TIM SUERMONDT

Tim Suermondt is the author of three full-length books of poetry, the latest being Election Night And The Five Satins, from Glass Lyre Press, 2016. He has published widely in places such as Poetry, The Georgia Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Plume Poetry Journal and december magazine. He is a book reviewer for Cervena Barva Press and a poetry reviewer for Bellevue Literary Review. He lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.

How did you start out as a poet, and what has sustained you most on the path?

I wrote poems when I was a boy, which isn’t as strange as it sounds—there were no computers, no video games and the many devices children grow up with now (even the television was quite restricted in those days). So what better way for a shy kid to transport himself than by reading books and trying to write some words himself? I thought being a writer, particularly a poet, was the greatest thing in the world. I’m more jaded now, but I still think being a poet is an honorable devotion.

I started to send out poems with increasing frequently and purpose to magazines and journals at the old age of 28—and I’ve been doing so ever since. I had moved from Florida to NYC, with an eye toward an acting career, but writing continued to take center stage. I took David Ignatow’s poetry class at the 92^nd St. Y and I was on my way. Later on, my business partner and I had our own headhunting firm for stockbrokers for 17 years. I can still hear Wallace Stevens’s assertion that “money is a kind of poetry.”

Friendship has been the sustainer during all these years of writing—friendship with writers, commiserating in disappointment and reveling in success, and friends who never wrote a word but are in my corner. And sweetest of all has been the last 11 years with my beautiful wife, Pui Ying Wong, who is a brilliant poet. The two of us writing our poems—well, I couldn’t have dreamed something better.  

Your poetry focuses on what is human and ordinary, with a tender emphasis. Your poem, "Everything Changes," is a particularly beautiful example of that. Is this a focus you maintain naturally, or do you see it changing?

Poetry is ordinary and extraordinary, and all I try to do is write each poem as best as I can. And if I do it well, the humanity will take care of itself. I’ve always tried to be aware of not sounding like I know it all—I’m fumbling around like we all are. I like poetry that has wisdom and gravitas and poetry that is oddball and not afraid of the seltzer down the pants. I could be rather dogmatic when I was younger and while I’m still a bulldog about certain things, I’ve surprised myself by being more tender, as you put it, towards poetics that at one time I might have given the back of my hand to. 

The poem you mentioned “Everything Changing” was written for a friend who fell in love with a woman who worked at a store my friend went to often. He wanted, but was unable to tell her how he felt, and he never did let her know. Of course, had he spoken up she might (as he feared) have rejected it. The agony and exultation of love! It keeps us alive—poets for sure, the occasional Werther aside.

In what ways do you see yourself changing as a poet? How affected are you in your everyday relationship to poetry by political and social crises?

I’d like to think that I’ve learned more about the art of poetry and am writing better than I ever have—at least better in the sense of making my younger poetry self proud. That younger self wrote poems that were much longer and narrative, a lyric touch showing up almost by accident. And despite my writing years later that “Lyricism has always escaped me,” I think I’ve been more decently lyrical than before--although as they say, history will judge.

I write shorter poems now—if I write a poem of two pages, that’s a long one for me. If it were possible, I’d desire to write a good poem under one line! In the meantime, I’ll keep exhorting the Muse to help me write to Anna Kamienska’s request, that my poems too “stand clear as a windowpane bumped by a bumblebee’s head.”

As for poetry in this political world of ours, well, it seems to me that poets and writers have expressed their concerns very well. It puts us on record and that’s important. Protest is part of a democracy—and injustice anywhere still bothers me deeply, but I don’t want to be just a political animal. Writing about the joys of this life is just as important as writing about its tragedies and how the world so damn often breaks your heart. I gladly leave the last words to Camus: “I have always thought that the maximum danger implied the maximum hope.”

                                                       Tim Suermondt

MARCELA BRETON

Marcela Breton is a Colombian-born jazz and literary critic. She is the editor of Hot and Cool : Jazz Short Stories and Rhythm and Revolt : Tales of the Antilles. Her writing has appeared in African American Review, All Music Guide to Jazz, Americas, Coda, Global Rhythm, Jazz Notes, JazzTimes, and The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. She participated as a Judge in the First International Online Contest for Jazz Musicians in 2016, sponsored by 7 Virtual Jazz Club. She is a voting member of the Jazz Journalists Association. She holds a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

How has heritage played a role in your reading life? How has it shaped it?

My mother made me a reader. She introduced me to the classics and discussed them with me. Her father, in turn, shaped her as a reader. I did not know my grandfather, but imagine him always with a book in hand. He was a judge in Colombia, and wrote an important textbook on public administration law. My mother was a novelist and short story writer. She often asked my opinion of her writing. As a young girl, I longed to be a good reader, a penetrating reader, in order to help my mother with her writing, and because I wanted to be a capable conversant in our discussions about books. I wanted to understand for myself why some books were classics. I am a rebel at heart, and a priori reject established opinion. It took many years, a long apprenticeship, before I became a deep reader, and before I could precisely articulate why a book moved me, or left me cold. Reading is an art, albeit a minor one.

Being bi-cultural, Colombian and American, has enriched my reading life by giving me two languages, two rivers, from which to fish for books. The downside of my dual heritage has been the feeling of being an outsider in both worlds. Reading helped me forge an identity. I pieced the puzzle of self together with the books I read, nay, experienced. The experience of literature--which, by the way, is the title of a superb anthology edited by Lionel Trilling--became a way, perhaps the chief way, of becoming myself.

My Catholic upbringing and education have been decisive in shaping my reading life. A yearlong required course at Boston College, “Perspectives in Western Civilization,” taught by Jesuit priests, became the seed for a lifelong interest in religious philosophy.  A midlife crisis renewed my commitment to my Catholic faith. This return to my Catholic roots resulted in an intensification of interest in Catholic writers. I have always been an omnivorous reader, but today I am far more selective. Many writers I once read with avidity no longer interest me.

To what sorts of books are you drawn and why?

The habit of reading develops a sixth sense; one becomes a divining rod, serendipitously finding the right books. My taste is refined and eclectic. I am drawn to writers that emanate spiritual concerns: Flannery O’Connor, the French Catholic novelist Francois Mauriac, the French mystic Simone Weil, Isaac Bashevis Singer.  I admire the Russian religious philosophers--Nicolas Berdyaev and Lev Shestov--and the German theologians--Romano Guardini, Karl Rahner, and Hans Kung.

I am attracted to big, difficult, multi-volume works: Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Thomas Mann’s Joseph tetralogy, Ernest Jones’s Life of Freud.

Fiction that is interior, psychological, dreamy, if you will, appeals to me: Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, the metaphysical stories of Jorge Luis Borges, the Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld. I read very little contemporary fiction--one exception is the American short story writer, Joy Williams. 

I am also attracted to novelists who reproduce the complexity of the world, the “human comedy” -- Miguel de Cervantes, Honore de Balzac, Anthony Trollope, Leo Tolstoy, Henry James, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marcel Proust --who blends the interior and the worldly--will always occupy a special place in my reading recollections. I also like spare, elliptical writers. Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star, and Georges Simenon’s The Cat are extraordinary in their economy. Simenon sets a scene, and brings a character to life with a few deft strokes.

I am currently reading Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel, The Discreet Hero, in Spanish, and May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude.

Has the political crisis at hand pulled you more in any particular direction? If so, which?

 The current political crisis has intensified my interest in radical feminism. King Kong Theory by Virginie Despentes had me livid one minute, laughing the next. I recently read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, after an argument with a Trump supporter. Despite the insistence of the religious right that we are a Christian nation, there is no mention of God in these documents. Also, the 2^nd amendment, which gun fanatics invoke in defense of their right to bear arms, says nothing about individual ownership of guns. It only mentions the right/need of a “militia” to possess guns, in order to defend against foreign aggressors.

I read Albert Ellis, founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), on a daily basis. His books help me cope with depression, anxiety, anger, and LFT (low frustration tolerance).

I read the Psalms --at least one --every day. Besides being beautiful poems, they console me, and allow a safe kind of revenge, with their imprecations to God to strike one’s enemies, to “contend with those who contend with me.”

I am listening to a lot of jazz. The intricate language of bebop is a good place to get lost.

What books have you re-read most? Are there books you could not live without?

Books:  Don Quijote de La Mancha, Madame Bovary, Swann in Love, The Past Recaptured, Washington Square, The Death of Ivan Illych, “The Dead,” Duino Elegies, Death in Venice, No One Writes to the Colonel.

Writers: Virginia Woolf, Simone Weil, Flannery O’Connor, Jorge Luis Borges, E.M. Cioran.

I could not live without The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. I could not live without my mother’s novels--The Honorable Prison, Celebrating the Hero, and So Loud a Silence--since it is in these books that she is resurrected, and I once again hear her voice.

KATHLEEN KILEY

Kathleen Kiley has been a journalist for more than 20 years. She began her career on Wall Street, writing for Investment Dealers’ Digest, reporting on mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings (IPOs). She has written for national publications such as The New York Times. She was part of the start-up team that launched an industry news site in 2000 for KPMG, positioning the global firm to incorporate digital into its strategic plan. While launching Insiders, Kathleen attended New York University’s new media program (ITP), where she became interested in interactive storytelling and documentary making. This resulted in the documentary Half a Soulja (www.halfasoulja.com). Her most recent work as a writer includes the independent film Isn’t It Delicious.

Here's the link to Isn't It Delicious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgRxhnEfNsQ

As a writer and filmmaker, what do you see as the artist's most important role? How have you tried to fulfill that vision in your work?

Good question. I don’t consider myself an artist, but I think the role of the artist is to reflect and give voice to our times, struggles and dreams. I think that is why I became a writer--to find my own voice and give voice to issues and people that didn’t seem to have one. It hasn’t been a direct path. I started out in finance, working for Fortune 500 companies before transitioning into journalism in the 1990s. I ended up combining the two careers and it was good thing I did so I could make a living as a business journalist. I enjoy knowing what is going on in the world and how economics impacts us all. So I have this very practical, realistic side and I think this has helped me develop as a writer and a filmmaker.

As far as vision, I seem to be getting back to that. A mentor once told me it will take years to develop your voice and vision. I thought, how long could it take? As it turns out, this takes much longer than I thought, and I’m still working on it. But my vision seems to be influenced by my environment or what I seem to be absorbing.

For instance, when my mother was dying about four years ago and I was taking care of her, along with my brother, everything seemed to stop. What I mean by that is, I wasn’t running, charging around as a journalist in Manhattan and working on a documentary. I was taking care of my mother and spending lots of time with her in Connecticut, where I grew up. So I began to write about her and death and choice.

I had started writing about my family years ago, but put it on the shelf and, when my mother was winding down, I began to write again. Like many people, I grew up in utter dysfunction. I once had a friend say she was raised by a pack of wolves. Actually, they take good care of their babies and family. I just happened to be raised by Irish-American parents who did the best they could. Growing up was just utter insanity and I took this insanity and turned it into drama mixed with dark humor. The director of Isn’t It Delicious, Michael Patrick Kelly, convinced me to finish the script and so we began making it into a film, shooting the script together. He and his wife Suzanne Hayes produced the film, and real-estate investor Alfred Caiola come onboard as executive producer. Actress Kathleen Chalfant was also instrumental in making this happen. She liked the story and, as a result, Kathleen got the ball rolling.

The official description of the story is: “A fractured family of misfits finds and tries to fix themselves in this hilarious and heartbreaking story of a mother who seeks understanding.”

So let me get back to your question about fulfilling visions and the artist’s role. In this film I did have an underlying belief in the right to die and to die with dignity. It’s still a battle in this country. But after seeing my mother deal with the healthcare system and her doctor, who was clueless about her impending death, I became a great believer and supporter in the right-to-die movement. So there is a subtext in this film about this and, while it may anger some people, those who have seen the film and like it really identify with Kathleen’s character and cheer her on in her choices.

How has the current political climate affected your thinking about the arts, if at all? Has it inspired you toward any other projects? If so, what can you tell us about them?

Like many people, regardless of what political side you’re on, the current crisis has affected my thinking and what I want to write about. After my mother died and Isn’t It Delicious was being editing and distributed, I had nothing to say or write. I really didn’t care much about anything for a while. I took some time off and just worked outside, practically lived outside, working in gardens and designing gardens and landscapes. I was in state of being and I lived very simply. Then the primaries came, and here we are. Around this time, I started to think about writing again, and it's as if I am trying to find my voice for the first time. Sometimes I think there is so much stuff being said, what blah, blah, blah, do I want to add or say.

I just came back from working in North Carolina again and saw a lot of the rural part of the state, and I came away with a greater understanding of why Donald Trump won the election with voter fraud and Russia’s alleged involvement. One of the takeaways of this experience and talking with all kinds of folks was starting a project of going around the country interviewing people about their love of land and their politics.

I have also been thinking a lot about slavery, how there are many forms of that, and so I am developing some story lines around that too.

What do you see yourself doing in the future, artistically? How can we as writers, poets, artists, best come forward or step up at this time?

I think it’s time to speak out, and I think we’ve really woken up and, whether we like the political environment or not, we can at least participate. No more apathy. I am guilty of that, too. I am personally leaning toward getting more involved in local and state politics and just showing up. Maybe I will use my filmmaking or writing skills.

I think the days of thinking our politicians are going to take care of us are over. This could be good for us, although perhaps not so good for the politicians running the show now. And we should question everyone and everything now, because there is too much at stake. And certainly, for writers, poets and artists, it’s a great time to engage with social issues, to shape them and, hopefully, propel us our forward and discern between what is “fake” and what is the truth.