Sarah Edwards

April 4, 2019

INTERVIEWS

Sarah Edwards

Interviewed by Jackson Armstrong

Your story “Dead Dog” has deliberation and grace (and a lot of humor). To borrow an adjective from it, it is, in some ways, almost biblical. How conscious were you of the tone of the story, and perhaps the balance, during the process of writing it?

That’s nice of you to say! In a rare turn, this story had a specific set of language that seemed to belong to it: language that felt both florid and reticent. Normally, I think, I write more narratively—there’s more dialogue, more backstory, more plot points. This one felt very tied to a moment and to an internal, fluid, distorted state of mind. Because the narrator is spiraling a bit, the burden rests on the sentences to replicate that feeling: I wanted there to be a sense that the wife is experiencing emotions that she can’t contain, that they flow over the boundaries of a sentence (hence the run-ons!). I do feel strongly that lyricism can (and should) be funny—that that pairing is as true a reflection of life as any. I don’t like stories that take themselves too serious.

What, might I ask, was the genesis of this piece?

I don’t know a specific origin point, but when I originally wrote it, two years ago, it was much longer. It began before Thanksgiving and walked all the way through dinner and the dog killing and there were multiple characters and it was awful; it really didn’t work. So as an exercise I deleted everything except the scene after Thanksgiving, and then began to write within those parameters. And that felt right.

Generally speaking, I am interested by messy situations in which blame is unclear—which, with animals, is so often the case. We can feel so close to them, and feel that they understand us, and of course there’s this giant gap between us and the way they experience threat and sometimes simply don’t understand their own bodies and urges. I’m sure this isn’t the last story I’ll write about a dead animal.

I know you’re also a poet. How does that influence your prose writing, or vice versa? Do you prefer one over the other?

At some point this past fall, I taped a note to my mirror that said: “Poetry doesn’t have to be autobiographical and fiction doesn’t have to be nice.” Both forms and their autobiographical sourcing have become more loose for me, recently, and it’s a bit of a relief. I feel less pressure (though obviously that’s a lifelong tussle) to have stories reflect me as a person or the gracious Southern woman I was raised to be, rather than me as a writer. I like both stories and poems that have distance, that bleed into each other. Often a story will begin as a poem (and sometimes even vice-versa) and I think that an attention to emotional compression, to really fleshing a thought out in a single lyrical line, helps sentences to stand on their own. I want a story to do that, to powerlift with syntax. Or ideally that’d be nice, right? Many of my favorite writers write both fiction and poetry, or super short fiction that has the feeling of a poem. I don’t think I can pick one over the other!

If you had to cast this story with B-List actor (but the dog is literal human Tom Hanks, on all fours or not; we can discuss this) who would you choose and why?

Hmm. very good question. I can kinda see Leelee Sobieski in a prom dress wedding getup. Aaron Eckhart is way too handsome to be a normal person, but he definitely has youth pastor vibes, don’t you think? As does adult Jonathan Taylor Thomas. In a very different way, but they both kind of have that healthy—so robust as to be sinister—thing going on.

And wow, a literal Tom Hanks as the dog! That’s good. I guess I should really read your fiction, Jackson, if this suggestion is any indication of it.

There’s always time for a man to become a youth pastor. This is true. But what does a man need to become a youth pastor? An unusually well-manicured goatee? What are some other qualifications?

Hmm, probably a name like Clay or Harris or any kind of non-name that could also be the name of a neighborhood subdivision, maybe a goatee, a signature handshake, a suspicious overfamiliarity with the word “lust,” probably an internalized hatred toward women. I don’t know, I’ve met a few really kind and genuine youth pastors, but when I paint with a broad stroke (like I am right now) I don’t have a lot of good things to say.

Ultimately, youth pastors need to have a vicious competitive edge that is barely kept at bay, and more than a passing proficiency in table sports.

Lastly (noting that “Dead Dog” is your first prose publication), where can we read some of your poetry?

I do have one fiction piece up, though not in print. You can read it on Joyland. I don’t have a lot of linkable poems! There’s a couple in the upcoming issues of TYPO and The Sycamore Review. And then others in Prelude, Hobart, and The Hampden-Sydney Review.

Works

Embroidered with Hail

January 22, 2019

Yousef el Qedra (translated by Yasmin Snounu, Edward Morin, and George Khoury)

Embroidered with Hail

In the beginning, he exalted himself
above the sinful act of eating the fruit.
Then he was burned by trees and frolicking
girls, causing his name and the blueness
of his soul to bleed. He searched for prophecy
carved into fire. So he was devoured
by rivers flowing toward their destination,
and he was satisfied by a line
on a skewed wall that was told by a
story in a book neglected by time.

And he was walking in the night of a story
like a murderer searching for faces,
wrapped up with dust desiring silence.
He mounted the stairs of alertness
within a sleeping dream; he slept in
the gardens of attentive wakefulness.
He was anesthetized by the veins
of countries that lost their pulses,
and his pulse started beating with names
of women he had created from dates;
their soul is grapes, and their house is flutes
made of soughs. He drew his colors like a
sword and went into illusive wars
with whiteness and illusion. He didn’t
survive, so steadfastness wouldn’t embrace him,
but he escaped to train the street always to forgive.

A doe in the forest of speech snatched him,
stripped him of answers, and dressed him
in runes made of questions; she passed through
his veins slowly and wove from his alienation
a city for dance and temptation.
She carved on his alienation
poems of water, and from his character
traits she sewed a jacket embroidered
with smooth hail.

One evening on the balcony
of words, he saw the body of darkness
running naked, chased by the idea
that’s scared of itself, so he sought shelter
in the open pages of a book.

January, 2011

مطرّزةً بالبَرَدِ

في البدء، ارتفع عن خطيئة الفاكهة، ثم اكتوى بالشجر والصبايا، نازفاً اسمه وكثيراً من زرقةِ روحه، فتّش عن نبؤةِ محفورةٍ في النار، فالتهمتْهُ الأنهارُ الذاهبة إلى رجاءاتها، واكتفى بسطرٍ على حائطٍ مائلٍ أخبرتْ عنه قصةٌ في كتابٍ أهملتْهُ الأيامْ.

وكانَ يمشي في ليلِ الحكايةِ كقاتلْ، يبحثُ عن وجوهٍ غلّفها غبارٌ يشتهي السكونْ، اعتلى أدراجَ اليقظةِ في حلمٍ نائمٍ، ونامَ في حدائق الصحوِ المتنبّه، خدّرته عروقُ البلادِ التي فقدتْ نبضها، وصار ينبضُ بأسماءِ اللواتي خلقهنَّ من تمرِ وروحهنَّ عنب وبيتهنَّ ناياتٍ من شهقاتْ. استلَّ ألوانَهُ سيفاً وخاضَ حروباً وهميةً مع البياضِ والوهمْ، لم ينجُ لئلا تحضنْهُ الصلابةُ، ونجا حتى يدرّبُ الطريقُ على العفوِ دائماً.

التقطتْهُ ظبيةٌ في غابةِ الكلام، جرَّدته من الاجاباتِ وألبستْهُ تعاويذ من الأسئلة، مشت في عروقِهِ على مهلٍ وغزلتْ من غربتِهِ مدينةً للرقصِ وللغواية، نقشتْ على عزلتِهِ قصائد من ماء، ومن ملامحِهِ حاكتْ سُترةً مطرّزةً بالبَرَدِ الناعِمْ.

وذاتَ مساءٍ، ومن على شرفةِ المفرداتْ، رأى جسدَ العتمةِ يركضُ عارياً تلاحقُهُ الفكرةُ المفجوعةُ بذاتها، فاحتمى بدفتي كتابْ

2011 yraunaJ

Uncategorized, Works

Closed Doors

January 15, 2019

Richard O’Brien

Closed Doors

Every Place that you left is Eden in some way.
—JOHN DARNIELLE

Rooms where for good or for ill—things died.
—CHARLOTTE MEW

Frewin II.10

In this room, at that desk, I must have written
my masterpieces of misogyny
(through this knowledge would only come to me
far on the other side of the illusion).

One window faced onto St. Michael’s Street.
Outside the homeless shelter—now a Bill’s—
star speakers would arrive in Benzes, Rolls.
I Blu-Tacked postcards to a lilac sheet

of sugar paper: was that the same year?
The gourmet vegetarian sausages
we cooked hungover were burnt to a crisp;
dough-soft inside. A rag rug on the floor

I still have now. I threw up in the sink
(a sign below about the “Rodding Eye”)
from dawn till six, the day of the goodbye
meal Ally had planned for me at Brasserie Blanc.

Lycée Jean Perrin

In Charlie’s flat—I barely know the contours
of what was there. I know what happened in it.
On nitrous, once, I passed out for a minute
that nothing in me wishes to restore.

Another night, I hopped the green steel gate
I couldn’t open; walked the tramlines home
to Place Viarme, and back to find the phone
I never did find (God knows in what state).

There was a party when Lindsey kissed Kate;
a night when someone stole two chicken fillets;
pizza, and football games I played, unwilling
to be left out; a neighbor who complained.

The laptop loud on Traktor, matching beats.
A photo of his girlfriend near his bed.
Bastien picked me up the last night; sad
to remember, now we barely even speak.

XIV.10

In what some rower called “the Arab Staircase,”
I tried and failed to turn tea into sex.
Deep green armchairs. The question of “What’s next?”
not just at three. That bathroom was the last place

I’ll ever make filled pasta in a bowl
with kettle, sieve, jarred pesto, grated cheddar.
There must have been a desk. A single bed,
two sets of brown sheets. Posters on the wall

for books I’d read with different cover art.
There was a mantelpiece on which I leant
French biscuit adverts—statements of intent,
sophistication stamped on A4 card.

The last weeks saw it filled with props for filming,
a generator. I brought back a girl
who held me till I broke my shameful spell;
who asked if I’d tried to hide her, that first morning.

1 Rue Sarrazin

In the top-floor flat, Nantes, Rue Sarrazin:
a couch with orange cushions no one chose;
the floor (stone, somehow?) cold against my toes;
a kitchenette I’ll never use again.

There was a cupboard lined with bathroom tiles
our jovial, vague landlord tried to fit
a shower in: the plumbing wouldn’t stretch
that far, he told us once, after a while—

so there they stayed. Jovanna had a map
of Europe, countries marked with playground slurs,
and though I almost never spoke to her,
one day I came back from a weekend trip

to find the condoms missing from my wardrobe.
The wall pitched steep above my bed; a window
looked on the never open church below,
roof ringed with angels. I left without a note.

Tintagel House

In the old Vauxhall Met Police HQ
there were blue, corrugated carpet tiles
and corridors which seemed to stretch for miles
between the toilets and the large, blank rooms

Lydia and her artist friends were renting
at bargain rates: the scheme kept squatters out.
They’d built a long, rough table. No amount
of shelves could make the kitchen feel less empty.

Mattresses on the ground. The windows looked
over the Thames: this was no student skyline.
It had the feel of an abandoned high-rise.
I stopped to buy Portuguese chocolate milk

each morning, walking to an internship:
for what? It led nowhere, since I’ve forgotten.
The owners finally kicked out the guardians.
For all I know, they might be demolishing it.

30 Waterside

In Helen’s house, which we can’t go to now:
rich faded rugs, a large flatscreen TV,
cases of red wine shipped from overseas
to save in bulk, I think—I forget how.

There was a tree once, made from stacking books;
a lime-green kitchen where we never went;
the gate, left open to the elements,
creaked like the stairs. Apparently, it leaked.

Helen took baths and disappeared for hours.
There was a patio where we got high,
where pigeons shat, were shot, and came to die;
a teddy sewn from scraps of other bears.

There was, eventually, a crystal skull
loaded with gin. Stuffed rodents. Hocus-pocus.
Sated with rent, the landlord gave them notice.
It had been months, by then, since I’d seen it full.

51 Ely Street

In Ely Street (pronounced the Fenland way,
not like the prophet, as I would insist),
the floor was red stone flags. Once, as a guest,
having somehow contrived to snap my key

in my own lock, I spent a night half-frozen
on a ratty couch beneath low Tudor beams;
a diagram for cribbing Cymbeline
and Hamlet on the wall. Each time I opened

the shonky bathroom door, the wrought-iron latch
had to be fought against. Dozens would drink
here, leave their mugs and glasses by the sink.
The backyard: weeds, barbecue trays, and ash.

And I was happy there. We praised Sankt Hans,
sang hver by har sin heks and ate charred Quorn,
understood hygge—friendship, keeping warm.
Someone’s rejigged the furniture, like best-laid plans.

Spectacle Works

In our apartment, by the standing lamp,
these are the things I’ll fix while I am able:
that jasmine plant. That marbled coffee table.
Socks slung over that clotheshorse: some still damp.

This flatpack sideboard, with the doors stove in.
This ten-meter TV extension lead.
These shiny cushion covers which you sewed
after about four months of promising.

Those salt-dough ducks, whose rough pearlescent sheen
soared over the eBay identikit.
That recess which you joked could hold a crib,
which doesn’t mean a joke is all you mean.

These stacks and stacks of books we’ll never read.
This open map. Those frames. That uncapped pen.
This rug I found a place for in the end.
This warm night. This unanswered text. This need.

Interviews

Richard O’Brien

January 14, 2019

Interviews

Richard O’Brien

Interviewed by Hannah Whiteman

One of the things that drew me to “Closed Doors” was the personality that every location in the poem seemed to possess. It seemed (for lack of a better word) real. Does this poem draw heavily on your own experiences? If so, how do you balance that autobiographical strain with staying true to the direction that the poem is taking you?

Interviews

Josh Russell

January 14, 2019

Interviews

Interviews

Deborah Levy

Interviewed by Dan Shurley

You’ve said that what people don’t say can be more interesting than what they do say, and that there is power in silence. How did you square this insight with the expectation that a memoir give us the “soul laid bare”?