Interview with Daniel Brenner

Looking Back from the Perspective of Being Chased
Interview by John Deming

Daniel Brenner’s unique, perplexing first book The Stupefying Flashbulbs won the Fence Modern Poets’ Series last year. It is a short book full of short poems that, page after page, have a way of barely eluding capture. It is also unlike anything else published in 2006. Fuzzy author photo aside, we were able to track Brenner down to talk about his odd little book, about his influences, and about winning a first book award—on the first try.

JD: The poems in The Stupefying Flashbulbs are evasive; there is however an abundance of hints, subtleties, and repeated images/themes, and by the closing lines, being evasive—remaining hidden with the suspicion of being chased—almost seems the point. Could you comment on this?

DB: I like your take on it.  I’m not sure if there’s any one right answer or one main point.  I definitely see what you mean about being evasive.  I feel that way a lot of the time. There’s something really satisfying about being evasive.  I think it’s evasion, and also obfuscation.

JD: The “evil cube” makes repeat appearances in the book; what to you is the function of the repeated image, especially in this book, and where does the cube go during the latter half?

DB: It’s nice to have the cube there to sort of rope things together.  To me, the function of the image is sort of like saying, I’m not messing around anymore, this is it.  Here’s this cube, or maybe it’s a sphere.  It sustains the attention.  I don’t know what it means exactly.  There are a few possibilities.

I think the cube is probably still there in the latter half.  Sneaking around.  It’s hard to say goodbye.

JD: The fact that you work with very short poems with that kind of  repeated image reminded me somewhat of Matthew Rohrer and the “luminous fork” that appears in A Hummock in the Malookas; I was wondering if  you'd read his work before.

DB: No, I haven't.

JD: Some biographical info? Where were you raised, what was your early life like, and when did you begin writing poetry? Who are some favorite writers?

DB: I was raised in central PA.  My early life was pretty average.  I started self consciously writing poetry when I was in high school, but I didn’t start submitting until after college.  My favorite writers change around a lot.  The best book I’ve read recently was by Kenzaburo Oe.  I like Guilluame Apollinaire.  Right now, I’m re-reading the Chuang Tzu.

JD: You must've been thrilled to win the Fence Modern Poets Series; was it very difficult to get this book published? How long had you been submitting it to presses/contests?

DB: I was shocked about winning.  It was amazing.  Then I was embarrassed. It was the first time I had sent the book anywhere.  Rebecca Wolff rescued it from the slush-pile.

JD: Your bio mentions you're a contractor, and mechanics/underlying form play a role in this book—lots of spinning, generating energy, etc.  Does your work inform your writing?

DB: No, not at all.  I hope not.

JD: It's not uncommon to read someone's first book and find a smattering of unrelated poems with what comes across as arbitrary organization; what struck me about The Stupefying Flashbulbs was that it seemed very much a unit, very self-contained. Do you find yourself working by the poem, by the manuscript, or somewhere in between? Do you have any other completed manuscripts?

DB: Well, I repeat myself a lot.  And I work by the file.  When a file seems done, I start a new one.  Sometimes I have to go back and shuffle new poems into an old file, though, or take poems out of an old file and put them in a new one.  I don’t really have a single method.

I have one other completed manuscript, which I haven’t looked at in a few years.

JD: The book's title is of course taken from the end of the poem “Satellite Photography”; how long did it take you to settle on a name for the book?

DB: It didn’t take very long.  I wanted to call it just “Flashbulbs” at first, but Rebecca didn’t like it.  She’s the one who suggested “The Stupefying Flashbulbs.”  Then I suggested “Flashbulbs in the Dark,” but then we both started laughing, because it sounded a little dramatic.

JD: Likewise, one of the most entertaining parts of reading this book is reading your
absurd titles—“Wonder Rocket 1840” comes to mind—but somehow they also come across, as the book jacket mentions, as “occasion-stained.” Could you describe the process of titling a poem, or comment on how crucial a fitting title is to one of your poems?

DB: I love making crazy titles.  It’s my favorite part of writing.  In terms of process, I usually write the title last, right after the last line is done.  I’m conservative about the title reflecting on the last line, if possible.  Some titles are crucial; others are more like candy-wrappers.

JD: And the obvious last question: what to you are some of the most difficult things about attempting to write and publish poetry in the 21st century?

DB: I guess back in the day, poetry was treated like less of a stepping stone.  But in other ways it’s always been the same.  Maybe it depends on if you idealize the past or not.  One thing that’s difficult and timely, though, is writing a poem for a website and then having the website go under. Also, there's a lot more competition with other media.  But that's sort of a dead horse.