Brad Richard: from Aubade to Bacchae

“Aubade”

7:01: the first rain of the last day

of August starts to fall, then hesitates,

postpones itself to let the light

that would have come here anyway break in.

Nothing is amazed. None of the azaleas

have changed their minds about not blossoming,

and the lady cardinal who visits the lawn chairs

between 7:15 and 7:20 assumes her station

and finds the yard in its ordinary order.

But she must notice how the long branches

Of the euonymous, yesterday so straight,

Now are bending under days of dryness;

how the fig tree’s leaves are browning,

as if burned by a slow, exhausting fire

the small rain did not extinguish. Summer’s

steady certainties, the creeping

increments of heat and leaf, falter

and break, utter final colors.

No expectations could sustain these last

intact yet stunted primroses. After all,

what is the soul? The black ant

mazing through the rose’s sex?

These tendrils shrinking from the endings of air?

The repetitions of cloud and sky,

the kinetic clocking down of things

caught in the cardinal’s eye in flight?

— from Habitations

 by Brad Richard

Brad Richard, New Orleans poet, writes with an incredible sense of perspective and place, reaching out toward history, mythology, art, and nature. Focus and attention are revealed in his poems, as well as questions regarding gender, an understanding of the world, literary and otherwise, and a way in which to examine it. Though I’ve known Brad for years, I’ve learned so much more in this interview about his way of seeing and about the form and fabric of his poetry.

Backyard Ferns

Confederate Jasmine

Brad, I’m thinking about the idea of perspective in your poetry. In your first collection, Habitations, many of the poems focus in on nature, as in “Aubade” and “Dirt-Dauber’s Nest,” and then lean away to widen and expand. And then there are those pieces that steal in and single out details that perhaps we’ve no business knowing, like “Everybody’s Little Secrets.” I felt a terrible, wonderful sense of voyeurism here, the digging down into places that are usually off-limits, and realized that these sorts of poems have a literary kinship with Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio and William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

Would you speak about your process, in terms of perspective? And about how that process may have evolved over the years?

First of all, Karin, let me say thanks for this interview. I’m really honored to be one of your subjects.

To the question at hand: I love looking at things and I love describing them. I hope my eye doesn’t censor what it sees, that whatever is seen is fair game for thinking, feeling, writing. Still, at times I feel incredibly obtuse, like I miss things that are right in front of me. Then again, I’m always surprised when someone reads one of my poems and something I’ve seen, something I may have thought was so obvious as to be banal, strikes a reader as perceptive. I think it’s just the habit of looking that makes me notice things in a particular way—something particularly beautiful, or odd, or telling.

Imagination is the next step, and that involves a looking out as much as a looking in. That is, if I can imagine myself into something (a person, an object, a painting), I hope that I can see from that particular perspective and generate some sense, however partial, of how that consciousness would think. I’ve written a lot of persona poems and dramatic monologues and variations thereon, and that mimetic habit of imagining a different perspective runs closely parallel, I think, to the habit of seeing I described above. What interests me the more I write is how I locate whatever I consider to be my perspective.

I love Sherwood Anderson (“Death in the Woods” is one of the most brilliant and haunting things I know) and As I Lay Dying is a touchstone. And yes, the sense of being a little too close for comfort is something I admire and am a little frightened of in Anderson and Faulkner’s best work.

Fiction

Poetry

You’ve written poems as tributes to other poets and to artists, landscape, mother, father, lover, self. And that’s all very nice. But here’s my question: have you ever written a poem of thoughtful, quiet revenge? And (even if you haven’t) what, pray tell, is the best poetic form for writing of reprisal?

I love this! “Writing well is the best revenge,” said a writer with a famously poison pen. And George Garrett perhaps wrote the wickedest bit of literary revenge in his novel, Poison Pen (dedicated to the memory of Joan Rivers). I can think of lots of examples of well-turned vengeful daggers in prose, but I think what makes literary revenge work is the same in poetry. It’s a matter of finding the appropriate balance of irony, ire, and bile, and singing your hate-song in perfect, pissed-off pitch.

Now, in my own work . . . hmm, is there anything I would admit to as arising from wanting to settle a score? I’ll take a kind of middle road with the two poems I’ll cite. One is “Eye-Fucking,” from Butcher’s Sugar, which is in the persona of a gay-bashing murderer. Letting him speak for himself is, to my mind, pretty good revenge. The other is “The Artist’s Wife and Setter Dog,” from Motion Studies, in which I play a trick with point of view, withholding the identity of the speaker for as long as I can until it’s clear that it’s the wife, that is, Mrs. Thomas Eakins. He and she had a very complicated relationship, but I felt she deserved a chance to speak her mind about how that horrific portrait portrays her. Withholding and then revealing the speaker was a way both to complicate and dramatize how Eakins repressed her and her image. I hope a little brute justice was served in that case.

Now, if you were hoping I would reveal some juicier, more personal poetic revenge . . . sorry!

Poetic devices

Place informs so much of your writing. Your childhood in Texas, your adult life in Louisiana, the interim in Iowa and Missouri. Armadillos, levees, gulf waters, wasps, acorns, mockingbirds, sweet potatoes, wild sweet-peas, locusts: details of those places.

Within place in your writing are intonations of desire—to be home; to be elsewhere, near the shore, examining things washed up; to be wanted, loved, understood. What do you think? Places, people, passion. Sound familiar?

Of course. A person who will remain nameless (note to self: subject for revenge poem?) once made fun of me when I told him I was considering learning more about birds so I could identify them more precisely. Clarity is my absolute standard for good writing, and precision is fundamental to clarity. This is all essential to understanding place in a meaningful way. Places, people, passion: these things are very specific, and it’s their specificity that moves me.

Motion Studies - by Brad Richard

“Motion Studies”

I. [1929 / 2005]

We’ll never make it in time: you’re twelve,

Riding west to see a corpse in a flood,

I’m your grandson at forty-two, riding east

to see my city’s flooded remains.

Gueydan to Port Arthur, Austin to New Orleans,

you in a pickup with your daddy and one brother,

another brother waiting in a funeral home,

laid out in somebody’s suit on a cooling board,

you trying to imagine that body past this rain,

me in a rental car with the music cranked,

trying not to think about stories that got snagged

in stories that failed to hold up, to hold

water—

—   from Motion Studies by Brad Richard

Motion Studies, the title of your second collection and of three movements within the collection, becomes the telling of stories within stories, like sketch boxes inside the set of suitcases that, from smallest to largest, fill the old leather trunk in the biggest closet of your father’s art studio.

Would you tell us about the circumstances surrounding the writing of these poems? How they came to you, from the art examined to the exodus from and the eventual return to New Orleans?

I love how you imagine this big leather trunk in my dad’s studio! There wasn’t one, but you’re absolutely on target with the metaphor of stories packed into stories. And I’m delighted to talk about this.

I began writing the Eakins material in Motion Studies in 2003, after seeing the Eakins retrospective at the Met in 2002. I really didn’t know his work before then, and was in the middle of working on the poems that would find their way into Butcher’s Sugar. But Eakins work really got to me: I admired it, I was annoyed by it, and I wanted to make it give me something back for all the energy I was putting into looking at it, especially that damned Swimming painting. I ended up doing a considerable amount of reading and research and was planning to write a book of poems almost entirely about Swimming. By the summer of 2005, I was pretty far along with that project, and well into its explorations of impossible yearning. And then that stupid storm happened.

Among the many ways that Katrina affected me, one of the worst was it (or my reaction to it) made it impossible for me to continue the Swimming poems. Fortunately, I had already written a lot of those poems, and probably even more fortunately, they weren’t just about that painting. While Tim and I were in Austin, during our weird, extended evacuation period (our apartment was fine, the city wasn’t, and we didn’t need to return immediately), the Ragdale Foundation graciously offered me a residency. I went there to write one poem, “The Raft of the Medusa,” based on the very famous and much-written-about Géricault painting; that poem ended up taking months to finish, and I really meant for it to be my only Katrina poem.

In the summer of 2008, I received another Ragdale residency; I hadn’t been writing much during the previous year, and I was frankly unsure what to work on. I knew I didn’t have enough Eakins material for a book, but I also knew that work was good enough to become part of a book. I was also wondering if I could find a way to write again about Katrina that would mean something to me, just as the writing of “The Raft of the Medusa” had: not something merely didactic, but something really felt. About a week before I left, I had one of the few “eureka!” moments I’ve ever experienced as a writer. I suddenly realized that my Katrina story, a story about my paternal grandfather trying to get to Texas during a 1920’s flood to retrieve the body of a dead brother, and Zeno’s paradox were all related and could generate a single poem. It took a lot of work, including genealogical research, research about cooling boards (thanks, Audrey Niffenegger!), and imaginative re-creation, but over that four-week residency, I came up with most of what become the “Motion Studies” series that forms the spine and nervous system of that book. I’m still amazed that all of that meshed so well with the Eakins material, plus a few other poems I had written previously. I don’t expect to ever again have such an incredible experience of unity in creating a book.

Freddy’s tail

Butter Boy!

Influences: literary, cultural, culinary, gender-wise, otherwise.

I always go a little stupid when I have to answer the literary influence question. Once I start listing the usual suspects (Bishop, Stevens, Yeats), I feel obligated to start listing everyone whose work I love and has had some impact or left a trace on my own work and then I freeze up, can’t think, babble. So I’ll try this.

Literary: Gilgamesh. Moby-Dick. King Lear. Yeats, Stevens, Bishop, Plath. Tomas Tranströmer. Michael Alexander’s introduction to The Earliest English Poems (Penguin, 1966). Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden.”

Partially literary/extra-literary/cultural/etc.: I have and have had many important literary friendships, and Dana Sonnenschein and Reginald Shepherd have been the most important of those. Dana’s friendship sustains me in all kinds of ways, and Reginald’s changed me, big time. I’m in a talented and invaluable workshop group—Peter Cooley, Melissa Dickey, Carolyn Hembree, Andy Stallings, Andy Young (and past members Jessica Henricksen, Major Jackson, Ed Skoog, Liz Thomas)—and am lucky to live in a city with a vibrant, diverse literary community. My relationship with my father is where my relationships to the visual arts, music, and food begin. Gender-wise = otherwise. OK, that’s a joke. Sort of.

Gladys – former bridesmaid, always the hen

Crawfish: étouffée, bisque, or boil? And how come?

I have to choose?! Well, boiled is the most fun, so I’ll go with that.

Butcher’s Sugar by Brad Richard

“The Men in the Dark”

Dropping shut the trapdoor that opened the dark

above my childhood bed, they don’t want me

 

to tell you about them, those two men

who left their smell with me each night

until I was no longer a boy. In tee shirts

or sometimes shirtless, they sat on bunks

as in a cell, smoking cigarettes and staring

down as I whispered. They liked to hear

about my parents, my dog, hurricanes, the wasp

and the dandelion, how blood tastes, how deaf people talk.

– from Butcher’s Sugar by Brad Richard

In your third collection, Butcher’s Sugar, you step out onto the ledge of gender, curling your toes toward “dirty boy” poetry, then lean over the edge toward yearning, sex, and even homophobic violence.

Tell us more. What else were you moving toward with these poems? And have these pieces led you into another dimension in your writing, a place where you can take off into the next stretch of work?

The first poems I wrote that ended up becoming part of Butcher’s Sugar were exercises in form: “Queer Studies” came from practicing the sonnet, “The House that Jack Built” from practicing the villanelle. I wrote sonnets and villanelles on other subjects, but in these particular poems I was interested in queering the forms. I didn’t think they would necessarily lead anywhere; they were exercises. I did play around with similar material, most of it also in forms, but a lot of it was pretty bad; this was back in the mid to late ‘90s, when the manuscript for Habitations, my first book, was basically done, and I was looking around for a new direction. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do and a lot of the abandoned work from then reflects that.

There were two turning points. One was “Eye-Fucking,” which was a response to reading about gay-bashing killers in Texas. Although I had played around with writing about creepy material, that was a more visceral writing experience, one that made me confront the real horror of what I was dealing with, and made me question why I wanted to write about it. After that, I couldn’t deal with material of that gravity without feeling more certain that it was OK—morally and artistically—for me to do so.

The other, more liberating one was a re-encounter with ancient literature, specifically Gilgamesh and Greek mythology. That gave me a frame of reference for dealing with material that was quite personal, even in poems that don’t refer directly to classical myths. I’m not a Jungian, but archetypal material is undeniably powerful, deeply referential in ways that heighten the intensity of a poem and give them a certain density (which I hope isn’t merely borrowed). I feel that, too, in the kind of material I drew upon for Motion Studies.

Motion Studies is a very elegiac book with some hope for the living, for those who can remember, for the lovers at the end. Butcher’s Sugar is also elegiac, but brutal: of all the classical influences in it, the strongest may really be Euripides’ The Bacchae, which is, in my reading, about the question of whether it’s necessary to destroy the self in order to have self-knowledge.

Right now, I find myself working between two impulses. One is directed outward, toward the idea of the city and of history, in a partially completed manuscript about the capitol of an imaginary kingdom and in another about New Orleans (which is also kind of an imaginary capitol). The other impulse goes more inward, and a lot of that material is very domestic; there are poems about things growing in my yard, and about my life with my husband, Tim. (Not coincidentally, I’ve been going back more often to James Schuyler’s beautiful poems.) Related to these are some memory poems, some cousins to poems in Butcher’s Sugar, others more like poems from Habitations. Which means, I guess, that I keep coming back to place and perspective, trying to get my bearings again and again.

Reprise of Freddy’s tail

Tim Watson & Brad Richard – Hansen’s Sno-Bliz – New Orleans

Brad Richard

Brad Richard is the author of Motion Studies (The Word Works, 2011), Butcher’s Sugar (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012), and Habitations (Portals Press, 2000). He chairs the creative writing program at Lusher Charter School in New Orleans.

All photos – with permission of Brad Richard and Karin C. Davidson.

 *

The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.

Matthew Draughter: Vision and Voice

The reason for our departure will be

splashed across newspapers, it will be investigated.

Known by all, known to everyone as the day

of our separation—noted by a day and time,

noted by a heat index. A temperature so hot

that the blue balloons of your birthday party

burst, and the helium dispersed into the air.

A time when we retreated because we confused

the popping of the balloons with gunshots. A date

remembered by few. We are absent from the body,

no longer tied, but free.

 - from the poem, “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar” – For Brianna Allen

by Matthew Draughter

I first met Matthew Draughter at his Certificate of Artistry reading at Lusher Charter High School in New Orleans. Lusher focuses on the arts and academics, giving students interested in creative writing, fine arts, music, and arts media a conservatory-style education. Matthew’s voice stood out to me, and I was included in his senior thesis defense. His bright, wise way of answering questions during the defense is also reflected in his writing. When I read his words, I hear strains of Carl Sandburg and E.E. Cummings in his poetry, and threads of Virginia Woolf and Flannery O’Connor in his prose. But these are only my impressions. His literary influences surprised me, arriving not only out of his creative writing classes, but from his interest in gender and the female voice. I love his responses and am very happy to share them here.

Matthew Draughter

 Photo credit: Lila Molina

Matthew, you are a native of New Orleans, and your writing is infused with a sense of place, a love of place, which in a way becomes an allegiance to the city. Can you speak a little about how your stories and poetry are influenced by the city and community? For example, in your poems, “X – a city,” about how the city was marked and marred in the aftermath of Katrina’s flooding, and “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar Avenue,” a tribute and a cry out for Brianna Allen, the little girl at a birthday party killed in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting in May 2012.

To be honest, when I first started writing, I thought New Orleans was boring, and I hated writing about the city. But in the past year I began to realize there was a voice here, and that voice began to speak to me. Until I put it on the page, I didn’t realize how lyrical and full of imagery that native voice was. When I started writing more and more about the city, I was able to grasp what the voice of New Orleans was trying to tell me, and that’s when the real writing came. The city began to influence many parts of my writing, and it was never so much about being aware of the setting or having a sense of place—to me it was just writing about where I’m from as it relates to where I am in my life now. It’s funny, you never know how beautiful your home is until you stop, stand back, and look at where you came from.

As it relates to my work, like “X- a city” and “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar,” there is a sense of tribute, but also a sense of what I’ve learned from events in the city. This past year I felt driven to find out things about myself, including the connection to my home. I love my city, and there is so much I’ve taken from all of the areas of New Orleans. Each section of the city has spoken to me, and that is where my connection comes from. These particular pieces act as homage to events that have caused tremendous loss. For “X” it was Katrina, and for “The 1200 Block” it was a murder. Both events are ones that hit the city hard, but most importantly these events touched me and made me think more about where I am really from and how much the city means to me.

I was fortunate to attend your Certificate of Artistry thesis defense at Lusher High School this past May. Your senior thesis, titled “Ways of Women,” is a very thoughtful and beautifully sequenced collection of stories and poetry, in which the female narrative voice is predominant. Tell us about how you decided to focus on this perspective, and about your purposeful use of gender in writing.

Gender roles have always been something I’ve been interested in. Whether it’s the unstoppable femme fatale, or a strong female figure. The truth is, women have always come across as more interesting characters to me. I am a male, and I know what it’s like to be one. That’s why I like writing about women. I feel that as a writer you should never be in your comfort zone, and you should always find a way to challenge yourself. I do that through gender roles. My thesis, “Ways of Women,” is a compilation of works inspired by women in my life. Through these works I’ve recognized the importance of gender roles in literature, but I’ve also discovered what has captivated me most about women. In each of my pieces there is a mystery behind the woman—that idea of secrecy is what has inspired me to focus on women, especially in stories like “Hive” and “Bonnie.” What is unknown about women intrigues me—that’s what makes me dig deeper. As it relates to my characters, I think that there are some secrets they can have, even from me. I want my literary women to be just as mysterious to me as they are for my readers. This allows me to dig and discover, but it also gives me the chance to realize when to step back.

Gender roles allow me to think more about the big picture of the work, and ultimately, what everything means as a whole. A female character can give the narrative a sense of depth that not all male characters can. It’s just more interesting that way.

In your story, “Hive,” the use of metaphorical language reveals a woman trapped in a hive of memory. Virginia Woolf inspired this piece, yes? Would you speak about the use of metaphor and the very close viewpoint of this story?

“Hive” was inspired by Virginia Woolf—specifically, Mrs. Dalloway. I was drawn to the fact that Woolf was so intimate with her characters’ points of view. The focus on her characters allows readers to enter their perspectives, their minds, even when the narrator isn’t in first person. That’s the effect I wanted in “Hive.” Through details, I gained a precision that entrapped my main character. The entrapment she feels is a product of the events from her past, and I decided to expound on that. For the point of view I didn’t want to have a first person narrator because the entrapment Charlotte feels could be extremely overbearing to readers. Third person limited gave me the chance to explore her world. Through metaphor I was able to extend the senses and the idea of how Charlotte’s memory works in the narrative. This gave me a sense of control and allowed me to find her character. I became Charlotte while I was writing this story. I had to be able to think like her; that was the only way I could create her. I also had to step away and realize there were certain aspects I didn’t want to know. This is where the idea of the “hive” came from. I wanted her to have secrets that not even I knew. When I created her memory of the bees, the metaphor came on its own. She’s a very intriguing character, and there’s a side to her that I still don’t know. As a writer, of course, you need to know your characters. But, to me, I don’t want to know them as well as some other writers know theirs. That’s why my fiction is mostly character-driven. It gives me a chance to explore and understand how far the exploration will go. In that way, the metaphor of “Hive” came to be.

Some of your stories include details such as texture and fabric.  And so: raw silk, chiffon, or taffeta? 

Chiffon. I like the way it layers. It just flows a way certain fabrics don’t.

Influences? Writers, artists, designers.

In fiction, Flannery O’Connor and John Cheever and Ralph Ellison, as well as Virginia Woolf. I love how their range is so different, how they have different methods of characterization. I’ve learned so much from each of these writers.

In poetry, I’m a huge fan of Anne Sexton. She’s always inspired and influenced my thoughts about structure and diction, and how they work together for a poem. And ever since I started writing, I’ve loved William Butler Yeats. Recently, my work has been inspired by contemporary poets, like Ntozake Shange, Terrance Hayes, Kevin Young, and Langston Hughes. I’ve studied and drawn from them as I’ve began to find my own voice. “X – a city” was actually inspired by Terrance Hayes. The rhythm was a response from “Blue Seuss.” I was flattered when you mentioned E. E. Cummings because I think he’s brilliant. “The 1200 Block of Simon Bolivar Avenue” wasn’t influenced by another poet; it was just me and everything I’ve ever wanted in a poem. It wasn’t a response, rather a creation of something that had been on my mind for a very long time, and I finally had the chance to write it. Something triggered that poem’s creation.

In terms of designers, I admire Chanel and Alexander McQueen. These two have changed the face of the fashion industry. I love Givenchy and Marchesa because of the construction of their designs. I love when designers take fashion risks, as that parallels the risks I take in writing. That’s why I love fashion as much as I love writing. The risks are endless, and when you mess up, you can just start over. They both seem to go hand in hand, and it’s all art—and that’s the most important thing for me.

Matthew Draughter

Photo credit: Cassidy Driskel

Congratulations! You’ve graduated from Lusher and will be attending Loyola University in the fall. What are your academic plans?  What are your hopes and dreams?

I plan on majoring in International Business. I feel as though college is where you find yourself, so anything can happen between now and the time I graduate. I also want to continue to pursue my writing. Loyola has great literary magazines, and I would love to have the opportunity to have my work published in one of them. After college, I would really like to work for a fashion company to see how design, writing, art, and business come together. I want to go to school for design and eventually work toward an MBA. I’ve always seen life as a book—you can decide to make it as big as Moby Dick or as tiny as a pamphlet. I see myself taking more risks, because that’s the only way I’ll ever know what works and what doesn’t.

In terms of my writing career, I won’t ever stop. It’s what I have to do. After graduation, I hit a point in time when I thought, “Now what?” I started reading like I used to, and reading always sparks my imagination. Reading and writing are counterparts: you can’t have one without the other. As long as you’re reading, your imagination for writing is stimulated. I’ll keep writing about what intrigues me, about the things I love. Eventually, I’d love to be a published writer. I’d love to have three books by the time I’m thirty-three. But for now I just want to be able to finish the story I’m currently working on. I’m going to take it a day at a time, so I’m always enjoying life and can always experience something new.

And because we love a little lagniappe in New Orleans: your favorite music?

This question makes me smile. Honestly, I appreciate all types of music. I love listening to R&B, and I like some Rap. Sometimes I just like to sit and listen to Tchaikovsky and meditate on parts of Swan Lake. Other times I like to blast Kanye West. Then there are those moments when I feel like listening to music from my childhood: Destiny’s Child, The Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears. No matter what, I love music that tells a story. For me, there needs to be a beginning, middle, and end. That’s why I respect artists who still create albums. Singers like Alicia Keys and Adele have songs that have layers. That’s what I feel writing should have. That’s why, for me, music and writing are synonymous.

My favorite artist of all time is Mariah Carey. All of her songs do things lyrically that other artists can’t achieve. Her albums work as units, and there’s an element that drives each song from start to finish. This is why I love all of her music. Whether she’s singing about an enduring love story, or about missing an ex, there’s a narrative. She also has an amazing voice, which makes me happy no matter what. The element that Mariah uses in her albums—the thing that drives them—that’s what I look for when I write. My favorite Mariah album, Daydream, has a summery haze that coats every song. I feel that when you write, there should be an element—a summery haze—that coats each and every piece you write in its own way. Strangely enough, that’s the album that I listened to when I wrote “Hive.”

Most recently, one of my favorite albums is Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience, which I love for its cohesive body of work. From start to finish, it flows. That’s how every poem, short story, and novel should be. Each song in an album should speak to the others, just as every line of every literary work should, in turn revealing what is versatile and unique about the whole piece.

Matthew Draughter is a writer from New Orleans. He attended the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop in 2011 and received Gold Key Awards in the 2011 and 2013 Southeast Louisiana Regional Scholastic Young Art and Writing Competition in Fiction, Poetry, and the Senior Portfolio categories. He recently graduated from Lusher Charter High School, where he competed in Track and Cross Country and completed his Certificate of Artistry in Creative Writing, and will attend Loyola University in the fall.

 *

The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.

Tim Watson: A New Orleanian Now

Tim Watson – Ariel Montage writer, editor, & producer

New Orleans, Louisiana—some are born and raised inside the city’s levees, and some come late to the city and never leave. Tim Watson is a native of Alabama—Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Dauphin Island—and came to New Orleans as a young man. “Best thing that ever happened,” he says. Thoughtful, charming, and quiet, Tim seems to consider his way through conversation, at first serious, then sly, eventually smiling. He possesses a kind of quietude that reflects his art—inspired, far-reaching, arising from a place of calm.

Editor, writer, and producer, Tim has worked on many independent, award-winning documentary and narrative projects through his film production company, Ariel Montage, Inc., from Ruthie the Duck Girl and By Invitation Only to Bury the Hatchet and Bayou Maharajah, to name a few. Many of the films deal with the cultural heritage of New Orleans, showing a special concern for people and place, history and tradition. Tim’s studio, once a warehouse, has been re-imagined into workspaces for filmmakers, a graphic artist, and a painter. Each space opens onto a large garden, and beyond is the Ninth Ward neighborhood of New Orleans known as Bywater, bordered by the Mississippi River and the Industrial Canal, and where, since Katrina, artists and longtime residents, like Tim, honor and celebrate the city.

Garden outside Ariel Montage Studio – Bywater

Tim – 1976, Dauphin Island

From your childhood days in Alabama, what are the memories that have stayed with you and perhaps made you interested in film and story?

I imagine southern storytelling in my family has had some influence. We often told old stories and jokes, so much so that in later years they became repetitive and we created a numbering system for the stories. Not unique, but still pretty funny. Someone would yell out, “Number 37, the green motor boat!” and everyone would burst out laughing.

Summers with grandparents in Mobile, Dauphin Island, and Pensacola were terrific and helped me with self-discipline and patience. I recall a moment on Dauphin Island, having caught a fish in Mobile Bay and running up to the house to show my grandfather, who said dryly, “Well, what are you doing at the house when you know the fish are biting?” Sheepishly, I turned around and went back to the dock, knowing I had to work to keep doing better.

Also, there’s Alabama’s place in U.S. history, the strangeness of growing up and developing an awareness of the sometimes-not-great history of one’s home (think civil rights), reconciling love of family/community while despising the human rights views of older community members.  Absolutely shattering as one comes of age and becomes aware. That background has made me hyper-aware, and I’ve ended up working on some films/projects involving social justice and rights.

When I started high school in 1980, working on the high school newspaper was important to me, and eventually marching band played a big role. The band of 200 was pretty well racially balanced. Alabama schools had only been integrated for about 5 years, so we were all still trying to figure it out. We spent hours everyday together: 4-hour band practice weekday afternoons and through the summer, and travel to competitions and football games. It was kind of a “throw everyone together and see what happens” deal, with credit to our band directors and band parents for great guidance.

Big Chiefs Monk Boudreaux, Victor Harris, & Alfred Doucette with Bury the Hatchet director, Aaron Walker, in the Ariel Montage Studio

Tim, you launched Ariel Montage with the mission and dream of doing indie films. Would you describe your earlier years of work—in newspaper, TV, and radio and as program director at the New Orleans Video Access Center (NOVAC), the non-profit media arts center—as the proper foundation for owning and running an independent film production company?

I don’t think of Ariel Montage as a film production company, because I’ve never wanted to make it into a big company. I like it just being me. I know that I can be more efficient by using the great talents of at least one or two other people, so I am trying to transition to that in some ways.

At Loyola University, I went into broadcast production to be a TV producer, with no awareness of independent film whatsoever. I worked on both TV news production (the communication department’s focus) and the college paper. Not many worked in both, and I was quite dismayed then (and now) that each discipline could not see the positive outcome of working together. If there’s anything TV news could use, it’s some good writers. There were a couple of terrific writing professors at Loyola who gave me a good foundation for doc filmmaking: structuring, writing, and so on (what happens long before editing). Every project brings new challenges, and I still find writing and structuring extremely hard.

During college I worked at an AM talk radio station, which helped build some technical confidence, and interned in a local TV newsroom, where I realized how horrible working in local TV news is and that I would never do it. I witnessed unhappy people and addictions galore. I also worked as court reporter’s scopist, listening to audiotapes of deposition testifiers and correcting the court reporter’s transcript. I learned a lot about how people tell stories. I also learned how to transcribe and how to punctuate conversational speaking, which looks very interesting on the page, and the importance of accurate transcripts. I depend on good transcripts for documentary editing, so I’m grateful to have had that job.

After college I became full-time at the radio station and got really grounded in audio production. Today I find, in terms of editing, I pay attention to audio. Six months into the radio job, a friend told me of a job opening at NOVAC. I was terrified of working for a non-profit, thinking there would be times I wouldn’t be paid. I interviewed and got the job and suddenly was dropped into the worlds of indie film, cable access, and non-profit organization. The six years at NOVAC was great for learning more on the tech side, running a daily operation with budgets, and getting to know the indie film community. Best training ground ever, but also grueling. I’m ever thankful to those who helped me get there.

Ruthie the Duck Girl – Ruth Grace Moulon

Photo by Cheryl Gerber, Gambit News

Rebecca Snedeker in Mardi Gras Queen’s Gown –  By Invitation Only

What is it that you love best about your profession? The people, the process, the original idea, the hours of focus, the final cut?

I love the people and everything I learn with each project. I also love often being able to communicate my views/thoughts through the storytelling of others. So when films involve New Orleans, I sometimes get to say what I think about some aspect of the city through the way a film is structured/written. It’s an intense process, working with other filmmakers day and night for a fairly long period of time, and then it’s over. Once it’s done, I often don’t get to spend as much time as I’d like with these colleagues, because I’m off to another more-than-full-time project.

I think I’m a little different than some editors, because the nature of the projects is not always full-time, while other editors may concentrate the editing into a certain amount of time. I don’t mind it at all, but usually I find that I have about three projects going at once, each 1/3 time because of the energy level—creative energy, storytelling energy, “financial energy,” tolerance level among the filmmakers. So far, this has worked for my colleagues and me. They appreciate that the job is not always focused on editing 10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. And taking longer to edit can give you more perspective and leeway in developing a story at a slightly slower pace.

Bywater architectural detail

Tell us some things about New Orleans neighborhoods.

The city is ever-changing, and there is no “good” or “bad” neighborhood. While horrible crimes happen here, there are wonderful spontaneous events—like when a band goes down the middle of the street or a guy rides by on a bike in a tutu or dressed like the Incredible Hulk. No one blinks. Really. So many people here seem free to do whatever they want with very few constraints. And then there are the second lines and the Mardi Gras Indians, which are always terrific, though I rarely attend, as I’m usually stuck in the edit room.

Bywater—where my studio is located—is downriver from the French Quarter and the Marigny.  Bywater has a long history as a working class neighborhood, on a downswing for a while, and now on the upswing. A lot of people are moving in, and some are artists. Some are carpetbaggers, so maybe it’s gentrification. Prices are up. Some people who’ve been in the neighborhood for 60 years are getting priced out. By buying a building there, I’m aware I’m participating, but I think I’m a New Orleanian now. I’d been looking for a long time for a permanent space for my office (and affordable space for filmmaker colleagues); I’m not planning to flip the property for a quick profit; and I’ve been working to improve the building from its previous rundown condition. And the people working at the studio all care deeply for the city.

New Orleans has a history of young people moving here: it’s the port, plus historically it’s been a cheap place to live, and usually open to people who may have grown up in small towns where people and views can be more constricted. To me, the influx of young people into the city after Katrina is great, and while it’s sometimes annoying to run into “hipsters” who don’t quite seem to have a direction, the city needs and has always depended on youthful energy to sustain itself, AND for change.

Bayou Maharajah - Lily Keber’s documentary of New Orleans piano legend, James Carroll Booker, III

Sun, moon, or deep blue sea?

All of the above.

Big Chief Alfred Doucette of the Flaming Arrow Warriors

Lagniappe: In the documentary Bury the Hatchet, after returning to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux is sewing his Mardi Gras Indian suit. He wears a t-shirt that reads, “There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better” – Bob Dylan. Would you agree with Bob and the Chief?

Absolutely. I had no idea Bob Dylan felt that way until I saw Monk’s T-shirt while editing.

Big Chief Victor Harris of the Fi-Yi-Yi

Lagniappe – in New Orleans, we always like to add a little bit more.

I’m in awe of the time in history I’m living in: industrial, technological and medical advances; civil rights changes; gay rights advances; environmental changes that I feel threaten the existence of my city in my lifetime; and other changes. I mean, REALLY—until now (the past 100 years), people could live their entire lives with no changes like this whatsoever. So I feel like being a part of documenting this time is crucial, both for audiences now and for those in the future, and I feel extremely lucky to play a role in that.

Ariel Montage Documentary Films

Ariel Montage Narrative Films

Tim Watson and Brad Richard outside their Uptown New Orleans home

Tim Watson is an award-winning documentary editor, writer, and producer in New Orleans. He is owner of Ariel Montage, Inc., which produces independent documentary, narrative, and experimental film and video works for national and international audiences. Tim is married to New Orleans poet, Brad Richard. 

Tim and Brad each contributed to the multi-voiced interviews, “DOMA and the Arts,” and “DOMA and the Arts Revisited.”

Brad Richard and Tim Watson’s Wedding

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The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.

Yolanda J. Franklin: Palmettos, Porches, and Poetry

An Interview with Yolanda J. Franklin

Chile, it's not about the water, though love is lak

de sea. Faults always lift under siege -- .

It's 'bout the sex: it's a movin' thing. Katrina,

flaunt her diva complex, but still and all, 

her stiletto stilted, & that slut slipped

her hips over da Big Easy, lap

danced over da Bayou, strut through the French

Quarter. A harlot in humid perfume

stuck, tugged her girdle, hula-hooped like

a wooden spoon, while Dixie's sugar spilled,

bystanders eyed, an ankle bracelet snagged

the head of a tombstone. Seduction

rain danced the Creole Sea.

- from "Porch Sitters Sippin' Sweet Tea in Heaven"

by Yolanda J. Franklin

Yolanda J. Franklin, poet and friend, is a third-generation, north Florida native who gives voice to the palmetto-scrubbed, the porch-sittin’, the southern city-limited, the Uncle Kents and Leah Chases of her world. I’m happy here, in the very first interview of this series, to learn more about her writing – the process, the influences, the obsessions.

Yolanda, as a third-generation, north Florida native, how do place and memory influence your poetry?

Since my serendipitous return home to Tallahassee, the importance of the preservation of memory has heightened. The loss of close family members plays a large role in memory as a re-memory—as a praise or sense of restitution of some sort to memorialize time spent with loved ones. My poetic process channels the recalling of my lost memories and lost ancestors as a rekindled connection to the people and events that are all parts of who I am becoming. Returning to Tallahassee, the place I call home, after being away for sixteen years, parallels Diana Ross’ role in “The Wiz” as Dorothy: her initial desire to flee her hometown in search for something better, only to return, knowing that no other place has the same magic as home. The sheer fate of my acceptance to Florida State University’s PhD program permits time for me to not only write, but to remember and capitalize on the opportunity to share my stories.

Who are the writers you most love?  And why?  

The list includes the living and the living on, both women and men. Miss Lucille [Clifton], Sharon Olds, Toi Derricotte, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Gwendolyn Brooks, Natasha Trethewey, Jake Adam York, Langston Hughes, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, Nikky Finney, Derek Walcott, T.S. Eliot, Harryette Mullen, Yusef Komunyakaa, Li-Young Lee, and more…

Why? Because my daddy was a musician and I love to dance.  Because the perception of stories and the lyric are the marionette strings of great poetry.

How do you balance your writing time with teaching and your graduate work in the PhD English Program at Florida State University?

Balance? It’s an illusion. I have great mentorship from professors and my peers.

What are your obsessions, things that you keep coming back to in writing and in life?

Family, love, loss, politics, unanswered questions, and the explorations of daily living are common returns; yet, ultimately, I am obsessed with “knowing.” Knowing why and how the components and histories of family, along with the interactions and perceptions, reveal what makes my stories and my worldly observations is important to who I am as a person. Staying in touch with those realities is what motivates my work.

Given the rhythm and breath and tempo of your poems, how has music played a part in the poetic forms you choose?

I heart Hip-Hop and I wasn’t born, raised, and nor have I ever visited Brooklyn or the Boogie Down Bronx; yet I remember the first time I fell in love with Hip-Hop. This, of course, indirectly addresses the question at hand; however, I can’t remember sound without music in the house where I grew up. My father played the electric guitar, harmonica, and piano, could play anything by ear. My son has the same gift; I guess I “donated” it to him when I finalized my interests in band and the clarinet. I spent summers in band camp at FAMU High (DRS), memorizing sheet music without an actual instrument, and learned to play by reading music while simultaneously fingering the notes, sometimes peeking at my best friend Ilena, first chair. Thomas Sayers Ellis taught me that the music comes first, so I’m glad that I was on a dance team and that my father was a musician. Cate Marvin taught me the importance of the relevant sound of a loud poetic voice; plug in an amp and add bass. Miss Lucille taught me to listen to the poetic line and ask, “What does the poem want to do?” Cave Canem continues to teach me that my voice is important and not alone. The determination of form is organic.

Yolanda J. Franklin. 

Poet, teacher, PhD candidate, and third generation, north Florida native.

Yolanda’s work is forthcoming or has appeared in  Sugar House Review, Crab Orchard Review's American South Issue, The Hoot & Howl of the Owl Anthology of Hurston Wright Writers’ Week, SPECS: Journal of Arts & Culture’s Kaleidoscopic Points Issue, and Kweli Journal. Her awards include a nomination for a 2012 Pushcart Poetry Prize, a 2012 Cave Canem fellowship, and several scholarships, including a summer at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Indiana Writer’s Week, and Colrain Poetry Manuscript Workshop. Her collection of poems, Southern Pout, was a finalist for the 2011 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Award. She is a graduate of Lesley University’s MFA Writing Program and presently a doctoral candidate at Florida State University.

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The Poppy: An Interview Series

Four to six questions begin as pods, then burst open with answers, bright lapis, 

black-stamened, conspicuous—ornament, remembrance, opiate.

*

This interview first posted at Hothouse Magazine.

The Bathtub

The Bathtub.

Hushpuppy, her daddy Wink, Jean Battiste, Miss Bathsheba, the wild Aurochs. Beasts of the Southern Wild. Thinking on all y'all tonight. Despite my friends who disliked your story, I still hold on to liking it. It's a good story. Without being overly philosophical, by responding to the narrative with my heart instead of my mind, I lean into a little girl's words of wisdom and courage and spirit, and I feel glad.

Beasts of the Southern Wild