Tepper Talk: Susan Tepper Interviews Sarah Sarai

***
Berndnaut Smilde

***
Berndnaut Smilde

Tepper Talk:

Susan Tepper writes fiction, poetry, interviews, runs readings, posts indefatigably. I was lucky enough to be interviewed by her in late 2016 about Geographies. Here is an excerpt:

In your poem ‘But Then Again’ you also bring up God:
 “… You suspect God’s an / anarchist and admit you / like belief which transforms / you into an arcangel, a / nimbus, the celebrating / Sun. /…”
 Will you talk some about this poem?
 S.S. If anyone wants to read ‘But Then Again’ which was published in Ascent here is the direct link. God? She’s a pretty common character in literature. No reaching deep into classical references there. I had a “moment” late one morning at the Center (LGBT) on 13th Street, in one of their spacious, high-ceilinged rooms with many large windows. The sun poured in through the glass and found me, and I was unable to differentiate between the very real corporeal Sarah Sarai and a self who was a character in a painting by a Renaissance artist, maybe Raphael, of a woman, holy or not, in a nimbus – those luminous clouds engulfing the saints in art. I inwardly narrated the moment, as when Annie Hall steps out of her body to narrate sex. So I felt anointed and was aware I was no more, no less than Sarah Sarai feeling anointed, or being anointed, or imagining myself in a painting at the Met. It stuck with me, that quick and glorious flash-bulb moment. I used it in a poem.

The full interview is here.

***The photos, from a "nimbus photography series," are by Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde. "For his Nimbus photography series, Smilde has created indoor clouds within buildings including the Hotel MariaKapel in the Netherlands and Aspremont-Lynden Castle in Belgium. Smilde's clouds were listed by TIME Magazine as one of the top 10 inventions of 2012."

A Brutal Ineptness Is Taking Over D.C.

Trump is chaos on legs.

There were no scandals in the White House while Obama was in office. He, his staff, his appointees made plenty of mistakes but there was never the kind of attention that dogged the Clintons and Bush Jr. That dogs Donald Trump.

May the force for good be with us.

Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim ...

Agnes Martin was self-sacrificial, destroying her early work because it wasn't 'there' yet (my quotes). A hearer of things unheard, she was maybe one miracle short of being a saint. Yet she was enormously competent. And always succeeded: at teaching and education and most of her art. The few sculptures I found gauche and annoying, however, something for sale in a driveway on a Saturday. Nothing like the deliberation and control of the paintings. Her survival, line after line. Bounded alleys tamped down. Very glad I saw the show but I began to long for Rembrandt, deep and warm, O'Keeffe, surpassing seduction. The Guggenheim show upped my appreciation of Rothko, never far down. Guess I need to be moved.

The Crew Is Restless and I Am Sick at Heart: a poem

When I smoked (not much), it was Erik little cigars, but not menthol. I bought them at a smoke shop near Baruch College; I discovered them in Amish Country in New Jersey. Visiting with friends who chose to shop the outlet malls, I wanted to walk in the countryside. An Amish farmer sold me my first Eriks. Everyone forms their own resistance movement?


The Crew Is Restless and I Am Sick at Heart

Had to form my own resistance movement.

Had to write, I have good feelings

     about the journey but fear battles with myself.

Had to work black felt to a beret.

Had to suck cinders into swampy bellow.

Had to buy Erik Little Cigars

     from an Amish farmer.

Had to be surprised.

Had to find them on Twenty-Third and Third.

Had to quit.

Had to just had to envision BBC kings

     fighting brother France

     on green-island fields,

     hear hoofbeats of scythed Mongols

     thunder on the steppes.

Had to smile because there is a field

     in battlefield.
But of course there is also a battle. 

________

by Sarah Sarai. @@@ From the journal, Lyre Lyre. #5, 2013. The site is no longer live, and included in the collection Geographies of Soul and Taffeta (Indolent Books), 2016.

Saint Beauty: a poem

Saint Beauty

In the direct way of the foolish,

St. Francis walked up to a wolf

and said Brother.

It was a generic naming

with Gubbio’s villagers murmuring

mashed potatoes

mashed potatoes

like actors creating scrim in

a Perry Mason juror’s box.

This was not the wolf who dressed

in Granny’s flannel gown and tied on

a nightcap, no, this was Brother Wolf

touching paw to palm:

I’ll be good.

What’s to learn from this story?

Feed all creatures until

claimed by God from Lost & Found?

Goodness is a gamble.

Perry proved beauty is no defense.

The mystery of being is

trumped by the mystery of not-being.

Not-flesh embodied needs flesh,

even that grandmother’s,

toasty in her long flannel gown.

________

by Sarah Sarai. @@@ From the journal, Lyre Lyre. #5, 2013. (The site is no longer live.)