55---> kristin & glück

Kristin Sanders on poetry and on "Pomegranate" by Louise Glück:

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of poetry being "too precious," and I totally get that, but for some reason when I think about my favorite poems, they end up being serious, traditional "poetry" types of poems. In my own writing, I try to stay away from the idea that poetry can only be a certain way, has to be sincere, has to end with a nice fluffy "bow" of a conclusion, shouldn't include certain uncomfortable things. I try to write against those ideas. But the poets who feel the most important to me, whose voices speak to me the strongest—Louise Glück, Margaret Atwood, Richard Siken—definitely do all of the "traditional" things I try to avoid.

I settled on this Louise Glück poem, "Pomegranate," because it's always been a favorite. I'm a fan of her use of Greek myth (especially in her book Meadowlands). I like her pessimism, her honesty about romantic relationships, her frankness, and the subtle ways she brings sex and bodies into her poems. I find her poems sort of sexy, and very sad. Or maybe realistic. I wanted to make a video that reflects my recent move back to the central coast of California, specifically San Luis Obispo: a place where—twelve years ago—Louise Glück's poems were constantly in my mind. Now I've returned, and I'm "my own woman, finally." I think writing poetry means the world sees you a certain way and projects a lot of weird stuff onto you—and this is especially true for women who write in any way about bodies, sexuality, gender, etc. But writing and reading poetry offers you access to "depths" you may not—like Demeter in the poem—normally be offered in your lifetime. I'm grateful for those depths.

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Kristin Sanders is the author of CUNTRY (Trembling Pillow Press 2017 and a finalist for the 2015 National Poetry Series), This is a map of their watching me (BOAAT 2015), and Orthorexia (Dancing Girl Press 2011). She has taught at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; Loyola University, New Orleans; Belmont University; and Louisiana State University. She is currently a poetry editor for the New Orleans Review and a contributing writer at Weird Sister. 

44---> leela & sexton

Name: Leela Chantrelle

Hometown: San Francisco, CA

Current City: Paris, France

Occupation: Literature Teacher

What does poetry mean to you?

Poetry is a means of identifying my own emotions and feeling less alone. (And that is what I hope my poetry could do for people when they read my work.)

Favorite poet/poem:

My favorite poet is Anne Sexton, and my favorite poems of hers would have to be "For my Lover Returning to his Wife" and "The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator."

Why do you like this poet, these poems?

I like Anne Sexton because she has always felt as closely to myself as I have found in writing, because her poems make me cry and because she writes about masturbation as a marriage between the bed and the self and because no one else can do that. I used to be afraid that I would kill myself like her, now I am more reassured that I will live because of her. 

The following is a poem I wrote with Sexton in mind:

Here’s the IV Drip of It All

                              —for Annie

The grossest part of the body is its own anatomy,

Its inconceivability;

What clothing manages to let loose.

If you closely examine a love handle

You might not understand the temptation

Of the slobber of a lover 

Who’s forgotten to get tested

Or how this

Boy pulls me

Back in – even across oceans,

Watch me end

Up in the middle

Of an ocean. Who’s allowing me to survive?

Find your own oasis.

What if it’s not a page?

What if you can’t hold

Me again, but then

Remember this morning I woke up as pieces

Of evidence, my body curdled around yours.

What’s the solution in permanence?

Like a pair of black boxer briefs, black boxers, black.

It’s good when it doesn’t seem dirty after awhile,

That’s quality.