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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.

The Year in Print

Well Ladies & Gentlemen it’s 2007, and thus time to take a quick glance back. A lot of great and not-so-great things happened in the world of poetry books this year, so we thought we ought to boil it down a little.  Drawing from our reviews published and forthcoming, from the hundreds of other books we’ve read this year with immense pleasure and with vicious disdain, and from the thoughtful guidance of our readers, we present the nominees for the 2006 Coldfront Book Awards, designed to celebrate the best in small and big press poetry.  It was a big year full of big books, and publishers were squeezing great stuff out until the bitter end.   Ok, so we haven’t been able to touch on everything; but, well, we’re still pretty sure we nailed it. Agree? Disagree? Drop a note below to fill us in on what we got right and what we missed.  And the nominees are...

Best Book of New Poetry Published in 2006
(Award for a book of all new poems; any selected/collected is ineligible, regardless of how many new poems are included in the collection)

Shake, Joshua Beckman
[one love affair]*, Jenny Boully
The Stupefying Flashbulbs, Daniel Brenner
Yes, Master, Michael Earl Craig
Averno, Louise Gluck
Angle of Yaw, Ben Lerner
Splay Anthem, Nathaniel Mackey
Isa the Truck Named Isadore, Amanda Nadelberg
Lug Your Careless Body Out of the Careful Dusk: A Poem in Fragments, Joshua Marie Wilkinson
God’s Silence, Franz Wright

Best First Book
(So many first book prizes. And more. Award for greatness in a poet’s first full-length)

The Stupefying Flashbulbs, Daniel Brenner
On the Side of the Crow, Christien Gholson
case sensitive, Kate Greenstreet
Who’s Who Vivid, Matt Hart
Isa the Truck Named Isadore, Amanda Nadelberg

Best Second Book
(Award for greatness in a second book; lots of good stuff this year)

[one love affair]*, Jenny Boully
Yes, Master, Michael Earl Craig
My Psychic, James Kimbrell
Angle of Yaw, Ben Lerner

Best New Collection by a Canonical Figure
(Award for the best book of all new poems by a poet whose place in the canon seems secure, for the time being)

Averno, Louise Gluck
District and Circle, Seamus Heaney
Man and Camel, Mark Strand
Scar Tissue, Charles Wright
God’s Silence, Franz Wright

Best Selected/Collected
(More than run-of-the-mill Greatest Hits packages. Here are this year’s five most successful)

I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
Collected Poems, Robert Creeley
White Apples and the Taste of Stone, Donald Hall
The Sights Along the Harbor, Harvey Shapiro
Collected Poems, C.K. Williams

Best Poem in a New Collection
(Award for best individual poem in an all new collection.)

“This is what’s been done to flesh...”, Joshua Beckman (from Shake)
“Prayer”, Michael Earl Craig (from Yes, Master)
“Landscape”, Louise Gluck (from Averno)
“Didactic Elegy”, Ben Lerner (from Angle of Yaw)
“Four Darks in Red”, Aleda Shirley (from Dark Familiar)

Best Author Photo
(Award for greatness in the field of Lookism. Images forthcoming-- um, that's "Fair Use" right?)

Joshua Clover, The Totality for Kids
Mark Strand, Man and Camel
Henry Taylor, Crooked Run 
C.K. Williams, Collected Poems
Bill Zavatsky, Where X Marks the Spot

Best Response to Coldfront
(Award for greatness in reacting to America's favorite poetry review journal.  Nota: titles our own.)

“You Must Not Know About my Masters Degree: A Letter to the Editors”, Matt Mason

"[T]he review seems to go out of its way to point out lines which remind the reviewer of bad emo lyrics... when those lines are obviously TRYING to sound like bad emo lyrics to make the point the poems go for (something caught, certainly, by Literal Latte magazine who awarded "I May Not Know..." a nice check and first place in a contest as well as the readers and teachers in my masters program (UC Davis))."

“I Promised Myself I Wasn't Going to Blog About This”, Steve Mueske

http://accordingtoess.blogspot.com/2006/08/see-theyre-not-all-good.html

“Deferring to Deming”, Kate Seferian, Verse Magazine Online

"In his review of Upon Arrival, John Deming notes that 'the mania [Cisewski] is really indulging in . . . is an obsession with the notion of multifarious selves. Every person is burdened with an infinite number of conflicting impulses and emotions--indeed, of ways to finally envision oneself'."
http://versemag.blogspot.com/2006/11/new-review-of-paula-cisewski.html

“Letter to the Editors Part 1: Reopening Old Wounds”, Franz Wright

“I'd like to straighten you out on those Poetry emails/letter--they were sent privately to the editor of the magazine in response to a private falling out we'd had. It was his decision to publish them, out of context, with the obvious intention of causing me to look like a lunatic and causing me to be ridiculed for about a year, and clearly he was quite successful.  The fact that you find those letters "hilarious" (and you are certainly not alone) is disturbing to me...  I've never, in public or private, attempted to defend myself or explain with regard to the Poetry humiliation--so this is my chance to get it out of my
system.”

“Letter to the Editors Part 2: Reconciliation”, Franz Wright

“[N]o one, absolutely no one--neither the sincere reviewers nor the witty and malicious assholes--has displayed anything remotely approaching your grasp of my intent in God's Silence. It is no exaggeration to say that reading your review restored, for a moment, my faith that there has to be SOMEONE out there who notices what I was trying to do.  Rereading your review this morning nearly brought tears to my eyes.”

Best Overall 2006 Poetry Catalogue

Copper Canyon
Farrar Strauss & Giroux
Fence Books
Knopf
Wave Books

Best Book Title

A Useless Window, Carrie Olivia Adams
The Stupefying Flashbulbs, Daniel Brenner
Splay Anthem, Nathaniel Mackey
Dog Star Delicatessen, Mekeel McBride
Ooga-Booga, Frederick Seidel
Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films, Wayne Koestenbaum

Best Book Cover

Yes, Master, Michael Earl Craig A Jacques Tati photo? Good enough for me.

My Brother is Getting Arrested Again, Daisy Fried Fur-eeky.

Green Squall, Jay Hopler (by Nancy Ovedovich) Is it green, is it gray, who can tell. Understated and very cool.

The Pitch, Tom Thompson (by Emilie Clark, from the collection of the author) Clap your hands! (But I feel so lonely)

Meteoric Flowers, Elizabeth Willis Designed by Jeff Clark, who gets around—also designing covers this year for Brian Henry, Noelle Kocot, S.A. Stepanek, among others.

Best Long Poem
(Award for a new poem at least 5 pages in length)

“Landscape”, Louise Gluck, from Averno
“Love Had a Thousand Shapes”, James Kimbrell, from My Psychic
“Poem for the End of Time”, Noelle Kocot, from Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems
“Didactic Elegy”, by Ben Lerner, from Angle of Yaw
“Song of the Andoumboulou: 60”, Nathaniel Mackey, from Splay Anthem

Best Book-Length Poem

[one love affair]*, Jenny Boully
inbox, Noah Eli Gordon
Three, Breathing, S.A. Stepanek
Lug Your Careless Body Out of the Careful Dusk: A Poem in Fragments, Joshua Marie Wilkinson
Rain, JonWoodward

Best Opener
(Award for the best opening poem in a book)

“Unslide the door,...” Joshua Beckman, from Shake
“This is How an Anvil Comes to You,” Michael Earl Craig, from Yes, Master
“In the Garden”, Jay Hopler, from Green Squall
“The Star’s Etruscan Argument”, Aleda Shirley, from Dark Familiar
“The Similitude of this Great Flower”, Elizabeth Willis, from Meteoric Flowers

Best Closer
(Award for the best closing poem in a book)

“Prayer”, Michael Earl Craig, from Yes, Master
“Persephone the Wanderer”, Louise Gluck, from Averno
“The Blackbird of Glanmore”, Seamus Heaney, from District & Circle
“Feast of the Ascension, 2004. Planting Hibiscus”, Jay Hopler, from Green Squall
“Song of the Andoumboulou: 60”, Nathaniel Mackey, from Splay Anthem

Best First Lines
(Award for greatness in apt, absorbing opening lines that have a way of informing the book’s greater good)

from the untitled poem opening Joshua Beckman’s Shake:

Unslide the door,
uncap the lazy little coffee cup.
The pasty people must be part of the dinner.
And a city turns its incapacity in,
foolish city...

from “Mimosa,” opening section of Jenny Boully’s [one love affair]*: 

She remembers the story he told her, about taking a walk with his former lover during one of the very first days of spring, a spring which soured then ripened then soured then ripened before beginning again, a spring which kept swelling out of winter in a way the Chaucer’s spring would never do.

from “The Lightning”, opener for Linda Gregg’s In the Middle Distance: 

The bell ringing has been a great pleasure
for her during these months. But she
has been confused by the many secrets.
The fragments of stories between
upstairs and down. Like when the woman
dressed in such a beautiful white gown
with only one shoe. And that one with
no heel. And the other woman upstairs
and down. Fragments of stories.

from “Begetting Stadia, opener for Ben Lerner’s Angle of Yaw: 

Demands indefinitely specified,
demands incompatible with collective living

beget stadia
with indefinite seating
delicately tiered.

from “Appalachian Farewell”, opener for Charles Wright’s Scar Tissue: 

Sunset in Appalachia, bituminous bulwark
Against the western skydrop.
An Advent of gold and green, an Easter of Ashes.

Best Closing Lines
(Award for greatness in apt, absorbing closing lines that have a way of informing the book’s greater good)

from “Prayer,” closer for Michael Earl Craig’s Yes, Master:

As I hold my head low
I see the many flecks of black pepper
on my placemat.
They look like horses
running away from me at a great distance.

from Daniel Brenner’s The Stupefying Flashbulbs: 

I’m afraid of looking around from the perspective of being chased
& doing whatever it is the perspective of being chased urges.

from “Persephone the Wanderer”, closer for Louise Gluck’s Averno:

And in the time between

you will forget everything:
those fields of ice will be
the meadows of Elysium.

from “Song of the Andoumboulou: 60”, closer for Nathaniel Mackey’s Splay Anthem:

                                                        as
   we ran thru it, earth-sway swaddling
                                                          our
feet

from “The Hour of Blue Snow”, closer for David Young’s Black Lab:

Then I remember to breathe again,
and the blue snow shines inside me.

Technical Awards
(for innovation in the fields of):

the footnote: [one love affair]*, Jenny Boully 

the subject index: The Totality for Kids, Joshua Clover   

the epigraph: Swallows, Martin Corless-Smith

the self-writing book: inbox, Noah Eli Gordon

liquid paper: A Little White Shadow,  Mary Ruefle

Best Thirteenth Poem

Frost said if he wrote a book of 12 poems than the 13th poem should be the book itself (or something like that). Here are some books whose small parts made a hell of a whole.

The Stupefying Flashbulbs, Daniel Brenner
The Totality for Kids, Joshua Clover
Swallows, Martin Corless-Smith
Whole Milk, Jim Goar
In the Middle Distance, Linda Gregg

Winners announced soon...in the meantime, THE 2007 SEASON HAS BEGUN