The Exploding Book

CLASS INTERVIEW WITH JOHN GALLAHER

The below interview took place via email a few weeks ago. Thank you to all who participated. And thanks to John G. for agreeing to do this interview. Many of the questions are about JG's newest book, In a Landscape, which we had just read together in class.

The interviewers here are Jennifer Jones, Stevy Erdman, Lucas J. Burkett, Niall Garvin, Jessica Johnson, Austin Veldman, David Dodd Lee, and Nicholas Arzola, all members of our publishing and editing class this spring.

posted on 4/14/15

Jennifer Jones

JJ: I have had the chance to read some of the work you did before In a Landscape, I am curious as to how you think your collaborative experience with G.C. Waldrep has shifted your style of writing or guided your process in its evolution? In The Little Book Of Guesses I still feel your smooth confessional style (interwoven with very palatable bits of universally human observations) but I am wondering if the sense of immediacy of your poem In a Landscape was a result of the work you did in Your Father on the Train of Ghosts.

JG: I think you're right about the G.C. book leading to this. It's interesting, G.C.'s new book, Testament, that's coming out in a couple months, is ALSO a book-length poem (kind of), that is personal and touches on his "real" communicative voice (or something like that).

I think we were both stuck after YFOTTOG . . . what does one do after spending the better part of a year writing WITH someone else? For me, I just wanted to get as far away from YOU and WE statements. And a "letter" to my kids, or something like that, is what I first imagined In a Landscape being, was how I reacted. I ran away from YOU and WE to try to not make anything up, to say what I thought, what I really thought, about things. And then, once I did that, and I decided not to make anything up, my imagination turned to memories. It all happened mostly by accident.

JJ. As a yet to be published writer, I fear that I have let submitting my work become somewhat of a personal Mt. Everest. It seems to me (at this wet behind the ears moment in my “career”) that facing criticism of your work is something that could be very paralyzing. Given your “tell the truth” style, is getting a nasty review or an ugly criticism still something that you worry about? How do you push those reviews off of your shoulder when you are sitting down to write a poem like In a Landscape, which is so different from your previous pieces? Also, along that vein, have you ever been given a nasty critique that you found to be more entertaining than hurtful? (If so, please do tell.)

JG: Yes. I'm a big baby that way. But they don't bother me, negative comments, so much as I find most people don't really comment much at all. We--even people who supposedly love poetry and read poetry--don't seem to want to talk about it much. Just things like "It's Great!" or something, where nothing really happens. that goes for a lot of workshops as well as online things, like on Facebook. I don't feel any pressure at all when writing. I do, though, feel some when sending it out hoping it will be published. I get a lot of rejections! I got a weird rejection once, where the editor said "there's too much of someone's family reunion in your work." That once made me laugh. Someone else took issue with the "negative philosophy" in the poems. But mostly it's just NO and that's it.

JJ. Disclaimer: this question is just for fun! If you absolutely HAD to get a tattoo of a few lines of your work (No way out of it…you weren’t leaving the parlor until you had ink…no way.. no how), which lines would they be? And where would you get them?

JG: OK, this is sweet. Huh. I'll go with The Future Is a Line of Trees. But only because it really doesn't mean much but it sounds like it does.

***

NG: “XXVIII” says music is “a space within which/we participate with our bodies.” Why is this important to you and your writing?

JG: I guess it's important because it's something I do a lot of, listening to music, walking around with it... I'm always searching for something in music like I'm always searching for something in the other arts, and in life in general. Music, when it's really good, alleviates the pressure of questions without answering them. I like that.

NG: How is In a Landscape about “the dream of home” as mentioned in the epigraph from John Ashbery? Is this different from a reality of home?

JG: I really liked pairing the three quotes, Ashbery, Cage, and Wallace Stevens (which is part of the acknowledgements on pg. 122). They're all a form of empathy, I think. This way we conceive of home. Half recollected, half imagined... or half encountered and half presumed. That's too many halves. Maybe each of those is a quarter. I think reality is also an act of imagination, absolutely, as we have to make something of it.

NG: Do either of these ideas connect (as I read them to) with time as a “hallucination” (in “LXV”) rather than a linear movement?

JG: Yeah, absolutely. This is all perception. It's fundamental and it's imagined! It's a wonder any two people can ever agree on anything!

NG: What do you find the most difficult part of assembling a manuscript? The most enjoyable?

JG: I like making titles and I like putting the document in order. I like thinking about the first page and the last page. All the other pages are much less enjoyable. I can really get myself trapped in a LOT of second guessing in the middle part.

***

LJB: Assuming there is an afterlife, and there are poetic guides to show you around, and these guides explain everything in their own way, who would you pick as your guide (living or dead)? Would you pick a poet who shares a thoughtful yet skeptical approach to knowledge like the speaker in In a Landscape? Or would you want someone who could explain it all?

JG: I wish there was a voice somewhere that could explain it all. I just really feel, in the end, that there isn’t. So, I think I’d pair up with a poet who was interesting, at least to my guess, since I don’t really know if that poet would turn out to be interesting or not. Today, I’d pick Wallace Stevens, because his descriptions of things were so florid.

LJB: With the epistemological lack of certainty of the speaker In a Landscape, do you think that such a lack is universal for everyone?

JG: My guess would be YES, but I know that a lot of people are certain of things, even if they are things I don’t think they should be so certain of.

LJB: When you write, do you listen to music? If so, do you make a playlist to help you conjure up certain feelings and ideas?

JG: I DO! I listen to music a lot. It’s never a playlist, though. At least not a “Things To Listen To While Writing” list. Sometimes I’ll just choose a band (Radiohead or whatever), or a year, 2015, say. Like this year already we have new things from Father John Misty, Modest Mouse, Waxahatchee…

LJB: What’s your favorite Neil Young album? What’s your favorite Neil Young song?

JG: He was ON FIRE from about 1968 – 1978. Any of those albums would do for favorite, but I’ll go with Rust Never Sleeps, which was released in 1979, but which was sourced mostly from tapes recorded in late 1978. For favorite song, it would have to be “Like a Hurricane” especially for that second solo. Amazing stuff.

***

AV: The persona of these poems is so accessible. I felt I was getting to know you as I read "In a Landscape." You seem to speak of common truths and I found myself agreeing with the poems. They feel true, feel right. How close to YOU is this persona? Is this light and casual stream of consciousness a look inside your head?

JG: You know, this is a great question. It's great because I'd say there's NO separation between the me/voice of this book and the me who is right here waving at the computer screen. But who knows, really. I'm sure someone else would disagree, saying that I'm heightening some aspect of myself or downplaying some aspect. I do swear now and then, and I don't think I swear in the book. But, you know what, to go out on a limb (because the weather's nice), I'll say it's all just the regular me. I want that to be the case.

AV: The chosen form of these was very interesting to me. How did this come to be, these blocks of words. It is interesting because the wall of text might seem imposing, yet this feeling dissolves instantly when you start reading. I think that's why it is successful. Was this form what just 'what happened' when you sat down and wrote the first poem? Did it then feel natural or 'right' to keep with that same form? Did you play around with other forms before landing on this one?

JG: This form was all a lucky accident. I think it's a ghost of a sonnet (declaration, volta, resolution) or a ghost of a Rae Armantrout three-stanza form... but that's all because the first section I wrote just kind of ended up that way and then I thought I might as well keep that up, so once I caught myself going off on some random thought, I'd think, how can I bring this back to an event or something more concrete... likewise, when I caught myself being flat reporting or something, I thought, well, what's the larger issue behind these things? And it kind of fell into place.

AV: How did you meet DDL? because he can't seem to remember...

JG: I liked one of his poems and because it had a ghost in it (I think) I read it to my daughter Natalie who really liked it (I think she was six or seven at the time?), so, out of the blue, I emailed him to say my daughter and I liked his poem. I think that's how it happened. He's an excellent poet and visual artist. I really love these collages he's been doing. Top shelf stuff. I want him to do a book cover for me someday. I'd REALLY like that.

***

SE: Did editing and writing this book length poem (In a Landscape) feel different or require a different approach than what you would use for a collection of shorter poems?

JG: The writing was just the same as ever. I just kind of bumped along, in a next thing next kind of way. But the editing, THAT was very different, because now I had quotes from songs and things to get right. I had to look stuff up! I've never had to do that before.

SE: How was that process helped/hindered by the chronological structure and the inclusion of your editor voice (by this I ungracefully mean the interruptive speaker who brings the reader back to the process of writing and back into the "now")?

JG: Sure, yeah, absolutely. The structure just kind of happened, so that was that, but the editing felt weird, the way I wanted to add things... that's why I kept interrupting it. It felt wrong to change something when I was trying to simply write what came next, so when I did change things, I felt I had the obligation to mention that. I've never felt that obligation before. It was an odd feeling.

SE: I was also interested in any negative feedback you had gotten from people in your life because you chose to portray people and past events without fictionalizing them. Were you reticent to share this book with some people because of how they might react to their portrayal?

JG: I haven't gotten much feedback at all about this approach. It's interesting how we change over time. It's the same whenever we change. Some people love it, some don't, most don't react much at all. This is my fifth book, and no one in my family has ever said anything to me about any of my books before, so I didn't think much about publishing this one. Now, probably because of the ubiquity of Facebook, they all suddenly are interested. That has me a little freaked, but none of them have said anything tome about it past things like hitting LIKE buttons, you know? I did change one of the names of a guy from high school. I changed [ R E D A C T E D] to Vic Vinnuci. I can't remember how I spelled it. I didn't want him to sue me, I guess. I guess I was hoping everyone else wouldn't care. Again, none of them have said anything to me. That's the good thing about poetry. You can say what you want because no one reads it! Hah! Thanks for these questions. This was a lot of fun. And good luck on your thesis (book of poems). Putting a book together is a weird thing, what you're going through. I remember it well, that first one. Mine didn't go anywhere, thankfully, I think now. But then! Jeez... I stressed so much. I think about that a lot. Trying to find ways to remain cool toward putting the work together.

***

JG: Hi Jessica, I love this stained-glass house picture. If you're going to live in a glass house, this is the one I'd choose.

J Johnson: What you conjured up in LXI was way more beautiful than ^these, Mr. Gallaher! The word numeral totally sounds like a candy.

JG: Thanks!

J Johnson: Do you have a watch that you wear? Does it have Roman numerals on it? When you look at a clock with Roman numerals, do you know exactly what time it is or does it take you a minute to work it out?

JG: I used to wear a watch years ago with Roman on it, but these days I go timeless. I used to wish I had a pocket watch, so I could make a little production of looking at the time. I never did get one, but, come to think of it, my cellphone is kind of like a pocket watch...

J Johnson: LXIX sounds like what it is, which is so fun. I hope everyone who needs one gets one, or more than one. Your whole poem feels like an eye-smile; no teeth, but not gummy. I'm soothed by the way you carve out space around your given opinions, to make room for other viewpoints. There are teeth but the edges are even. Your pieces would leave even bite marks. Love how you express yourself so clearly and simply and gently. The sentences are so well aerated it doesn't feel at all like suffocating under piles of someone's opinions. 1/6: so you came here when most of the plants in middle America were sleeping! I believe it! This book makes me believe it. You can feel it in the waiting. I can feel it. The pause in the good car-sit; I felt like that the whole way through, even during talk of prognoses. Questions 3 almost ended without a question. Worst talk show host ever. Ooh. Ok. Thom Yorke is waiting for you with a gun and pack of sandwiches. Two sandwiches. One you hate, one you love. What's on the one you hate, and what's on the one you love?

JG: LICKS! (LXIX!) Ha! I like that you mention opinions here. It's always been important to me not to push my opinions on others, not to tell others what to do... First off, I'm worried what Thom Yorke is going to do with the gun. I'd happily take most sandwiches, especially when a gun is involved. I like peanut butter and honey, turkey, clubs, Rubens, really most anything. Probably, I'd try to avoid some sort of fish sandwich, even though I do rather like tartar sauce.

J Johnson: XXVI: Do you have a go-to cookie recipe? And what goes into your spaghetti sauce?

JG: I would rather a cake or ice cream than cookies, really. German chocolate cake!!!

J Johnson: I'm duty-bound to ask you these questions but you are not duty-bound to answer.

JG: They're fun. I'm cool with it!

J Johnson: What was your favorite breakfast when you were little?

JG: I would rather have two eggs over easy, hash browns, bacon, wheat toast, and coffee than anything ever. Even when I was young, maybe then without the coffee, depending on how young we're talking.

J Johnson: Can you [would you please] describe the hair of your favorite teacher?

JG: Albert Einstein.

J Johnson: The non-violence in your delivery suggests your liver qi is fairly excellent and not stagnating much at all. The overall sense of calm suggests to me that you chew your food well. You listen to music when you write but do you eat when you write? Will you eat? Or does it feel like the wrong thing to do, ingestion during elimination//as many don't seem to favor taking snacks into the bathroom as they worry about the poop molecules I guess. It seems like you could be a great chewer of seeds.

JG: I listen to music a lot. Right now, while typing this I'm listening to a band from the 80s, The Church. I think they were Australian. I forget. I will often drink while writing, coffee usually. I don't eat much then, yeah. Food's messy. I'd rather eat when I eat, and not while doing other things. It's not wrong, just messy. I've wondered what septic tank workers think about having a lunch break. You know? How they get used to the smell, and immune, I guess?

J Johnson: I would be thrilled to learn answers to these questions, but really, I really wanted to tell you how much I loved XLII in particular, airports = the big Romance!!!! You so captured the not unpleasant ache and unknowing and the lovely soft feelings evocative of those places where people go between being thousands of feet off the ground. Deep Red Bells is a wonderful airport song!! But for you it is really the flying. So beautiful.

JG: Thanks! My father was a private pilot. I grew up in airplanes and airports, mostly small regional, local, airports.

J Johnson: Would also like to pass along commendations to Armin Muhsam and Sandy Knight. The binding is creamy and gorgeous and so well suited to the insides.

JG: Armin is a friend of mine. It was important that he, being local, was involved, as well, having my daughter Natalie take my picture. I thought this local book needed to stay local. Sandy did a great job helping with that.

***

NA: Because of the nature of the book, with it's inclusion of seemingly banal thoughts and observations, what was the revision process like? Did you intend to include it all with only light edits, or was there extensive editing and cutting?

JG: This was a difficult moment for me, the revision moment. You have it, yeah. The banal thoughts and observations! Our days are filled with them and I wanted to catch that, to leave that in, but the editor in me kept saying get that stuff out, tighten, make these "sing" or whatever. But I didn't want to sing. I just wanted to sit and talk. I still do. So, in the end, in revising, I only changed things for meaning or concision, never to "fix", I guess. When I did feel I had to add something, I usually dated my addition. There was one part, where the new husband of a friend died where I just added the death at the end of the section after he died, rather than say "it's four years later and he's dead now." So I had to make some compromises with myself. I probably added more things like that than I remember. But I cut very little. It was revision by accretion!

NA: As a sort of follow-up to this question, did you ever write something, and think "this isn't essential to what I'm trying to say"? In other words, you're writing this daily journal sort of thing, so was there ever a day/period where you thought "This is totally missing the target" or simply "not working"? Have there been other such "projects" you began and then abruptly discontinued because you either did not like the results or felt uncomfortable (or whatever) with the results?

JG: I felt that way constantly, and here and there, I might even mention that kind of thought. If I didn't I should have. Whenever I'd have that thought, that would cause me to swerve into saying it another way, kind of how we do in conversation. I REALLY wanted to try to replicate that conversational way we have. WHY I'd want to do that I'm not sure, but that's what I was going with....

NA:. What defines a John Gallaher poem, in your mind? What do you want your poems to be defined by?

JG: Good question. Yikes. I guess I'd say that what I'm always working against is final thoughts, while at the same time wanting to work with the material of final thoughts. So, I guess I hope that's what people would see in my work. A person trying to talk about real things without being reductive or taking the easy way out.

Here are a couple more, or two questions sort of about the same thing:

DDL: Are you tempted to repeat this exercise / sequence, in order to mark time, or to continue the autobiographical "arc" put into motion in In a Landscape? The book does want a sequel, does it not? (this reader would certainly enjoy more). Or if not, how will you continue, having embarked on this new way of going about things. Can you go back to the freer, slightly more surreal, less "factual" (or at least not "not true") sorts of poems that populate your previous books, before My Father in a Train of Ghosts?

JG: Oh, it DOES want a sequel. But I can't imagine it yet. I'm attaching the chapbook of new work I've put together to send out to chapbook places this spring. I'm still in this conversational mode, mostly, but now each one is occasional, rather than sequential. There are returns to the thinking of In a Landscape there, I guess, but the range of "what's happening right now" is much less a part of it.

I'd love to be able to get back to the way I used to write, as well. To be able to "do anything!" But--do you feel this way as well?--once you've done something, made a turn, it's really hard to imagine the way you used to imagine. Your books, you know? Could you go back to the fish houses? As much as I want to, I can't imagine what I'd say, or how I was able to say those things. It's weird. I've not talked with anyone about this. We should talk!

DDL: In a Landscape is as much about process as anything else. In writing In a Landscape is there any specific content that revealed itself (surprisingly or not), content that you find you will use later on--any threads you will pick up and run with, so to speak . . .?

JG: Yeah, things I thought I'd never say about real people, you know? My mother's Alzheimer's, which was already in full swing when I was writing the book, is now in its late stages. There are things to say about what a person is, in such moments. I didn't follow that in the book and I've done a little since then.

DDL: You've been obsessed with the prose poem lately, devoting an entire issue of The Laurel Review to it and editing a book by a poet who wrote a lot of prose poems (Michael Benedikt). In a Landscape is close to prose itself in many respects. Can we expect books of prose poems from you in the future?

JG: In a Landscape, at one point, I was going to take the line breaks out. In the end I resisted, because I thought that too big a revision from the original impulse, but I got pretty close to doing it. I think it's a prose poem... in the way that most prose poems look like prose but "read" more like poems, I'm currently enjoying the edge of how I maybe can make a think that looks like a poem read like prose. The other side of prose poem... as well, in the newer work, I'm trying to get those lines to be the same length down the page. I like the look of it. What it means for the future, I don't know. I really don't have a clue.

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