Peter Jay Shippy's first book, Thieve's Latin (University of Iowa Press) won the 2002 Iowa Poetry Prize. A selection from his second book, Alphaville (BlazeVOX Books), won the Gertrude Stein Award. Shippy has received fellowships in drama and poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. His poems, plays, and essays have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, Iowa Review, and Ploughshares. He teaches literature and writing at Emerson College in Boston.
1. At the launch for your new book, How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic, the publishers of Rose Metal Press (our very own Kathleen Rooney and Abigail Beckel) mentioned what a risk it was for you to submit to such a young press. It hadn't dawned on me, but I definitely agree. Can you say a little bit about how the book evolved from a novel into a book-length poem, your attempts to publish it along the way, and, ultimately, how it ended up at Rose Metal Press?
At the time that I wrote the novel-version of Ghosts I was working for the CIA, transplanting human brains into western lowland gorillas…. Oh, no, no, sorry, that was the novel.
In the mid-90s I had grown weary of trying to get my poems and my poetry books published and so I grew petulant and turned to the other side of the pillow: fiction. I wrote Monkey Gone to Heaven, a sci-fi or slipstream or magical-realist or speculative novel. Monkey was met with mild interest. I actually had an agent for a year. A few publishers were warily interested. As I mentioned at the launch, my brief foray into fiction publishing showed those prose characters—agents & editors—to be brutally and beautifully honest (as opposed to many poetry publishers who are certainly beautiful, but tactful (because someday (they fear) you (me) may be a member of some jury judging their poems)), saying simply: I can’t sell this book so I don’t want you as a client.
One famous agent wrote that I was the type of writer found on his bookshelf but not in his Rolodex.
The problem? The language in Monkey was just too thick. Over and over I heard: well, it reads like a poem. Which wasn’t a compliment.
About 5 years ago I returned to the manuscript on a salvage mission. I thought there might be a few dozen sentences I could retrofit into lines of verse. But as I read my book, I charmed myself into believing those publishers’ barbs were right—it was a poem—so Monkey’s (cough-cough: Pepé Le Pew accent:) hauntological future was killed and harvested as the verse novel How to Build the Ghost in Your Attic. At the time I was teaching Anne Carson, William Carlos Williams, Russell Hoban (Kleinzeit) and reading Paul Muldoon’s Madoc, so my book owes some debt to that rich soup.
As for how I ended up at Rose Metal?
One of my heroes was the late, great and sorely missed James Randall, the founder of Emerson College’s creative writing program. He was also one of the original instigators at Ploughshares and the owner of Ahab’s Rare Books and Pym-Randall Press. He published the first books by Thomas Lux and Franz Wright and the first collection of prose poems from James Tate. I assisted Jim in a few of his “enterprises” (estate foreclosures, rare book quests, & professional raconteuring (oh I could retell some stories, couldn’t I… Mr. John Irving?)).
Jim adored publishing and promoting writers he adored. He called himself a book man—a man who sweats blood and dollars for his writers. I immediately recognized that Abby and Kathy are book women. From the moment we shook virtual hands I’ve been awe-struck by their creativity and energy and embarrassed by their commitment to my work.
2. I have to ask, was the novel's title a nod to the Pixies' "This Monkey's Gone To Heaven?"
Yes. I have a Pixie’s concert poster (The Paradise, August 15, 1989) on the wall above my desk. It’s platinum bronze and festooned with a menacing lobster. “Where is my mind?” (repeat 3x)
3. As a work of art, are you happier with the current form--the book-length poem--or do you wish someone had the balls to publish it as a novel?
I’m far happier with the verse novel—it’s lean & mean. There were a few scenes from the prose novel that I wish I could have used in Ghosts. There are orphans that I miss. A chapter involving a rogue performance artist named He, amuses me (so easily amused):
“For a commissioned piece at The Gallery in Tokyo, visitors entered a room to find four naked members of the Nanking Ballet Company. The walls were tusk white. The floors were pale bamboo. Each dancer sat in a black Shaker rockers. Each chair was chained to a corner. The dancers hands were bound behind the runners with red silk. A white scarf covered their eyes. Save for the dancers, the room was empty. The only sound was the soughing of pine against bamboo.
“Later, I sold the bamboo, the chairs, and the scarves to MOMA. Nippon Steel forked mucho yen to have the dancers clean their executive lavatory.
“That’s not a piece that travels well, as is. Of course the modus is compliant. The world certainly is full of bitter pairs. I could show it in Berlin with Jews or in Constantinople with Armenians or in Sydney with Aborigines or in Selma with African-Americans. Just think of the money Coca-Cola would pay me to stage that! Most artists lack the conviction of dark courage, Isaac. Not me. Joseph Beuys said that there was clean money, and there was dirty money. He believed that artists should only accept the former. I don’t go for that ooze—all money is dirt. As an American I must accept filthy lucre. My patriotism is sacrosanct. I’m no better than any citizen. It’s my job. I create lux. Just work. Bad, foul fun.”
4. Did you send How To Build... to larger presses first, or was your intent to have it published on a smaller press to begin with, or did you specifically have Rose Metal Press in mind?
I loved it too much to risk bruising, so I sent it to a few large NY publishers and a few prestige presses. Places where the book had almost no chance! I did receive several wonderful letters from these Pooh-Bahs that allowed me believe that maybe I had something.
Cue the Theremin: I had Rose Metal in mind even before there was a Rose Metal!
5. My book-length poem hero is A.R. Ammons...you mentioned Muldoon's Madoc, and I assume when you mentioned Williams you were referring to Patterson... are there other poets you looked to form-wise when tackling the book-length poem? Or was translating it from a novel such a different/reverse process?
With Williams it was simply (ha) his triadic stepline. Until I had the form—I wallowed. It was like an actor searching for the write accent, costume, and putty nose. Once I found the right shape I was the narrator, Isaac.
I’m not sure how they influenced me, but other verse novels or long-poems or linked-poem-books or whatchamacallits that I love, include: The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (Michael Ondaatje; The Emperor’s Babe (Bernadine Evaristo); After I Was Dead (Laura Mullen); Dimestore Alchemy (Charles Simic), Brutal Imagination (Cornelius Eady); Ko, or A Season on Earth (Kenneth Koch) and Letters to Wendy’s (Joe Wenderoth). I haven’t had a chance to read it, but Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong looks fascinating
6. How do you feel your first two books have led you to here, poetically and professionally?
Thieves’ Latin was a testimony. It was a lovely and lucky conclusion to 15 years of dutifully (manically?) sending out manuscript after manuscript to publishers and books contests (I was a finalist or a runner-up over a dozen times). When I received the phone call from the University of Iowa Press I actually couldn’t remember which manuscript I had sent them—3 or 4 very distinct books were circulating. I wrote Alphaville in 3 weeks and it was published 18 months later. Two wildly different modes.
My poetics have never changed—I’m unfailingly fickle. I may move from a book-length poem to a one-liner in an hour. Maybe that’s a survival mechanism?
7. How did you and BlazeVOX hook up so quickly?
I entered Alphaville in a competition that BlazeVOX ran. They didn’t receive enough manuscripts to fund a winner, so the contest was shut down and fees were refunded. Later, BlazeVOX publisher/ manifestario, Geoffrey Gatza, chose a few manuscripts to work with as e-Books, which have now Optimus Primed into “real” books. How real? Available on Amazon.
8. Have you found it difficult--in terms of publishing--because of your fickleness. Lately I hear (and take part in) lots of conversations about having to have a narrow focus and sticking with it to prove to publishers that you do a "particular thing."
In the Guardian’s book blog last August, Jay Parini wrote this about our new American Laureate, “One might argue against Simic that his poems are all the same. I don't care. I like that poem, and its endless variations.” Yet, some reviewers have knocked John Ashbery’s new Notes From the Air: Selected Later Poems for its seamless sameness. The same conversations take place in the worlds of art, music, architecture and so on. One of my favorite painters is Cy Twombly who hasn’t (to my unschooled eye) changed his modus operandi in decades. I also love Richard Prince, whose work is madly capricious. Who hasn’t had the experience of listening to new music by your favorite artist/s and being thrilled or aghast with their quote growth unquote. And at the micro, I’m sure there were Dylanistas who had no problem traveling from Highway 61 to Blonde on Blonde but still believe that “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” drained the magnum from the opus. But you’re right, a young writer with divergent styles is considered immature (wheel out the workshop cliché): you haven’t found your voice. But when mature artists stretch, it’s a sign of fecundity. What word do some publishers and editors like to use? Cohere. Cohere is the new organic. Your poems are great, but your manuscript doesn’t cohere. A well-known independent publisher rejected Ghosts after reading the first 10 pages because they thought that my poems didn’t cohere. Of course, there are no poems in the book.
9. Most of these conversations take place in the context of larger discussions about the contest culture. What’s your take on this culture?
The problem with contests is that I don’t win each and every one that I enter. Just kidding? I prefer the Alice James model: their board of director’s reads the manuscripts, entrants are NOT anonymous, and for the price of admission you also receive a book from their back catalogue. And they often (much to my ugh (I was a finalist yet again this year)) choose first books. In the Washington Post’s Book World Live Robert Pinsky wrote, “What if the Poetry Foundation offered to pay the costs of reading and processing poetry manuscripts—postage, judges' fees, office overhead, the works—for any respectable, non-vanity publisher at all?” Great idea! But, a pipe dream, of course. Would the Poetry Foundation would consider that socialism? Even if they did pay the costs—poets will still complain… when they lose. I know I will.
10. True, if I won more contests (read: any), I would think it was an ideal system for evaluating and promoting art. A side convo related this...are there TOO MANY contests/small presses/journals? And how does this all effect poetry's public-ness...its ability to be read (or not) by people other than poets?
Some writers and critics certainly believe that publishers and magazines are gatekeepers AND there should be gatekeepers for the gatekeepers! But, when you read the histories of the good old days you understand that this, too, is an old conversation. We need to keep the competition out! Wait—I mean—we need to keep our standards high! Who do we love? People like us! Yeah, that’s the battle cry! But then the outsiders set up shop—from the Salon des Refuses to C Magazine—and the fun begins, again, in reverse. It’s akin to the 50-year quarrel over the teaching of creative writing. Are the naysayers afraid of poor poetry or competing voices? But you’re right, Chris, it’s an acute debate in the poetry world, perhaps because of recent comments by Billy Collins and John Barr. Barr, rather simply, conflates book sales with artistry. Apparently, he’s unfamiliar with the biographies of Mr. Whitman and Ms. Dickinson. Collins asserted (in his introduction to The Best American Poetry 2006) that most poetry is bad. 83% Collins avers, with, I believe, a wicked grin across his mug. He was roundly attacked, and yet, most of his critics probably believe he’s right. They just disagree with Billy’s 17%. They have their own 17%, thank-you-very-much. For me, it’s a specious debate. There are essential poems that can be understood by kids in grade school, and others, equally vital, that offer years of joyous misapprehension.
11. Speaking of grade school kids, another conversation I keep having is about how poetry is taught pre-college. How well-versed so to speak are the Freshman you encounter at Emerson? Do they need to be untaught and then retaught, or are high school teachers doing poetry justice by preparing them well?
My students are certainly ahead of my curve. Beyond rock lyrics, I didn't encounter much poetry in high school--certainly not contemporary poetry or anything resembling a workshop. I did write some horrible poems for a campus literary magazine. One concern I have in my classes is workshop burn-out. Anyone who has completed an intense MFA/MA program knows that by the final semester, it's tough to get excited when your peers want to rebreak your lines for you. Undergraduates at Emerson take even more workshops than the graduate students. That's why with in the advanced classes I try to vary the standard Iowa format. In a recent AWP Journal Bob Hicok had some interesting thoughts on workshops: "I¹m happily hostile to workshops. I think they¹re wonderful in a lot of ways, particularly given that there¹s no alternative in this country. You have a couple of years to work on writing without having to face too many people who doubt the value of what you¹re doing with your life. But I do find myself wondering why workshops are so consistently set up the same way. Why so little variety‹always the circle, the mute poet. It¹s a received form, one I¹m trying to renovate." I dig. In my graduate classes it takes weeks for my students to get used to the fact that I expect them to actually read, not just proofread, their classmates poems.
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