Articles Archive - Page 42 of 55 - Апраксин Блюз

Irina Kerner, Israel

Benjamin Kletzel

I met the artist Benjamin Kletzel at an exhibit of his Jerusalem. I had never seen his work before and never even heard his name. Having learned that I was interested in painting, he invited me to visit his studio.

His simplicity, unassumingness and attentiveness to others immediately endeared me to him. Nevertheless, I didn’t dare to call him right away — either out of timidity, or out of fear of being disappointed. You don’t often meet good artists.

Still, after a while, I arranged to meet with him.

His workshop is located in the city center, in an old two-story house. The lower floor is occupied by a furniture restorer. “What a charming neighborhood,” flashed through my mind, “an artist and a craftsman …” Climbing the stairs to the second floor, I saw a sign with an inscription: “KNOCK.” For a moment my breath caught in my throat, as if there were some secret hidden behind the door. I knocked carefully. And then I heard an affectionate: “Come in!…”

I entered and froze. On the walls, shelves, on the floor, everywhere — paintings, and what paintings they were! … It was as if the door to an unusual world had opened, unlike anything else.

The themes of the works are varied. Still lifes, landscapes, portraits, compositions with animals and people coexist here. The technique is also varied. A pungent oriental flavor is combined with muted, restrained tones. It is hard to believe that all this belongs to one brush.

The workshop is bright, spacious and very comfortable. There is not much furniture in it: a table, a sofa, a small bedside table. On the table are items that can be used to work from life — however, this is mainly needed by his students. The artist himself never works from nature. All his works are created from imagination or memory.

The proprietor takes out paintings one by one, shows them and then quickly returns them to their place. There are so many works that a day would not be enough to study them all. I have to content myself with fleeting impressions.

In the workshop, there is a golden frame especially for demonstrations — a kind of tool for evaluating the work. In this frame, he says, the painting immediately wins.

In some cases, it seems to me that a simpler frame would be more in harmony with the mood of the painting. However, an artist’s attitude toward his works is an intimate matter. It’s like caring for a woman you love, whom you want to dress more elegantly.

The proprietor’s kindness and childlike innocence are very captivating. He places the newly finished canvas in the middle of the room, closer to the light, and says, addressing either me or himself: “Well, how about it? Is this possible to look at?”

He is interested in my opinion about his works, not hiding what he thinks about them himself. His confidence is touching. About one of the paintings, he frankly declares that he doesn’t like it. “That face is a little too static…” he says. There is something doll-like in the look of the salesman’s round black eyes on the canvas. His whole appearance testifies to strength, health; this is the real son of the market.

One of the artist’s most recent works was painted during a visit to a friend living in the north of the country. A large face occupies the entire canvas. Behind are mountains. It seems that the appearance of a human face is a surprise for nature. It seems to violate an age-old order.

Another motif that appeared at the same time is a cellist. The barely outlined contour of the figure with the instrument almost merges with the dark red background. The musician seems to dissolve in the sound, creating a feeling of peace.

Somehow in a special way I recall the image of a fish against the backdrop of the urban landscape. Unlike other works, in which the presence of a fish is only part of the composition, here it is the focus of the artist’s attention. The appearance of a fish in an alien setting looks intriguing.

The work “Musicians in the City” is original and unexpected. The sight of artistic people in an urban environment is invigorating, as a sign of something alive, atypical.

In the artist’s canvases, one feels a special connection with the earth, with the origins of wisdom. Even the theme of loneliness, which often appears in his works, doesn’t evoke a sense of pessimism.

“I’m a realist,” says Kletzel.

A Picture Painted in the North

Cellist

The realism of Benjamin Kletzel is not in the accuracy of the image, not in the details, but in his penetration into the essence of nature. His portraits are often exaggerated and reach a level of sharp (but never rough) generalization. The portrait of the poet I. Guberman is very expressive. The poet looks like both a fighter and a clown, but maybe this is just a mask hiding irony?

It can be said about the works of B. Kletsel that they give an idea not so much about the character of a person, but about his condition at a certain point. One interesting example is “The Sick Artist.”

There is detachment in the gaze of the bedridden artist. But at the same time — meek humility, acceptance of the natural end of life.

The contrasts of red, yellow, green create an aura of the artist’s inner world. In fact, here before us is the experience of a lifetime, the fruit of a long creative journey.

Everything that attracts the attention of B. Kletsel arouses keen interest in him. He does not criticize people, but shows them as he sees them, trying to bring out their best qualities. In portraying the scene of a poker game, he ignores the pettiness inherent in gamblers. In the eyes of his players is tense expectation. And although it is clear that they have far from noble motives, it is easy to imagine the same people waiting for heavenly revelation.

This does not mean, however, that the artist has the same attitude towards all phenomena in life. Comparing his portraits with subjects dedicated to scenes of everyday life, it is impossible not to pay attention to the level of depth, which varies depending on the object under study. For example, the artist sees the biblical Joseph in a completely different way than ordinary believers. His Joseph is a martyr. The eyes are half closed; the gaze is directed inward, into the self. For him there is neither time nor space; there is only pain and suffering. But in this detachment, one feels inner strength, the capacity for spiritual insight.

Poet Igor Guberman

Joseph

The paintings depicting religious Jews look different. “Le Chaim!” is a canvas depicting a Sabbath meal. It all comes down to the charm of the celebration, the “love of the happy moment” when the believers feel as one. The artist finds charm in this because such moments give a person an opportunity to feel engaged with the mysteries of life. And for the painter himself, real life amounts search, creativity, dedication. Depicting artistic people (among whom an important place is occupied by artists themselves), B. Kletsel creates images people able to transform the world around them. Most of these portraits show a creative person deep in reflection, at the moment of the beginning of creativity. “An artist constantly writes and draws,” says B. Kletsel. “He doesn’t necessarily pick up a pencil, but he thinks and reflects all the time.”

In “The Local Artist”, the seated artist, who occupies the entire space of the painting, looks like an alien. It seems like he will never get up, will not go anywhere else, because this is his place, his own, the world that belongs to him alone.

The Local Artist

Poker

Artist and Rooster

The hero of the work “The Artist and the Rooster” carefully studies a bright, picturesque rooster. However, beauty in itself is not yet a reason for creativity. You can see that the artist’s gaze glides past the rooster. Maybe the rooster we see here is a new artistic creation. Or maybe two creators at once — nature and the artist — took up the brush in parallel.

In “Rumination,” the artist’s relationship with nature is shown differently. Here we see a man sitting at the table, immersed in deep thought. On the table are familiar attributes. The palette, fish, wine are the favorite objects of the painter. But now he doesn’t need them. His only tool is his head. Creativity is impossible without thought.

Rumination

The Artist Leon Mayer

It is probably no coincidence that a creative person sometimes feels the need to forget about his craft. “The formation of an artist is a long process,” says B. Kletsel. “Why should there be intervals? We must forget our works. Improve. With each period, drop by drop, something is added. The main thing is to be yourself.”

Love of the ordinary is combined with the artist’s ability not to depend on what causes familiar associations. His world is not as simple as the world of those of his characters who can be found on the street or in the market. If these worlds intersect, it is most often due to a happy accident, for example, when the artist is walking around the city or looking out the window. He says that sometimes a little thing noticed during a walk can cause a new image to appear.

It elicits particular sympathy that the earthly characters of B. Kletzel, transferred from the street to the canvas, are drawn into the reality that is practically unknown to them in life.

In “Nachlaot,” two women, with their backs turned to the viewer, are watching a red crescent moon beyond the fence of a one-story house. Walls do not shelter a person from the all-pervading city. The crescent moon glowing in the dark is a spark of hope, a small reminder of eternity.

Nakhlaot

To Prayer

One might think of the “Watermelon Eaters” that they are seated to perform some kind of sacrament. They hold slices of watermelon carefully, carefully, as if they hold a magic tool in their hands. As if they are waiting for this “tool” to unlock an invisible door for them.

The painter B. Kletsel is not fond of analysis. His engine is intuition. Although he himself often evaluates his works in terms of technique, they contain interesting, deep thoughts. His works give freedom to the imagination of the viewer, without limiting the possibilities of interpretation.

Some of the artist’s works, written simply from the heart, under the impression of some episode, evoke a mystical feeling. One of them is “To Prayer.” The painting shows the figures of people heading to the synagogue. Looking at them, one might think that these are not people, but mountains rushing towards the light. “Once I saw religious people on the street. Suddenly — the wind, well, it was like a storm!.. It billowed his coat! That led me to something…”

In the artist’s works, one can see not so much an ideological development as a change of mood, depending on which a feeling of joy or deep thought remains.

“Sometimes you want a celebration,” Kletzel says.

Working in the studio, the artist makes every day a celebration, marking it with the appearance of a new work. You sometimes feel the same sense of a celebration when you walk around Jerusalem. The works dedicated to Jerusalem are like a dream of a non-existent city. The streets of Jerusalem on the canvases turn into a mystery.

This secret is the author himself. He doesn’t care how others feel about his beloved city. He finds there what he needs — that’s enough.

The artist devotes himself entirely to his work. This quality is typical for his characters. Its fishermen hold fish like an artist holds his palette. It doesn’t matter what the person is interested in. Passion, dedication, love of life — that’s what’s most important.

At Benjamin Kletzel’s exhibition at the Jerusalem Cultural Center on March 23, 2009

The artist Benjamin Kletzel speak about art:

I believe that above all there should be painting. That is expression. The feeling that you splash onto the canvas. You work not for someone else, but for yourself. You are your own critic.
Some tasks are implemented, some are not. The process itself is important. I take a brush and work; that will work — this will work, no — no. Maybe this process is also a joy. The main thing is to paint with talent. Everything must come from the heart.
I think painting is arranged like music. Remove one smear, and everything falls apart.
The main thing is to reveal your nature. Get your doppelgänger out.
What is intuition? It’s erudition. Accumulation. Knowledge of psychology, etc. In the process of work, you open yourself.
The purpose of art is to purify a person.
The artist exposes himself.
During socialist realism, the bulk of artists worked visually (not comprehending, but copying nature). Socialist realism gave only skill.
The artist must be sincere, honest — first of all to himself. Goya, Velasquez painted because they couldn’t help but paint. And then, too, there was dictatorship. The artist is always under pressure.
All sicknesses go away when you stand in front of the easel. There are things you have to paint. It happens that you hatch some kind of plan but it isn’t realized. Sometimes you start to paint realistically, and then you refuse to do that. The challenge is to bring out the light from within.
If you repeat what you see, it will be boring. We must do it differently.
Where does it come from? I saw something somewhere. For example: I was at the market, I saw oranges, watermelons. Spots… Some kind of trifle. Everything. Enough.
From the window I saw a strip of the sea. And it already pushed me to something. The object itself is unimportant. Everything engages me. Through an object, I express a state. Maybe this doesn’t concern global things, but just the everyday.
A basis for assessment: the painting should be interesting, not beautiful.
Painting is a quiet thing.
I support things being modern, belonging to the era in which you live.
Breaks at work? Only if I get sick or go somewhere. The artist constantly paints and draws. He does not necessarily pick up a pencil, but he thinks and reflects all the time.
Returning to subjects? You handle the same subject in a different way every time.
Everyone is learning. There must be an environment for formation. The formation of an artist is a long process. You need to improve. So that your sweat, efforts are not visible. With each period, drop by drop, something is added. The main thing is to be yourself.
There are artists who orient according to their time. I am far from that. I do what I see fit.
I can’t imagine what I’m going to paint. The painting is born in the process of work.
Why should there be intervals? We must forget our works. When you paint, it’s a different life.
If you admire your works, then that’s your ceiling.
I don’t divide people into those who understand and those who don’t. But what you do, you do primarily for artists. Artists understand better.
I’m engage in what is happening in the world. I sympathize with people. Therefore, I often paint gray, pessimistic things.
I need peace of mind. It’s great to have someone around to help you. Love must grow. I’ve always liked that my wife sings. That she’s a personality, a person of art.
I am never satisfied with my works. I sell my works relatively cheaply. I don’t like money at all.
Everything has to be aesthetic. My ancestors were tailors. Every good craftsman is an artist.

On January 16, 2009, the world lost one of its great artists — if a great artist can be lost, and if he belongs to the world enough for it to lose him. Andrew Wyeth was a major artist. Talent and tenacity enabled him to stand apart from both realism and reality as defined by his discipline’s contemporary authorities, those guided by cues remote from artistic purposes. His love, his concern, he said, was for portraying “strong-willed people,” predominantly those who preferred, like him, to live in isolation.

Andrew Wyeth. The General’s Chair. 1969

Canvas after canvas shows values that, for much of the artist’s lifetime, found more admiration among amateurs than among the specialists of modern aesthetics. That lifetime over, as Auden wrote (on the death of Yeats), “he became his admirers.” To some, Wyeth’s paintings may have seemed too specifically material, superannuated in sensibility, to seriously interest those with the experience and daring to seek cultural investments more attuned to transient notions of future lucre. His art’s sophistication had no connection with technology, with progress, the driving forces of civilization’s ascents and collapses.

Creating his paintings — spare and yet meticulous, unhurriedly detailed (and yet reportedly numbering in the thousands) — Wyeth outlasted, both in years and relevance, countless contemporaries and many later contenders. His lifetime’s placement recalls Thomas Hardy, who preserved the tie he’d forged with the nineteenth century in the twentieth century as well. Or, more recently, Solzhenitsyn, faithful to his creative and moral principles in each of the two centuries framing his life.

There is a heroism all artists possess in one degree or another. By creating, by not restricting themselves to roles as observers, they declare their opposition to a morality of utility, in which the commonplace exists for rational relationships. Artists have means to assert the beauty of the thing in itself, of unmediated human response.

In an artist of Andrew Wyeth’s caliber, this heroism approaches the absolute, with the line between the well-made painting and the life of the well-made subject dissolved entirely. Hemingway may have had a similar understanding of craft, deftly depicting examples of human skill, of humans shaped and worn by the power of their own preferences, in matters of directions chosen as desirable. He and Wyeth, attaining artistic maturity in periods of historical turmoil, also similarly chose to respond with a cleansing of vision, abstaining from clumsy new myth-making (the seeds of Disneyland were planted on America’s West Coast while Wyeth painted in the East).

Civilization’s flower opens, opens, opens, and out comes death, the end, innovation’s hidden offspring (the fall of Babylon, crash and crisis, the post-Babylonian spirit evoked so powerfully by writers like F.S. Fitzgerald). “Why innovate? Why know the present time, why adapt to it?” Wyeth’s paintings seem to ask. While the artist’s heart is alive, it holds deep resources for all times, and art runs no risk of failing to reveal new possibilities.

Andrew Wyeth. Christina’s World. 1948

Andrew Wyeth passed away at 91 — a seemingly Biblical lifespan, in years multiplied by a factor of dignity. His departure may leave less sorrow than shame, I think, at all the pettiness paid tribute in that time. He lived longer than many had realized, and his works may live longer yet, if the timely still yields to the ageless.

::: РАЗРОЗНЕННОСТЬ :::

Скорей спокойно любит аромат
библиотеку.    Читатель взглядывает вверх: есть
жизнь бумаги внутри великой
Жизни:   аромат зелёный   восхищённой цивилизации –
освобождённая   мечта о вдохновении. Когда же
книга   поднята   из горизонта стали
её мистический   объект   распространяет разнородность
каждый кодовый номер   счётчик-таймер
жёлтой математики,   его изгиб объедки
эпоса.   Ум    не имел    периферии
для значений,   немного финикиян,   плывущих
сбоку   сквозь гласные   умерших.

::: БЕЗЗВУЧНОЕ ЧТЕНИЕ :::

Мысль делает таблички    Руины выкрикивают камень
Расплющены тростинки   Пророчества щелей на кости    Домашняя
клинопись    Однажды вскоре Цезарь сжигает свитки
веленевые лозы    загадки    Мысль становится стильной
Спасённая синтаксисом    Августин любит Алипия
Октябрь птицеспинный    Радость брачуется с сомнением
в шрифте    Впредь кто-то будет
читать беззвучно    сидя    Кто-то будет закатывать
глаза   чтобы   слегка перемешать   воздух   +
почерк    с указательным пальцем у губ    Чтоб держать
наполовину   буквы от видимого    или с
Чтоб не иметь поводов    кроме дыхания

::: НОВОТОПИЯ :::

Минуя модернизмы,   библиотека пахнет пряно,
пряно и мелодично—   с дискантовым ключом
на своём боку.   Читатели трогают каждой
книги   толпящиеся энергии    выкрученными ветром
пальцами,   персональный номер-блондин на
корешке.    Рукава обмахивают полные собрания
по случаю:   матери,   мародёр   исайа,
волчком девушка двух видов исчезнутости—
Когда бумага жила в Сияния
Лесу,   складированная вслепую серая;   спит славно
ныне— после солнечного тренинга (с приглашённой мерой)
как будто тень садилась—

::: БИБЛИОТЕЧНАЯ ПЫЛЬ :::

Мысли рознятся    Даже нормальные мысли
Природа внутри природы    Гласные где секс-
вопли оправляются   Разрозненность сделала
твою книгу миром    Шепечущие печи
вдувают   трескучую пыльцу   по читательским
дельфтско-синим    аурам    Страшило ли тебя
что исчезнет   твоя книга    Мысль каббалит
её   Пылинки   недоношенно    садятся от
радости    или того что надо    Спешат
исполнить    как в агонии усиленно
дыхание    могло звучать как поворачивание    всё тех же
или    добавленных   страниц    внутри

::: АУРА В СПРАВОЧНОМ ЗАЛЕ :::

Аура   выживает выучку
цветка,    возвращается    к
плодовому    Древу,    зная    ты в курсе:
вокруг каждой    буквы    из книги
проба цветов    сердца.    В
ужасе    или доверчивой кротости    Древо
сготовлено.    Читатели    у экранов праксиса    сдвигают
цифры    к полуденному союзу с
поисковиками:    велкро кафка,    некие вакханки,
просить-быть-показанным.    Время есть    вдохновение
для твоих читателей.    В кислороде свободном
книги склоняются    вправо;    иные довольно стонут~~

::: АКОЛИТЫ-ПРИСЛУЖНИКИ ПЫЛИ :::

Кто    там    пришёл?    Что это за железностопая    илиадическая
дева приблизилась    к ам.лит.,    её погоды
заперты    под серым пламенем?    Ядрёный
запах    засылает    энергию назад    сквозь
миф судьбы.    Читатели бредут   как в лабиринте    неся
твой том~~    Была ли для тебя    любовь к бумаге
сильней чем к людям?    Возможно,    целительность её
цветов тебя лечила:    календула,    фильтрованный фонарь
желтеющий    на корешке,    звезда
упавшая    из глаз совиных.    От
дуализма    был отказ.    Потом бумага
парус боли    свернула    к гавани~~

::: ГЕТАКОМБА* ЧЕТВЁРТОГО ЭТАЖА :::

Воздух в    вытянутой следовательно   части
библиотеки    пахнет гностикой    наподобие
изнанки маски.    Клей из
порошка + кости    сваренный в железных
котлах.    Так всегда    получается    с эпосом:
смесь   изысканий    + деревенской,    пытливой
буровой муки +    как кто-то мог бы сказать    поношенных
частей богов.    Так много    упрямого воздуха
спасается    от канона.   Сон создаёт
свою приватную подкладку.    Сладкая пыль арто
пролетает десятилетия,   садится    где
развалина исайа    почивает    в кресле~~

::: ХРУПКИЕ МОНОГРАФИИ ПО ЭКОНОМИКЕ :::

Читатели плачут   в разделе коммерции;
эпоха бумаги    теряет дыхание:
графики + карты,    наклонные алгебраические закорюки;
знание одиноко    с тех пор   как покинуто смыслом.
Моретрясение   жутко + слякотно    маркс
мальчик проходит    держа твою книгу    (мог
бросить    мог забрать)    её ткань    бестарифно
доставлена    кодом цифр.    Старый Блейк
вверх тормашками спит    погружённый в сияние
леса   шесть проходов отсюда    а потом анти-спит,
с пухлой    аурой бурой    вокруг
головы    пока пыль парадокс затевает~~

* Гекатомба (греч.) — торжественное жертвоприношение из ста быков.

::: ПЛАТОНОВСКИЙ КИСЛОРОД :::

Что есть мысль    Дыхание ли
Была ли ты дыханием    Была ль бумага    кожей
Оказывается    на самом деле есть жуки   которые
сжирают книжный клей    с рождения тире до смерти
познания    в своих телах    Читатели
расслабились на рюкзаках    Вот айзис
на её вельветовых коленях    Багровый кьеркегор
Пылинки    прыгают скволь кольца меди
библиотечных    ламп    Какие чувства
в каждой    Колечко меньшее    есть сразу всё
Колечко среднее    есть числовая слава
А большее кольцо есть    между

::: НЕУГОМОННЫЕ АУРЫ :::

Идея о том    что ауры    бывают неровными
Блеск начинает тесниться    в глазах у читателей
Кружение местное    вокруг согласной каждой
Болтовня прекращается в нём    Была ли тоже
склонность у тебя    свернуть чтоб миновать    колпак колёс
шедевра    Читатели усталые используют
невидимости    Апории    Лиловый быстрый
шум    над ними при    упаковке
портативных компьютеров    Не-надобные книги на
низких столиках    хранят    благоуханье
их масок   Гаптические    именные шифры
вращаются на ткани   Докажи Пифагора обратно

::: ПЫЛЬ ДИАЛЕКТИЧЕСКАЯ :::

Учась узреть    добавку света поверх
голов    читателей    покуда сидя    пользуешься
техникой размывки.    Поздние ауры уж были
выметены    вон.    В    книгохранилище
податливая драма: вид этих    жёлтых комнат    возбуждает
солнце.    Пыль происходит из    галактик,
каждая пылинка    с изгибом    в талии
как поэтический транслятор,   с лёгким следом-
рельсом    сонливого дыхания, горизонт    причёски
огонь    сомнений.    Вечерком
снаружи,    мельканье голубей    И   семафоры    тянут
улыбки    из царицы    облаков~~

::: ЭПОХА ПЫЛИ :::

Мысль обладает жизнью    День предлагает    пробы
В библиотеке    лампы   угасают в золоте    как
в полумраке    выпускного бала   И пыль переплывает
в сторону    публичной сферы    Я б и
не против     могла б сказать    пылинка
Через проход отсюда   скрип
беговых кроссовок    Скрип дробь   Твоя страница
почти что выбрана    Есть исчезающий
порог    у края    глаза
Меж каждым словом    век покоит
свой ничтожный воздух    Пиши пыль    Пиши
живи    Живи скрывшись    Живи скрывшись    здесь

Brenda Hillman (Photo by Chloe Aftel)

Brenda Hillman’s name and sensibilities are familiar to readers of American poetry through regular publications in leading literary journals, as well as through a growing series of award-winning collections of her verse. Her poetry has been translated into multiple languages, and critics note her virtuosic handling of words.

Born in Tucson, Arizona, Hillman is a longtime resident of California. Holding a special chair in poetry, she currently teaches courses in literature and classical philosophy at St. Mary’s College in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Hillman’s first husband, Leonard Michaels, was a noted writer. Her spouse, Robert Hass, is a prominent poet, essayist and translator.

Brenda Hillman is arguably among the most intellectually oriented representatives of the American literary scene. Her creative work also reflects a tendency for contemporary Western poetry to find inspiration in a variety of world spiritual traditions. A combination of qualified knowledge with personal experience and an individualistic angle of perception make Hillman remarkable in this context. She also seeks to inform her poetic method by building on the innovations of Beat writers such as Allen Ginsberg. Her approach to form is inventive, with visual aspects of verse structure often accorded definitive roles.

The year 2009 should see the publication of the third volume in Hillman’s planned poetry tetralogy, based on the ancient Greek concept of the universe’s four elements. The first part, Cascadia, published in 2001, was devoted to the earth element. In the second, Pieces of Air in the Epic (2005), the concept of “air,” as interpreted by the author, includes human voices, breath and song, with their connotations of spirit and individuality. In the latter collection, which taken as a whole reflects the poet’s inclination to write in both single and multiple, polyphonic voices, a set of poems appears which calls attention itself in its obvious formal unity, as a cycle within the cycle. These poems are linked, too, by a common setting: a library.

In her interview with Apraksin Blues, Brenda Hillman reveals the thoughts and motives that led her to write this cycle, which our Russian edition presents here in an original translation.

AB: Does the cycle have an overall name?
B. Hillman: I call them “the library poems” when I introduce them at readings.

How did the poems originate?

I conceived of the series as an homage not only to libraries but to all writers and to writing — I am drawn to poetic sequences, and I love the number 12, often work in 12s — so here there are 12 poems in 12 lines.

I have always loved libraries and have been a bit sad about the threat to libraries, the way book culture is endangered by the fact that people are reading fewer books…

The series had been drafted for many years from notes, but the poems themselves began when I was in Iowa City, writing in the library (where as a student I first started writing poetry seriously in graduate school — I loved the little carrels).

I had been for several years thinking about all the books I had discovered in libraries and wanted to compose in relation to some of the great strange mystical beauty of the libraries I love — my childhood library in Tucson, my college library at Pomona College, the University of Iowa library, the Bancroft Library at Berkeley: I love the filtered light, the dust, the calmness of the readers, the shuffling, as well as some of the weird features that may not be as popular — book glue smell! and the conception that all the knowledge of the world is there.

The poems have four or five “motifs,” I guess — one would be the love of books and the fear that books by beloved writers might vanish. Connected with that is, I suppose, my sense of sorrow for poets and writers of other artful literature and scholarship whose work will never be read — work that spends time in solitude, in loneliness, in libraries.

During the time of the writing of these pieces my first husband, Leonard Michaels, died. I was thinking of him in several of the pieces because his work is not read as much as it should be — he was a great writer, a great short story writer particularly. Connected with him and his sensibility, the great scholar-critic Walter Benjamin, whose work I was teaching at university at the time. His “Arcades Project” can be read throughout those poems.

I was interested in Walter Benjamin’s idea of the “aura” surrounding the work of art, the specialness of it that is ruptured by reproducing it; and in an odd verbal pun on the word “aura” I also wanted to think about the theosophical version of the word — the aura of light surrounding the human figure. My metaphysical bent is very peculiar and I am drawn — partly in an amused way and partly in a completely straight way — to theosophical beliefs, including the notion that bodies have extra substance around them, and that there are many more states and conditions of reality than just what is available to the five senses. These senses are not always the only ones — there are extra senses available to animals, and it makes sense to me that consciousness can expand itself. So the witty references to seeing auras over the heads of the readers have to do with trying to envision extra forms of light. I know much of this has to do with imagination, but I wanted to work all forms of philosophy into the poems, and to work in compressed spaces.

And finally, thought itself, occurring invisibly, has always seemed to me very peculiar. A person will try to correct a thought to make it normal in its syntax, but really, most thoughts are not normal, so I wanted to address this in the pieces.

Given your reference to sadness, solitude, loneliness, where would you say the poems wind up — a certain spiritual equilibrium? a chance at transcendence (“Sweet artaud dust flies through decades”)? Acceptance (“Live hidden”)?

Yes, all emotional life brought about by the images leads to a sort of transcendence and acceptance, though not in the ‘let’s all be happy and cheerful’ sense of those things. I think my poems have a sort of Emersonian hopefulness that comes from a sense of inward consciousness of nature — maybe that is what transcendentalism most gives the human spirit — and probably those qualities of sorrow and the depth-charge of awareness. I find existence itself utterly thrilling and amazing — a constant marvel of excitement and freshness of daily process in which all the feelings swirl (like the dust).

Through the poems run invocations of the classical/ancient world, its rituals, legacies, visions, juxtaposed with the postmodern. What intentions determined your selection of imagery and allusions?

About the sense of classical/ancient with the present: yes, the sense that one’s literary life — one’s life in relation to all arts one loves — has to do with folding the past into an eternal present, yet with the sense that history moves both one way and in the constellation of moments. Walter Benjamin pressures the idea of eternal return to yield more, to give up its hold on us. I like that idea — that we can’t be seized by mythic time but are helpless in relation to it.

Certain named writers and thinkers seemingly serve as anchors for the cycle — Pythagoras and Isaiah, for example… (Interesting that the work’s intellectual backbone, although there’s an implied concern with the limitations of the canon, seems situated along the line of Western civilization.)

Intellectual underpinnings certainly include Biblical writings, pre-Socratic philosophers, of course Plato, Aristotle and all relevant Greeks (I teach “Greek Thought” and “Roman Thought” at Saint Mary’s — Great Books in Translation courses and these have had a great deal of influence on me).

And along with this, mysticism is also present, as in the auras?

I am really interested in gnosticism, alchemy and other esoteric spiritual practices but am generally something of an animist — more “western,” though I am very interested in Chinese philosophy and Buddhism, as well as Hindu practice (mostly through theosophy). I am drawn to many spiritual practices and consider poetry a place to be in touch with those things. I guess most of all I feel drawn to mystical and animist practices.

I loathe all forms of fundamentalism in religion, especially practices that lead to the slaughter of beings for anything other than the food chain. Our spiritual life is meant to put us in touch with the unknown and with an ethics that gives humans access to our best instincts.

Does the inclusion of “non-poetic” contemporary objects — “praxis screens,” “they pack their laptops” — bespeak your conscious priorities as a poet?

Yes, pop culture references and common objects belong in poetry — my poetry includes parking meters, laptops, tennis shoes, and hairbrushes, literary theory, indie rock music and talking atoms, car washes, pubic hair, and CD cases, food and cell phones. But words are the true objects, of course.

With what feeling do you approach modernity? With a sense of confrontation, that is? Or caution, or a need to harmonize? Might the reminder of “economics monographs” as “brittle” relate, say, to poetry as opposed to materialism? What is your basis for the contrast?

The economics monographs — they are more or less brittle — more brittle than normal books! I love the sense that the spooky, tactile qualities of old books, resting in the library, waiting for someone to come and lay hands on them, have a different kind of soul to them.

An unspecified “you” appears in the poems — did you have someone particular in mind?

“You” is addressed abstractly because it is often Walter Benjamin, my first husband, Samuel Beckett or Franz Kafka!