. Much of the imagery in the poem is cribbed from paintings of his. The title itself is from his work--some of his early, influential work is of a form called "combine painting," which mixes sculptural elements with painting. Here I've linked in some of the pieces to the reference in the poem:

Combine
for Robert Rauschenberg

This will be, Bob,
a messy poem, because
my love for you is sprayed
like paint

flung over the mattress of dream. Disordered,
as dreams are or ought to be,
but colored silly as a mirror
tinted zinc and white.

What other artist has a tired goat
for monogram?
Not Rembrandt, by golly,

and he was Dutch. Hell, it
didn't help him much,
nor did it, I guess, help you
to trade up from a coldwater flat
walk-up where Jap
gathered everybody's love and you
were left behind and drew with grass.

I will remember you, Tex,
dancing in a cardboard box
on roller skates with an umbrella
or some such odd thing, always
after something new: Drapery. Postcards.
Russian literature. You were

a fucking demigod
down there in Florida, playing
with ink and stones and shells and things.
And, Bob, now that you're dead,
I hope you've brought along a camera

to snap God's picture
so you can stencil it in next
to a rooster or an astronaut
and some purple goldfish

on that canvas you name Heaven.



The linked pieces, in order, are:

• Bed (1955), combine painting
• Star Quarters (c. 1970), serigraph on mirrored Mylar
• Monogram,(1955-1959), combine painting
• Pelican (1963), photograph documenting his dance performance to his own choreography
• Preview (1974), screenprint and paper collage on fabric
• From a Diary, with Andrei Voznesensky (1978), lithograph
• Retroactive I (1964), oil and silkscreen ink on canvas

​

Could it be a shorter piece? Of course, but that would take away from part of the intent of the piece. Rauschenberg's art is raucous, messy, exuberant, flamboyant, bursting with ideas. I wanted some of these same qualities in the poem, so it is deliberately "a messy poem," overdone, overfilled with image as a kind of homage to the artist.

Were I to write an elegy for Donald Judd, another artist whose work I admire, it would be so spare as to be almost no poem at all, again to reflect the artist's aesthetic.

That decision--to make "Combine" kind of a mess--might not be a very good one, but it was what I intended to do.

 

[Tzara]

A very simple question this time (and there're more to come):

choosing your titles - do they tend to dictate the write, or does the write dictate the title for you?


I'll try and spread my questions out over the thread since you are such a popular interviewee and have so many to answer already. And you can call me chippy anytime you want, butters isn't exclusive.

I'll add my two pennorth to this question .......... please do tell about Titles because I am crap at them, I think I need a whole Teach In on titles!!

Yes! Color me interested, too! Tzara is really (really) good with titles and I struggle with them every with every poem. I'd love to get a bead on how someone who's good at it does it.

What's interesting about this is that I would have said that I'm bad at titles. Perhaps all of us think we're bad at titles.

I have some I like, of course. But the bulk of them seem to be at best, basic, if not verging on the barely competent.

To address chippie's (yes, that does sound better to me, butters, thanks ) question about whether the poem dictates the title or the title the poem, my answer is, perhaps unsurprisingly, it depends. I think it's more common for me to write the title to fit the poem, but there are poems where the title births the poem. These latter are usually because I've found something that would make a good title, or something that seems to want to have a poem attached to it. For example, one that I did a draft of (and don't think I ever posted to Lit) that is just aching to have a poem written to it is "Excellent Disco Stripsearch."

That's a phrase I came across browsing Amazon for women in prison exploitation movies (now, now--not something I would normally indulge in, but I was looking them up for some reason) and that phrase was in the review for Caged Fury (starring Erik Estrada!). I mean, is that a title for a Lit poem, or what?

In a case like that, I (obviously) try to write a poem to fit the title. That can be a lengthy process, as I'm trying to come up with a reason to write a poem based only on a title. That isn't organic. It's not that it cannot work, but more that it's kind of the wrong way 'round, at least for me, to write poetry.

So usually, I've written at least a draft of the poem and am trying to come up with a title for what I've written. At that point, it's basically catch-as-catch-can for trying to find something that is both appropriate and memorable. I have no facility in being able to create great titles like someone like James Wright, who is not only one of my favorite poets, but hands down my favorite title-creator. I mean, jeez, a title like "Depressed By A Book Of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward An Unused Pasture And Invite The Insects To Join Me" is so good one almost doesn't even have to read the poem (though you should, because it is even better than the title).

Anyway, here's ten of my favorite titles, with explanations of their origin:

• "Apologia Pro Vita Sua": The title is a Latin phrase that translates as "A Defense of One's Life." It is also the title of a famous book-length essay by John Henry Cardinal Newman defending his religious positions. The poem, which lapses (intentionally) into rather crude language is about my, um, disquiet at how sexual urges shape my relationships with women. That led to the adoption of the title on its original Latin meaning, which led to Newman, which led to the epigraph.
  
  It is not a "good" title, if for no other reason than it is likely both offputting for many readers and misleading for those who know the Newman reference.
  
  I like it anyway.

• "Breaking Stuff at the Smash Shack": I read an article about Sarah's Smash Shack (since closed) and had to write a poem about it. This is an example of the title preceding the poem, which was written to a particular form.

• "divorce, with insects": The poem was written first, about how nasty some divorces can be, to the point of mutual assured destruction and the then obvious post-nuclear imagery.

• "Driving to Sarajevo": I think this poem originated with the opening lines
  My mood sometimes shifts
  in and out of gear
  like a Yugo with a bad transmission.​
  which led me to Yugoslavia/Bosnia and Herzegovina, and all the awful things that have happened there (in particular, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, which was the incident that sparked World War I). The title came from the metaphor.

• "From a Box of Dreams": The title comes from a phrase in the preface of Hélène Cixous' book Dream I Tell You. The first lines
  As I opened that slim volume of Cixous,
  a bookmark emerged
  and fluttered to the floor like a moth,​
  describe the origin of the poem. The title came after the poem, or at the same time as the poem. I don't remember which.

• "La Diada de Sant Jordi": Chip (a/k/a butters) is to blame for this one. She posted something about St. George's Day, and when I looked that up online I found that it is a major holiday in Barcelona. The title is Catalan for "St. George's Day."

• "project blue book": I think at least the idea for the poem came first, though the title was very close in time to the conception of the poem. Project Blue Book was the major USAF study of UFOs.

• "Scut": Unusual, in that this is a one-word title that I like. The poem was written as part of a challenge thread to "re-imagine" poems by other Lit poets. This one reimagines a poem by annaswirls. The title is a term that refers to "A stubby erect tail, as that of a hare, rabbit, or deer," which carries forward the main metaphor. I was also thinking of a line from Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor where Falstaff says (in V v), "My doe with the black scut!"
  
  Basically me thinking about girls' butts.

• "Short Set for a Long Suicide": I don't remember, but I think at least something of the idea of the title came first, as I was thinking about what Evans' friend Gene Lees said about his death: "the longest suicide in history."

• "She Sleeps in Wood": I thought this title was based on a musical composition, but when I went to look at the source, I found that the piece I was thinking of is actually titled Kiss on Wood.
  
  I think this is where I got the idea, even though the title is different. I was thinking of Sleeping Beauty walled off in her castle by all the brambles and such.

Anyway, that's a first pass talking about titles. They're a trouble and a worry at the best of times and maybe Annie has a good idea that they're worthy of a thread of their own.

 

[Tzara]

At the risk of offending or complimenting you (I'm not sure which) the lighthearted which leads to the serious I find in some of your poems remind me of Billy Collins.

Am I Billy spot on, or does this read like fingernails scraping a blackboard?

I think I'd say I find it complimentary but perhaps inaccurate. I've read Billy Collins' poems and quite like him as a poet, so your comment is flattering in that sense. I do not feel, however, the least bit influenced by him. I'd like to think my sense of humor in poetry comes more from Kenneth Koch, but I'm probably overreaching there.

I'd sure like to sell poetry books as well as Billy Collins, though.

 

[Tzara]

You left a poem in the 'Stalking Desejo' thread that starts "I could lay a jawed trap..." It may be my favorite of yours, but I do not see it listed anywhere in your vault. Do you often misplace 'good' poems?

I did leave it there! Perhaps I should have deleted it.

I don't exactly "misplace" poems. The ones I think have more promise, I may delete from the site with the idea of placing them elsewhere, though I have not tried to publish poems for several years. I do write a lot of stuff I simply forget about, in the sense of Write, Dump, Walk away.

I do have a copy of the poem you referred to on my home computer. I'd, frankly, kind of forgotten about it. I suppose I should either post it or forget about it.

I have mixed feelings about "officially" posting poems to Lit.

 

[Desejo]

I did leave it there! Perhaps I should have deleted it.

I don't exactly "misplace" poems. The ones I think have more promise, I may delete from the site with the idea of placing them elsewhere, though I have not tried to publish poems for several years. I do write a lot of stuff I simply forget about, in the sense of Write, Dump, Walk away.

I do have a copy of the poem you referred to on my home computer. I'd, frankly, kind of forgotten about it. I suppose I should either post it or forget about it.

I have mixed feelings about "officially" posting poems to Lit.

You better not delete that poem without informing the "stalkee"! I have a personal interest in that one . I wish there were a way to track/store everything we write on the forum (but do not officially submit). It's possible of course to go through all of one's postings and find everything, but it's also tedious.

Tell us more about your mixed feelings about "officially" posting - which I think many of us share.

 

[Angeline]

All good things must come to an end

and the very good thing that has been this interview will end on Wednesday. If you still have questions, this would be a good time to ask them. And before I go any further, thank you Tzara. Your food for thought is always a banquet.

But I do have one more question and it's about your relationship with visual art. You know art the way I know jazz (at least it appears that way to me). Can you talk a bit about the influence of it in your poems and whether your knowledge of it affects the way you write? I know you've written poems about artists (the homage to Rauschenberg being one example), but does it effect your writing in poems that aren't specifically about an artist or work of art? (I believe there's a corollary to this in music, so I'm trying to understand how it might work with visual art).

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

And now for something completely different.........

The Proust Questionaire

• If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?

• What is the best gift you’ve received?

• Which hobby would you pursue if you had more time?

• If you could have any super power what would it be?

• What is the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?

• What was your most epic road trip?

• What food brings back childhood memories?

• Which book most influenced your life?

• What is the most valuable piece of advise you ever received?

• If you could go back and relive one day in your life. Which one
would it be and why?

• What advice would you give your ten year old self today?

• What do you most admire in a man?

• What do you most admire in a woman?

• What word or phrase do you most over-use?

• Who are your favourite writers?

• Which artists do you most admire?
__________________

 

[bogusagain]

No questions but I just want to say, great thread!

It would be great if you (Tzara) put your best poems in a book with a forward. I would certainly purchase one and put it with pride, on my poetry bookshelf.

 

[Tzara]

I could have sworn I made an additional post to this thread, but it seems to have disappeared. Ah, well. No great loss, I'm sure.

There was a question something to the effect of why do I feel the need to "wall off" certain poems by posting them under a different name, or something like that. Does that ring a bell?

No matter. I'm going to answer that anyway.

I've already talked about the Minervous persona and how she actually is a true heteronym, or alternate personality or character, who writes poems. Most of my other alternate screennames are primarily organizational in nature--often to group certain kinds of things I was trying (form poetry, contests, etc.). Here's a sampling:

• ArnoldSnarb writes mostly jokey, throwaway things. The name comes from a vanishingly minor character in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.
• ElmerGlew writes spare, somewhat experimental poems with lower case titles. If the name is not an obvious pun (I don't know if the product is available across the pond), it refers to this.
• PoetGuy is me, except that when he posts, he speaks of himself in third person. He was created for this thread.
• pushkine was created as a repository for the poems I wrote for the Poetry Survivor contest of a few years ago.
• ShyErraticTable writes form poetry, exclusively (I think--I didn't check everything).

Anyway, that's a summary of why the "wall off" comment.

 

[HarryHill]

Anyway, that's a summary of why the "wall off" comment.

..
Yikes! there's subbasements under your vault.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Goodness do you ever wonder who you are going to be today?!

 

[greenmountaineer]

There was a question something to the effect of why do I feel the need to "wall off" certain poems by posting them under a different name...............Here's a sampling:...........

PoetGuy is me, except that when he posts, he speaks of himself in third person. He was created for this thread.
[*]pushkine was created as a repository for the poems I wrote for the Poetry Survivor contest of a few years ago.........

I figured you were Poet Guy (wasn't hard. Tzara wasn't around when he was) but I had no idea you were pushkine

Mosquito Wins Miss America is one of my all time favorites in light verse.

 

[Angeline]

There was a question something to the effect of why do I feel the need to "wall off" certain poems by posting them under a different name, or something like that. Does that ring a bell?

No matter. I'm going to answer that anyway.

I've already talked about the Minervous persona and how she actually is a true heteronym, or alternate personality or character, who writes poems. Most of my other alternate screennames are primarily organizational in nature--often to group certain kinds of things I was trying (form poetry, contests, etc.). Here's a sampling:

• ArnoldSnarb writes mostly jokey, throwaway things. The name comes from a vanishingly minor character in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.
• ElmerGlew writes spare, somewhat experimental poems with lower case titles. If the name is not an obvious pun (I don't know if the product is available across the pond), it refers to this.
• PoetGuy is me, except that when he posts, he speaks of himself in third person. He was created for this thread.
• pushkine was created as a repository for the poems I wrote for the Poetry Survivor contest of a few years ago.
• ShyErraticTable writes form poetry, exclusively (I think--I didn't check everything).

Anyway, that's a summary of why the "wall off" comment.

I forgot about Mr. Table. One my favorite alt names here ever.

 

[Tzara]

Tell us more about your mixed feelings about "officially" posting - which I think many of us share.

There are, of course, positives and negatives to posting poems to Literotica. There are pros and cons of posting poems here in the PF&D as well.

For that matter, there are pros and cons of even trying to write poetry in the first place.

Anyway, to address your question about my mixed feelings about posting poems "officially" (meaning submitting them to the Literotica poem threads, rather than just posting on the forum), here's some thoughts.

Pro:

• They're easy to find, all in one convenient place. This is, by far, the single greatest advantage of posting them to Lit.
• You expose them to a larger audience than you'd get on the PF&D.
• People are encouraged to comment, though comments are (as we all know) rare.
• The voting can give one some vague idea of how a poem is received by a wide range of readers. I know people think their poems are 1-bombed a lot, but my general experience is that the poems I think are better are usually higher rated than the poems I think are not as good. It's not terribly consistent, but the general trend is that way. So I find the ratings helpful.
• They're relatively easy to delete. At least from where they're posted. One of the big problems with the Internet is that once posted, forever posted. If you have any designs about publishing work elsewhere, virtually all journals want only work that has not appeared in any other medium, including the Internet. So a posted poem is easier to wipe, but "wipe" has become something less reliable in recent years.

Con:

• There is very little feedback for posted poems. Now, that's also true of most poems posted in the PF&D, but what little feedback one gets posting to the main Literotica poem listings is often trivial or naïve. Poems posted in the PF&D have at least a more informed audience than the general Lit poetry area. (Though readings and reactions from readers who are not focused on poetry is of great value as well.)
• This is technical quibble--there is limited font control (or spacing, etc.) on poems. How my poem looks is sometimes very important to me (and, sometimes, not). The Lit New Poems forum has much less control over what a poem looks like than the PF&D does.
• Even PF&D people don't read the New Poems, as there is so much dreck there. This is probably the main reason I don't regularly read the New Poems. It is almost never worth my time. When I first came to Lit, New Poems was where things were happening. That has shifted to the PF&D over time, which is OK, but I think makes it difficult for new poets to find us. I found the forum through the New Poems.I would speculate that most of you did as well. So something that addresses the New Poems is important.
• Posting anything on the Internet is a problem if one has any ambitions for a poem. I mentioned this above--once you've posted it to the Internet, most publications treat that as "published material" and won't consider it for publication.
• Context. My poems have lain much too closely with badly rhymed paeans to sleeping with one's mother. It makes me feel as if I've contracted bedbugs.

Anyway, some ideas. As I said, I am of mixed feelings about it.

 

[Tzara]

and the very good thing that has been this interview will end on Wednesday. If you still have questions, this would be a good time to ask them. And before I go any further, thank you Tzara. Your food for thought is always a banquet.

Thank you, Angie, for the opportunity to explain myself. I'm usually doing that after a drink has been tossed in my face, and this has been a far more pleasurable experience.

But I do have one more question and it's about your relationship with visual art. You know art the way I know jazz (at least it appears that way to me). Can you talk a bit about the influence of it in your poems and whether your knowledge of it affects the way you write? I know you've written poems about artists (the homage to Rauschenberg being one example), but does it effect your writing in poems that aren't specifically about an artist or work of art? (I believe there's a corollary to this in music, so I'm trying to understand how it might work with visual art).

I'd like to defer my response to that/those questions until tomorrow, as I need some time to think about the topic.

I will say that I think your connection to jazz is much stronger than mine to visual art. I love visual art, and will talk about that, but it might be a closer analogue for me to talk about 20th Century classical music, which I also love.

Anyway, tomorrow.

 

[Angeline]

Thank you, Angie, for the opportunity to explain myself. I'm usually doing that after a drink has been tossed in my face, and this has been a far more pleasurable experience.
I'd like to defer my response to that/those questions until tomorrow, as I need some time to think about the topic.

I will say that I think your connection to jazz is much stronger than mine to visual art. I love visual art, and will talk about that, but it might be a closer analogue for me to talk about 20th Century classical music, which I also love.

Anyway, tomorrow.

If you want to talk about both in connection to how you write I wouldn't complain. A demain.

 

[theognis]

There was a question something to the effect of why do I feel the need to "wall off" certain poems by posting them under a different name, or something like that. Does that ring a bell?

No matter. I'm going to answer that anyway.

I've already talked about the Minervous persona and how she actually is a true heteronym, or alternate personality or character, who writes poems. Most of my other alternate screennames are primarily organizational in nature--often to group certain kinds of things I was trying (form poetry, contests, etc.). Here's a sampling:

• ArnoldSnarb writes mostly jokey, throwaway things. The name comes from a vanishingly minor character in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.
• ElmerGlew writes spare, somewhat experimental poems with lower case titles. If the name is not an obvious pun (I don't know if the product is available across the pond), it refers to this.
• PoetGuy is me, except that when he posts, he speaks of himself in third person. He was created for this thread.
• pushkine was created as a repository for the poems I wrote for the Poetry Survivor contest of a few years ago.
• ShyErraticTable writes form poetry, exclusively (I think--I didn't check everything).

Anyway, that's a summary of why the "wall off" comment.

Well, Tzara, I'm going to take credit for that question, even if I didn't ask it, because it elicited another very interesting and revealing answer from you. I swear, you are not only such a fount of poetry, much of it really, really good, in my opinion, you are obviously such a multifaceted individual I'm slightly in awe.

I may think of something else to say later, but for now I think I'll wait until I've read some more of your "dreck."

 

[Tzara]

And now for something completely different.........

OK. Here goes:

The Proust Questionaire

Vivian: So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust.
Marlowe: Who's he?
Vivian: You wouldn't know him, a French writer.
Marlowe: Come into my boudoir.
—Bogart and Bacall from The Big Sleep (1946)

• If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Seattle, which is where I live. Though London is very attractive and San Juan Island is quite beautiful, if a bit distanced from things. Victoria was very nice, as well.

• What is the best gift you’ve received? My father gave me the fountain pen his parents gave him when he entered college. That choked me up like nobody's business.

• Which hobby would you pursue if you had more time? I do have more time. I'm retired. So, poetry.

• If you could have any super power what would it be? The ability to heal people.

• What is the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done? This is a tough one, since I am perhaps as unspontaneous a person as who ever walked the Earth. I overthink everything. Would picking Team Jacob count?

• What was your most epic road trip? Driving from Los Angeles to Seattle in 24 hours straight (grad student, no money for a hotel) in the middle of the oil embargo. Driving through Sacramento was like being in a post-apocalypse movie—I did not see another car on the, I think, ten-lane freeway. Creepy.

• What food brings back childhood memories? Frozen orange juice.

• Which book most influenced your life? B.F. Skinner's Walden Two, and not in a good way.

• What is the most valuable piece of advise you ever received? Do not be afraid to be bad. It was phrased differently, but basically was the same message.

• If you could go back and relive one day in your life. Which one
would it be and why? There are any number of days I would happily relive in my life. Most of them involve my wife and the two of us seeing something we both found interesting. Colonial Williamsburg. The Wilton Diptych. Venice. The Little Colorado Canyon. The first time we saw a particular bird.

• What advice would you give your ten year old self today? That feeling you have that girls are kind of interesting? Run with it.

• What do you most admire in a man? The ability to laugh at oneself.

• What do you most admire in a woman? The ability to laugh at oneself.

• What word or phrase do you most over-use? Anyway.

• Who are your favourite writers? Jane Austen, Raymond Chandler, Shakespeare, Stanisław Lem, James Wright, Kenneth Koch.

• Which artists do you most admire? Vermeer, Rauschenberg, Monet, Botticelli. This changes, of course, over time.

 

[Tzara]

No questions but I just want to say, great thread!

It would be great if you (Tzara) put your best poems in a book with a forward. I would certainly purchase one and put it with pride, on my poetry bookshelf.

Thank you, bogus. That's a very nice thing to say, and I appreciate it.

 

[Tzara]

..
Yikes! there's subbasements under your vault.

And secret panels, too!

(There's probably another five to ten aliases out there. I can offhand think of five, and I know there are more than that. I just can't remember them all.)

 

[Tzara]

Goodness do you ever wonder who you are going to be today?!

No, that's something one puts on with one's morning mouthwash--today feels like a pushkine day!

And off you go.

 

[Tzara]

I figured you were Poet Guy (wasn't hard. Tzara wasn't around when he was) but I had no idea you were pushkine

I guess my point would be that it doesn't matter who I am. (If that even means anything.)

What matters is Is this poem any good?

 

[Tzara]

I forgot about Mr. Table. One my favorite alt names here ever.

I think Table is more of an "it" than a "mister."

Does furniture have a sex?

 

[Angeline]

I think Table is more of an "it" than a "mister."

Does furniture have a sex?

Maybe, but "shy" and "erratic" suggest it has been anthropomorphized into a....he? She?


(I'm being silly. Ignore it.)

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Now I will have to sit and wonder if I was ever rude or sarcastic to any of your alter egos, for if it was so one prefers to know who one is aiming at jooooooooke before any feathers are ruffled ! (I only knew your were Pushkine)