Quickie Interview #32: Jennifer Karmin

Jennifer Karmin co-curates the Red Rover Series and is a founding member of the public art group Anti Gravity Surprise. Her multidisciplinary projects have been presented at a number of festivals, artist-run spaces, community centers, and on city streets. She teaches creative writing to immigrants at Truman College and works as a Poet-in-Residence for the Chicago Public Schools. During 2008, she will be a guest writer in California with the Djerassi Program and in Kenya with the Summer Literary Seminars. Recent poems are published in Bird Dog, MoonLit, Womb, Seven Corners, Milk Magazine, and the anthologies A Sing Economy, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century, and Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces.

Currently, you are working on a project in response to the war called 4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD, for which you’re taking submissions until April 30. The resulting poem was performed as part of the Guild Complex's Art Against War event, and will also be done as a downtown street performance on May 2 at Looptopia. What is the goal of this? Can overtly political artistic gestures and poetry really “make a difference,” or is it a mistake to substitute artistic activity for political activity?

I think one of the jobs of the poet/artist is to remind us of what’s happening in the world and to help us think of these things in new ways. The work we make documents resistance. I get excited when the result is cross-community building. In 20 or 50 or 100 or 2000 years, people will find evidence that there were some of us who said NO to the Iraq War. Many many more than 4000 people have died and continue to die every day in this war. I want to literally bring this war back home to people in the United States and create a public memorial for the dead. In an era where we don't see images of our dead--of body bags and coffins, I think the number 4000 is a smack of reality.

4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD is a companion piece to Revolutionary Optimism, an anti-war poem I wrote in 2004. Revolutionary Optimism is based on confessions from Iraqi prisoners, sympathy cards and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. During the past 4 years, I’ve performed it locally/nationally about a dozen times in art spaces and on city streets. For Looptopia, I've decided to perform selections from both 4000 WORDS 4000 DEAD and Revolutionary Optimism [pictured].

The weekend of May 9-11 at Links Hall. you will be performing a play that you created with Joyelle McSweeney, Johannes Göransson, Patrick Durgin, and Jacob Knabb. How is creating poetry in this? This kind of theatre/poetry combo has been known to cause fellow blog editor Elisa Gabbert’s mouth to literally hang open in awe. What is the appeal of doing poetry this way and how does one make it so mind-blowing?

Historically, many poets have written plays and novels too. There’s even a movement among some of the writers I know to get rid of these genre labels altogether. Do they hold us back from the act of creating? From the true innovation that happens between genre? We all use language as our medium. For me, it’s about the process. The final product is shaped by the writer’s intention. Although once the work lives in the world, it may take on its own genre or shed itself of one altogether. The conventions of theatre offer new layers. Language moves off the page and gains lighting, sets, props, movement, a different relationship to audience.

Your own work and that of many of the groups with which you are involved place a premium on “experimenting” with language--what does it mean to you to experiment in this way, and why are you drawn to doing so?

Experimenting to me has always meant thinking about all of the uses of language as ways to write, read, and discuss poetry. Poetry is one of the oldest art forms. People made poems to remember their stories and ideas. Sound is an essential element of words. Some words are just delightful to say aloud or see on the page.

I don't believe that experimentation is an elitist activity. Poetry is a living language. A poem can be whatever you want it to be. A list of words, a rap, a description, a joke, a dream. If you can question the text of a poem, you can question the text of a politician's speech or a news report. The biggest problem is when people think poetry has to be a certain way.

I was never told the correct way to write a poem. I was asked to read everything, old and new, with a lot of focus on contemporary writing. What are poets doing in the world right now? When I got to the University of Buffalo in 1991, they had just started the Poetics Program. I was an undergrad with a free ride at a state school and figured out that poetics meant something about studying poetry. Working with Bob Creeley, Susan Howe, and Charles Bernstein, I didn't know too much about their writing at the time but the playful energy of words was everywhere.

In keeping with this taste for experimentation, you are one of the curators of the Red Rover Series here in Chicago. How did you become involved in curating and how does that role influence your own work?

As a student, I curated readings at the University of Buffalo and the School of the Art Institute. After finishing my MFA, I joined the artists’ cooperative the SpareRoom and began curating multiarts events with more visual/performative work. When Amina Cain and I collaborated on an Anti Gravity Surprise project, she suggested we put together a reading at the SpareRoom. This was 2004 and we had been friends for a few years. There were already a lot of wonderful reading series in Chicago like Discrete, Myopic, and Danny’s, besides the readings being held at local schools. We wanted to add to what was happening in the writing community and provide something new. For us, this meant creating a series that would be not so male, not so white, and something that would actually try to redefine the act of reading to a live audience. The Red Rover curatorial line became to create “readings that play with reading” and design each event as a separate “reading experiment.” Experiment #1 premiered in April 2005 at the SpareRoom and this month we celebrated our 3-year anniversary with Experiment #20 at our new space, the Division Street Dance Loft.

Curating and collaboration in all of their forms push me to take creative risks that might not happen by myself. It’s thrilling, scary, pleasurable, and amazing when it all comes together to work in ways that you’ve never even imagined. In this spirit, Red Rover is about to embark on a new adventure with Amina moving to Los Angeles in August and Lisa Janssen jumping in as our new curator.

First Car?

A 1984 silver Nissan Pulsar that came from my favorite aunt (the other artist in the family) after she died. I was just starting college.

What was your favorite book and band in high school?

Book: On The Road. It definitely helped to bring out the traveler in me. Band: The Velvet Underground.

Which crowd did you hang out with in high school?

I took Kerouac seriously, ie -- “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’ ”

First job?

In high school, serving coffee at the Dunkin Donuts down the street.

Car now?

That was the first and only car I’ve ever owned. I’m proudly car-free since 1996. I grew up on public transport and still like it because I can use my time to read and write.

Favorite book now?

It changes day to day, hour by hour. I’m usually reading a few books at the same time. What’s next to my bed right now: Hannah Weiner’s: Open House, A Humument, John Cage: Composed in America, Working (I Do It For The Money).

What's new on you iPod or CD player?

I’m a semi-luddite and don’t own an iPod. In my CD player today: James Brown, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Fela Kuti, and the poetry CD All Poets Welcome.

What's the best DVD you've rented of late?

I’m not an avid DVD renter. Most of the movies I watch are with friends who offer their suggestions. I’m more likely to see a video installation at an art space. I went to Providence to do a reading a few weeks ago and saw Walid Raad’s We Can Make Rain But No One Came To Ask at a Brown gallery. He’s a Lebanese artist focusing on the history of car bombings in his country. As an American, it’s important to see what war really looks like. Most days, we’d rather view pictures of bombed buildings than bombed people.

What are you working on these days?

My main writing project is a series of poems about the lives of Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman, and Helen Keller. I have been researching each of the women's lives, contemplating the ways illness transforms history, and examing the elements as catalysts for change: fire, air, water, and earth. This summer I’ve got a residency at the Djerassi Program and hope to put together a draft of this new manuscript. Poets Sarah Mangold, Jen Hofer,and Jennifer Scappettone will also be at Djerassi in the next few months so we’re planning a collaborative project together.

A few more projects that are occupying my time:

Creating a traveling art-activist book, Tell Us What You Think with Anti Gravity Surprise co-founder Kathleen Duffy. We’re getting ready to give away these free books in public places around the world, track their travels on our website, and ask readers to give them away again and again.

Curating a month-long festival with Amina Cain at Links Hall in Chicago. When Does It or You Begin? (Memory as Innovation) will take place in January 2009. This multidisciplinary festival explores the ways new forms of expression are created from the memory of individuals, groups, cultures, and places.

Being a monthly contributor to performance group Goat Island’s web-based writing project, The Last Performance. This work is collectively authored and documents Goat Island ending their 20 year collaboration.

Anything coming out soon?

An e-chapbook from Ahadada Books. Selections of performance projects on How2 and Action, Yes. Excerpts from my text-sound composition aaaaaaaaaaalice on a soundpoetry CD Max Middle is editing.

What are you reading that's fun?

Guillermo Gómez- Peña’s The New World Border: Prophecies, Poems & Loqueras for the End of the Century. For example, from the book’s Glossary of Borderismos: “ALIEN – a term used by opportunistic politicians and sleazy reporters to describe any legal or illegal immigrant, people with heavy accents or exotic clothes, and people who exhibit eccentric social, sexual, or aesthetic behavior.”

What's your favorite a) writing exercise, and b) physical exercise?

Writing exercise: found poems. Go through old notebooks and books. Then, take a walk and write down interesting words/phrases you see. Physical exercise: yoga, swimming, and walking my beagle Walt.

What's your favorite piece of clothing?

A warm and funky hat.

What are some of your guilty pleasures?

People watching, chocolate, getting a massage.

Favorite recipe (please be specific, like so we can cook it if we want)?

Simple vegan lentil soup to warm your belly and not burn a hole in your wallet: Fill a medium sized pot ¾ of the way with water. Add half a small bag of lentils, more if you like thick soup. Boil at medium heat. Cut up and add onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, and any other favorite veggies. Add salt, pepper, chili powder, and lots of good spices to taste. Cook until all lentils and veggies are soft. Best served with friends and wine.

What’s on your desk?

At this moment: too many folders, papers, books, a travel water color set, a polaroid camera, a broken typewriter, a pile of change, a miniature monster sculpture from a free art show, a piece of wood from the Arizona desert, a postcard from Istanbul. My desk and I have a funny relationship. It’s always a place to put work on but not work at. I prefer the kitchen table.

Stones or Beatles?

Patti Smith or PJ Harvey?

So sometimes we ask: Fitzgerald or Hemingway. Feel free to answer that too, but I’d also like to know: Ashbery or O’Hara?

How about: Dickinson or Stein? Plath or Sexton? Brooks or Giovanni? DiPrima or Waldman? Howe or Heijinian? Berssenbrugge or Mullen?

Porn name (first pet's name + first street you lived on)?

Kip Shepard, who would be an intellectual-sexpositive-revolutionary-superhero lovin’ and fightin’ against greed, exploitation, and the power hungry motherfuckers.