No Place Like

Emily Cann talks to Atlantic poet and editor Adam Beardsworth about his latest poetry title.

Emily Cann (Emily): No Place Like explores many aspects of the climate crisis, including the destruction of the natural world and the implications this has for our children. In “Sky,” some extraterrestrial elements are introduced as well. The idea of alien life puts our current crisis on Earth into a new perspective, or at least invites readers to approach the issue from a different angle (literally!). For you, is there some hope to be found in the otherworldly, the alien?

Adam Beardsworth(AB): I think that hinging our hopes for a mitigation of the climate crisis on some sort of otherwordly intervention is probably a dangerous form of magical thinking. For me, the poems in the “Sky” section of No Place Like that explore the possibility of worlds beyond our own are meant in part to function metaphorically. It’s no secret that our enlightenment rationality, particularly as manifested through capitalist and colonial discourses of progress, expansion, and resource extraction, is at the heart of the climate crisis. In spite of our awareness of the problem, from scientific, socio-economic, and political standpoints, we seem as a culture incapable of relinquishing our attachment to the ideologies that we know are dooming the planet. To borrow Lauren Berlant’s phrase, there is a “cruel optimism” in the way we approach (generally speaking) the climate crisis: we are optimistic that it will get better—m technology will save us, electric cars will make a difference, petrocultures will die off—yet the cruelty of this optimism is exacted upon us every day as the crisis worsens and the logic of ecological domination that drives post-industrial capitalism fails to change. The “alien” parts of my book are meant to represent the possibility that other orders, other ways of seeing the world that challenge our current ways of being, can and do exist but will not make a difference until we find ourselves capable of not just seeing them, but believing in them. I use the extraterrestrial metaphor because I think it’s kind of apt. Whether you believe in UFOs or not, it is a fact that people have been reporting strange sightings for 1000s of years. In most of those cases, we have found ways of rationalizing these phenomena. From visions of divine angels or spirits to weather balloons or experimental military craft, our civilization has a knack for rendering the unbelievable believable by containing it within our mythological or ideological frameworks. I find it fascinating how today, in our world of ecological and political unrest, the interest in the “unknown” seems to be on the rise. From conspiracy theorists to History Channel shock-doc buffs, there is, on some level, a strong cultural desire to locate “truth” elsewhere. While I don’t think this is a productive means of addressing the climate crisis, I do think that it points to a failure of our contemporary systems of belief—whether secular (as in capitalist progress), or religious. So (and sorry for the long answer) I wanted to explore this desire to explore belief beyond the ideological systems that have us over a barrel and to consider the ways in which our civilization is quick to dismiss anything that challenges our established orthodoxies.

Emily: Several of the poems in this collection work to transform the familiar into the strange. “Alien I” and “Alien II” for example, transform a birth into a first encounter. “Mafia” turns crows into a crime family. What do you consider to be the role of this kind of defamiliarization in this collection and in your work more generally?

AB: “Alien I” (as embarrassing as it is) is autobiographical, and in many ways meeting a child for the first time is a sort of first encounter. It’s beautiful, of course, but it is defamiliarizing as an experience—there’s nothing that can quite prepare you for it, and you’re suddenly confronted with this little being who is entirely dependent on parents to navigate a new world. So maybe in that poem, I was simply trying to convey the more literal defamiliarization of that experience. As a concept, though I think of defamiliarization (as defined by the Russian formalist Viktor Shklovsky) as an integral part of lyric poetry. We see it (defined in a number of ways) in concepts such as Keats’s negative capability, Frost’s movement from “delight to wisdom,” or even Eliot’s tension between tradition and individual talent. There are of course many other examples, but for me, I think the most important thing (and I take this from Emerson) is to pay attention to the mundane. We are so good at looking past the wonders all around us, and sometimes defamiliarization simply comes from really looking hard at the familiar. I find it fascinating how we mediate our daily experience according to ways of seeing that privilege-specific ideals, worldviews, etc. “Mafia” is simply about the crows on my street. The crows are of course always there, but it wasn’t until I began paying attention that I noticed how their operation works on garbage day, and I found it quite fascinating.

Emily: There’s a poem in “Home” that bears the same title as the collection (curiously also in three parts). The simile of these titles is truncated—no place like… what? How did you craft this title of both the poem and the collection? How, for you, does it capture what’s at the heart of the book?

AB: The title of the poem came first, but as the collection grew, I realized it would also work well to define the collection. The Oz reference is meant to be ironic in the face of our climate crisis. Dorothy of course simply wants to go home. As our climate crisis worsens, we increasingly find ourselves longing to return to a more stable sense of “home”—ecologically, geopolitically, etc.—even as scientists confirm that such a return is impossible. So, it’s meant to convey that desire to return to what’s lost, while simultaneously imparting a sense of reverence for the beauty of our “home.” Each section of the book (“Home,” “Earth,” “Sky”) attempts to conceive of that longing from a different perspective. “Home” examines it in the experience of everyday life; “Earth” from a more environmental perspective; and “Sky” from the perspective of a longing for something Other that can reanimate, or provide salvation, for a lost world. The poem “No Place Like” is meant to encapsulate the tension between what we perceive as “home” and the destabilizing forces that constantly disrupt our desire for peace. It’s literally a snapshot of a neighbourhood, and its disjointed, impressionistic style aims to enact the various ways in which our ideas of home exist in tension with the forces we want to keep out. Metaphorically I think that tension resembles the ways in which we often work hard to ignore the crises that most afflict us in the interest of establishing a more comfortable facade that reflects our ideals, whether domestic, suburban, or capitalist.

Emily: 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?

AB: I think there are several incidents. Ecological anxiety, particularly in relation to watching one’s children grow, is a prominent experience that I think is tangible in the collection. It is hard (for me at least) to not feel fear, guilt, anxiety, frustration, and so on when I think of how this crisis will continue to unfold for the next generation. I think this anxiety informs a lot of my experience these days, and writing about it seems a natural way of trying to better understand it. The “Sky” poems are also informed by a sort of pet fascination with cryptic things. I’m by no means a UFO buff or conspiracy theorist but I did do a lot of reading on the subject as I wrote the book. Writers such as Jacques Vallee, Jeffery Kripal, Carl Jung, and many others offered fascinating historical, mythological, folkloric, and psychological takes on the subject, and the sightings explored in their books inspired some of the poems. I had a bizarre sighting myself as a child–nothing dramatic, just a star dancing around in the twilight in impossible patterns. It’s always stayed with me. I think it’s interesting to consider how such events can destabilize our faith in the known world.

Emily: Are there any aspects of the book you would like to change /tinker with?

AB: At one point earlier in my career, I was able to visit the Robert Lowell Archive at Harvard’s Houghton Library. Lowell was infamous for his tinkering with poems he’d already completed or published. He even rewrote the same book and republished much of it (see History and Notebook). While in his archive I came across some journals that had included his work. Inside the journals, Lowell had heavily annotated and made alterations in pen to his poems. He couldn’t simply let them stand even in their published form. I’m fascinated by that obsession to get the words right (even after the fact), and I certainly share it to some degree. Some poets can write more quickly and fluidly and can trust the instinct that gets the words on the page in a specific fashion. I can’t. I putter around with phrases endlessly. Sound is important to me, as is a loose notion of metre, and I’m usually not happy until I feel like things sound right. And of course, they rarely do so there are always things I’d like to tinker with or change.

Emily: What books were you reading when you wrote this? Are there any books that you had to keep visiting for inspiration when writing this book?

AB: I read fairly widely and try my best not to lean too heavily on the work of other poets while composing my own. I do think this book represents a few different areas of my poetic interests. There are some more conventional lyrics, some surreal poems, and some poems developed from found sources (the “Fatima” poems, for instance). I tried hard to offer some diversity in my approach, which is something I appreciate in the work of others. There are some obvious touchstones for me—Frost, Hughes, Jeffers, Lowell, Merwin, James Wright, John Thompson, Don Domanski; but while writing this book I was also reading writers such as Arthur Sze, Charles Simic, Terrance Hayes, Jericho Brown, David Baker, Ada Limon, Bob Hicock, and many others. I’m sure elements of the work of these writers have found their way into my practice over the years. There are so many brilliant contemporary poets whose work I am in awe of. Louise Gluck too—I certainly don’t think my writing derives a lot from her work, but I recall that in the early stages of writing this book, her Poems: 1962-2012 was a sort of catalyst that helped get me going. I think fiction and criticism are also important to me. For instance, I’d been reading a number of environmental writers during the composition of this book—classics by the likes of Leopold, Abbey, and Dillard. I think their impressions are visible in some of the poems.

Emily: 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?

AB: During the earlier stages of composition, I was fortunate enough to be sharing work with two very talented writers: Shoshannah Ganz and Lindsay Bird. I am indebted to both—partly for their keen eyes and suggestions, but also for helping me find the confidence to begin shaping groups of poems into something larger. I’m not entirely sure how long it took to write the first draft. I was working on an academic book at the same time (Confessional Poetry in the Cold War: The Poetics of Doublespeak), and I find that I’m less productive during semesters when I’m teaching and so on, but I’d say it was at the very least two or three years start to finish. The length didn’t change dramatically. Obviously, some poems didn’t make the cut and they had to be trimmed to a better fighting weight before heading out into the world, but there weren’t any dramatic alterations.

Emily: 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?

AB: I did not set out with a specific form in mind. Rather, as I wrote more poems it became clear that there were a few different ideas, voices, and themes. Obviously, the poems in “Sky,” with their extraterrestrial focus, were unique from the others. At one point I considered peppering those poems throughout. However, it also soon became clear that there were several poems with more surreal inflections as well, and they were distinct from the personal lyrics. So, dividing the book into three sections that separated these styles ultimately made sense. I also wanted to keep the collection from stagnating and felt that three distinct sections—while thematically linked—would help diversify form, tone, and voice over the course of the book.

Emily: What elements/aspects of writing give you pleasure?

AB: I think the solitude of writing is what gives me the most pleasure. I also have a career as an academic. The critical writing I do is very different from the creative writing. I enjoy both but have always felt that they come from different places. Academic writing feels a little more like work to me. I set out a task for myself and try to prove it rhetorically by relying on analysis, theoretical perspectives, and the critical canon. When I’m writing poems it’s just me and the page trying to make something new. Obviously, there are always the voices of other writers floating around in my head, but getting something on the page is up to me alone. I also think there’s something to be said about the fact that the external rewards associated with writing poetry are minimal. As an academic my career depends on my ability to perform sound academic research. As a poet, there is no real external motivation. There’s no real money, only modest fame for the very best writers, and it’s not like I can demand unlimited credit at the bank on the back of my reputation as a poet. I like that, there’s something slightly sacred about it, at least in the run of a busy day where it’s difficult to find solitude or peace. The Blood Jet is poetry, as Plath wrote, and while I don’t typically write in torrents, I do think there’s something essential about getting words on the page.

Emily: Can you name a source of inspiration before the age of 12 that impacted your writing in some way?

AB: My grandmother was a grade-school teacher and champion of all things Can Lit. I’m not sure that I had any real literary ambitions as a kid (I was NHL-bound in my mind), but her large collection of books kind of made literature a source of gravitas for me. Also, when I was in the 9th grade (a bit older than twelve), our lovely teacher Mrs. Layden arranged for the class to take in a public reading by Mordecai Richler. I knew the name from my grandmother’s collection but had not read a word at that point. I recall showing up for the event, which was early in the afternoon, and Richler appeared before us, scotch in hand, and spent the next hour rasping his way through all manner of content that never would have been school-board approved. I distinctly remember thinking “this guy’s cool, I could be like him someday.” He died not long after, and I borrowed many of his books from my grandmother.

He is the editor of Horseshoe Literary Magazine and founder of the Marble Mountain Literary Festival. He lives with his family in Steady Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador.