Winnipeg based writer Hannah Green talks to AW’s Emily Cann about her debut collection of poems.
EC: You are both the writer and director of Xanax Cowboy. Writers are often credited with the foundation of a work, whereas directors shape and mold that foundation to achieve a vision. We often see this doubling-up of roles in film and theatre, but rarely (if ever) in a work of text. How do you view your directorial work in this collection?
HG: Xanax Cowboy is a bit of a marionette. She is the actor, the persona, the voice, and I am terribly clumsy with her strings. Written and directed attempts to distinguish between the tangled puppet and the mangled person lost up in the rafters (me).
Within Xanax Cowboy, there are two “film scripts” as well as a “play.” This is where a more obvious version of the director arrives in its fancy chair.
In the play, a director’s note at the beginning asks the reader to “Please think of a Tarantino film.” The plain yellow cover with black text that says “Written and Directed by Hannah Green” is honestly just a cheeky little nod at Tarantino.
I can bullshit all day, but that’s the truth of it.
EC: You acknowledge and integrate the work of other poets, like Sylvia Plath and Michael Ondaatje, into Xanax Cowboy. What was it like to deconstruct their work and reframe it in your voice? Were you ever apprehensive about putting your work in conversation with theirs?
HG: I’m working on XANAX COWBOY Vol. II, and this collection will get into conversation with Plath in greater detail and with more risk/definitely some apprehension. A lot of the Plath material didn’t make it into Xanax Cowboy, but I’m writing more about Plath in regards to the difficulty of separating her work from her life, the absence of her early work in the canon, what things may have been like if she had lived long enough for us to stop loving her, or for her work to have not entered the canon at all, as in many ways we took what was never meant to be given to us.
With Ondaatje, I don’t feel that I deconstruct his work! If I am deconstructing a piece of work, it is because I want to throw it at the wall, I want to change the narrative, I want to call it a bad dog or a little bitch.
I use Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid because it is one of my favourite books, and I wanted to incorporate it in conversation with my own writing. Xanax Cowboy is about many things, but one of them being the appeals of the Western, and how Billy the Kid is an icon that changes through the eras to support what we need. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a beautiful example of rewriting this legendary Wild West character. I think in an old draft I wrote that Ondaatje gives him a heart like a sawed off shotgun.
I played with The Collected Works of Billy the Kid to call attention to Billy the Kid and the appeals of the Western, while simultaneously comparing Billy the Kid to a diagnosis — something else that changes through the eras to reflect the aches and pains of the time. I had fun with Ondaatje’s work, and wasn’t hesitant about incorporating it because the Xanax Cowboy also has a heart like a sawed off shotgun (I don’t even know what this means, I just like how it sounds — this is probably why this phrase stayed in an old draft lol, but I guess I’m dusting it off now).
EC: In your acknowledgements, you note that without the editorial support of Molly Cross-Blanchard, this collection might have been another thirty pages. What I noticed when reading was that Xanax Cowboy strikes a difficult balance between a lot and a little. By that I mean, the collection does not shy away from detail (our speaker might even be accused of “over-sharing” at times), and yet it manages to make use of brevity and blank space so beautifully. How did you know what to cut and what to keep? How do you strike that perfect poetic balance between too much and not enough?
HG: It is interesting you mention “over-sharing.” I would be curious to know in what sections of the book you have developed the opinion that the speaker could be accused of over-sharing. A theme in the book is attention-seeking behaviour in women, and “over-sharing” may be attributed to attention-seeking behaviour in what we will call the public imagination.
EC: While the term “over-sharing” does carry a certain pejorative connotation, I feel the term is quite playful too. I might also refer to these passages as intimate. An example of this intimacy that springs to mind is in the section that begins “I want to create a series of paintings inspired by old anatomy posters.” Later in this section, you write “I no longer drink Blue Gatorade and I’ve shit my pants enough times in public that I’ve learned to take Imodium before I leave my apartment.” There’s charm in the candor about certain (digestive) issues many would be hesitant to speak–or hear–about. How do you know when to lean into that level of intimate detail?
HG: I love that you mention the digestive issues would be something that someone may be hesitant to speak about. I speak about it as openly as I write about it. Shitting your pants is funny. It really is. So it was easy for me to lean into that detail. For blank space, a long poem needs space to breathe, so I use brevity and blank space as an exhale before you have to inhale and hold your breath again because I’m about to stink up the place.
For what to cut and what to keep, I trusted Molly Cross-Blanchard because she knows me so damn well. Molly is an amazing editor, and we have been work shopping together for at least 10 years. I trust Molly’s edits. But I had to trust myself too. Often, the poems Molly said CUT were ones I was on the fence about. Molly is an amazing intuition-checker. There are poems Molly wanted to stay in that I had to cut, reluctantly. It is a delicate balance.
EC: What you intend for the readers to be left with after the final page?
HG: The last poem says “you can trust me” but earlier in the book, I write “the number of times I’ve lied is the same as the number of times I’ve said trust me.” The final page offers assurance that everything is going to be ok for the Xanax Cowboy, and I hope to leave readers with the question of should they believe it.
Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. That is the scary thing with addiction.
I want to believe everything is alright (I’m sober) but I’ve been sober/not/sober/not/sober/not/sober and you have to work every day to make sure that sober is the last petal on the daisy of you, that you love yourself and not love yourself not.
EC: Was there a specific incident or experience or series of events that inspired this work? What was the development process for the inspiration to become this newest collection?
HG: The collection began when I needed to create a username for an app, and “xanaxcowboy” popped into my head. So that is how Xanax Cowboy was born, and it grew quickly. Regarding an incident or experience, I wanted to write about medication and my experience with Xanax, and romanticizing a lifestyle that shouldn’t be romanticized. The whole cowboy/Wild West motif felt like a great way to explore that — there is lots of room to play in a desert that is endless and you are constantly thirsty and searching for something to relieve that thirst.
EC: Are there any aspects of the book you would like to change /tinker with?
HG: I would work the play “XANAX COWBOY VS COCAINE COWGIRL” a bit harder. It is one of the poems I worked the hardest, exhausting both myself and the writing.
In early drafts, I was trying to pack a lot of meaning into the poem, and I had to let go of that so the characters could have some fun.
I was reworking it right up until my final deadline, and there are a few loose threads, like the list of props. The list of props is from an earlier draft, and there are many more props in the final version than what I include in the list.
I also introduce “Subtext” as a character, and I would play more with Subtext than I do, making the character more prominent.
EC: How long did the first draft take for you to write? What was the core of the developmental process between drafts, were you working on the structure or the story world or aspects of style and language or something else? In terms of sheer length what did the book look like after the first draft? Did the length change?
HG: I can honestly say that I was working on the first draft right until my deadline. I never arrived at a solid “first draft” and then started editing it. I just wrote and wrote and wrote and then suddenly (poor time management, what’s up) the book was due and I had to wrangle this beast into something cohesive.
There are probably 40-50 pages that didn’t make it into the final version of Xanax Cowboy. I needed to pare down at the end, looking at the bizarre sweater I had knit, and assessing its loose threads. Which ones were worth saving and what could be cut?
I did a lot of snipping at the end. I’m lucky. I can give myself a pixie cut in 2 minutes but it takes years for me to grow my hair out. But that’s process, baby! Clog your damn drain.
EC: How did you arrive at the form/structure of the work? Did you have a form/ structure in mind when you started? What other forms/structures or shapes did you consider? What was driving the choices of form/structure – efficiency or something else …style, urge for innovation, compulsions of the genre, compulsions of a literary movement it aspires to connect with?
HG: Form and structure revealed itself the more I wrote. There are poems that would not exist, without something prior being written. A long poem gives you so much room to play with form and structure. In a way, I would say it was driven by an urge for innovation, but I think all long poems are. Their nature is showy. Like a little kid doing a bizarre dance routine and trying to get your attention.
EC: Are any aspects of the book that is autobiographical? How did you consciously deal with your intimate material (i.e., experiences – emotional and physical) in a way that avoids the dangers of straight autobiography?
HG: The book is very much autobiographical! Sometimes Xanax Cowboy is alone on stage, and sometimes I climb down from the rafters to untangle her or go to the bathroom. I think this movement between persona and self allows me to explore intimate material without leaning into straight razor autobiography. Long poems are known for being genre-bending though, and I’m continuing to explore the genre. I would love to bend the long poem so far that it breaks into essay/memoir.
EC: What emotions do you associate with writing? Or, differently put, how does writing impact your emotional state?
HG: I don’t really associate any emotions with writing. But I’m not exactly a person in touch with its emotions. I had friends ask me if the book was difficult to write, given its subject matter. Or if the process of writing was cathartic in some way. I see writing as work, so like my regular job, it’s hard to work/get my job done if I’m emotional about something.
That was probably the most boring answer EVER. Let me try and decorate it or put a hat on or something and see if it looks better.
Basically, I like to write when I can focus fully on what I am doing, so I try to leave my emotional baggage outside of the room.
HANNAH GREEN is a writer and poetry editor at CV2. She was a poetry finalist for the 2021 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. She lives in Winnipeg.