Ranee Zaporski (“Polite Topics of Conversation”) and Steve Nickman (“Bach on YouTube in a Dark Time”) in Conversation

S: I was intrigued by your poem’s title and the sub-headings. On reading it I had the impression of wandering down the hall in a large boarding-house. I put my ear to the doors, one by one, and eavesdrop on an amazing series of conversations or monologues. (I thought some could be read either way.) The voices are variously imagistic, ironic, indignant, lyrical, anxious, and resigned. Are they that different from each other? What do they have in common? I thought of Beckett and Joyce.  

The section titled "Money" leading to "See Alice Notley," with the cryptic absence of anything further in that section. I began re-reading "In the Pines" and am halfway through it; I’m captivated by Notley’s recurrent images of defect and the loss of loved ones, with lyrics of Appalachian songs recurring in the background. I googled her and was struck by the fact that Robert Creeley was a strong influence on her work. The Black Mountain School, I wonder if Appalachia comes through in Creeley's poems, it hadn't occurred to me when reading him. I consider Creeley a formative influence on my own poems—a minimalist, influenced by William Carlos Williams.  

R: And I’m not familiar with Creeley’s work! Sounds like we both have some reading to do.

The structure of my poem came from moving back to the Midwest and noticing the patterns of conversation here. I am very Midwestern, but have lived all over the country as an adult. I think Midwesterners who have never lived anywhere else think we don’t have a distinct culture here, along with a strict communication style, but we do! Some of it is wonderful, and some of it is annoying, just like anything else. Of course any poem tends to be more interesting when the poet is highlighting the things that don’t work for them. 

S: Another place I went, in the middle of reading Notley, was Dianne Seuss's sonnets. Seuss comes up often in discussion in the workshop I go to.

R: I love Frank. Let’s talk about some of our other favorite poets.

S: From past generations, I would say, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, e.e. cummings, Robert Graves, Philip Larkin—

R: I love Larkin. No one did quietly bubbling resentment so well, besides perhaps Pessoa.

S: Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wilfred Owen, Theodore Roethke, Robert Creeley, James Wright, Dylan Thomas. 

R: As a young person I loved the aesthetic around Dylan Thomas. I wanted to be a romantic soul who came from a charming village in Wales and wrote about the sea and tragically drank themselves to death. Well, besides that last part.

S: Some I admire,  among many others, of the contemporary poets: Kay Ryan, Bob Hicok, Charles Simic, Jane Hirshfield and C.K. Williams. And of course Szymborska. 

R: Ooooh Jane Hirshfeld. Part monk, part poet. I like her work. There are so many poets I admire, but here are some that come to mind: Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Yusef Komunyakaa. All the great Post war Polish poets—Herbert, Milosz, Symborska, whom you’ve mentioned. Books and collections I admire greatly are Adam Zagajewski’s Two Cities: On Exile, History and the Imagination-he wrote about the qualities of time and place so well—and American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes.

Adrienne Rich’s ‘Diving into the Wreck’ made me want to write poetry years ago-I read it when I was 17 and I was amazed. Currently, Rachel McKibbens is a poet I am recommending to everyone. When I read her collection Blud it nearly singed my eyebrows off. It’s fire!

What part of your personal history most influences your poems?

S:  I have written poems that arose from many different times in my life, some easier to write about than others. This is kind of a difficult question and reminds me of my experiences of being in psychotherapy and also doing psychotherapy with patients: there is always a resistance to be explored, an avoidance to be examined.

R: Very true about resistances being explored. I have found that some of the lines and written thoughts that I of my own that I like the most were written down in moments of heightened emotion, almost on the verge of panic. The editing comes when I’m feeling calm and distant. 

S: What role does music play in your life?

R: I love discovering new music, new styles, new patterns of rhythm. I credit New Orleans Jazz for helping me through some pretty tough times. I learned later that the anticipation of waiting for a note that comes when it’s not “supposed” to helps your brain anticipate the future, in a fundamental sense. When it comes to classical, Chopin is a favorite. As a kid I was in love with British New Wave/New Romantics, I loved the theatrics of it all. When I look at who is currently out there, I have to say the voices of Laura Marling-I’ve heard her in concert, she has perfect pitch-and Brittany Howard. How about you? 

C: I can’t imagine life without it. My grandmother taught me Hungarian folk songs, my father collected records of Italian opera, I love Van Morrison and Nina Simone and Edith Piaf and the Bulgarian women's choir. Different kinds of music do different things for me. The Baroque composers, mainly Bach and Handel, have been sources of composure, tranquility, the feeling that in spite of everything life makes sense.

R: Why the specific Bach piece in your poem?

S: O.K., I’m in my eighties, have had some losses, live alone now. Everyone has their stuff, right? So one night I'm looking for something to watch on TV, can't find a movie, & remember how delighted & reassured I've been by watching classical music performed on YouTube, & Sir Andras Schiff is an absolute master, a charmer, self-possessed and in intimate contact with his audience. And I find his performance of Bach’s third Partita in A Minor, which I've watched before, but this time it's different, my own woes and the threats to our world are pressing on me. And I imagine those are pressing on Andras as well. I've had a glass of wine, which amplifies the imagination. 

R: The stage is set.

C: Exactly. The caption of one of Goya's Caprichos is, "The dreams of reason produce monsters." This is a surrealistic poem, maybe outrageously so. The darkness is about to overwhelm the light. I imagine he is fighting the forces of evil as he sits and goes through the movements of the Partita. He's my hero, I'm rooting for him as he proceeds and eventually reaches the end. The lights come on and my fears for him and the music he has transmitted are allayed, the audience is just people and not alien fungi, and I know that this time the good guys have won.