Carrie Lorig and Feng Sun Chen (Mary)

Mary: oh hi

me: hi mary

Mary: due to my stupid life, i didn’t have time to make up questions
but we should use yours

me: it’s ok mary
we can make it up as we go
we’ve had a hard day

Mary: oh that is cool too
yeah

me: you in particular

Mary: this week was terrible in general
mostly since Tuesday
ugh
asshole days

me: i feel everything is going on
and nothing

Mary: sometimes i feel like when I think about feelings, i stop feeling them
and i actually have no feelings

me: i never know how to categorize them

Mary: i think we make up stuff
we’re good at it
we’re poets
we have the most nuanced feelings
i can’t find your questions email

me: ok i just found them

Mary: cool

me: ugh none of them are a good lead off!
how do you start an interview!
how are you today
we’ve already established today is terrible

Mary: today i am like excrement

me: and that we have no feelings
today i am like cut up blacktop

Mary: that is nicer

me: lets start with this one
let’s build a kite
what does your kite look like
i’ve been really obsessed with kites lately

Mary: my kite is in the shape of an anatomical heart and the valves flap in the wind

me: that is neat. does it pump blood

Mary: yeah, canvas blood

me: i want my kite to have a voicebox.

Mary: that’s awesome
why are you obsessed with kites?
i like fake birds

me: i don’t know. i just like the idea of them talking in the air
like walkie talkies kind of

Mary: oooo I like that
sound comes from air passing through flaps anyway

me: right. and you know it’s so quiet up there. or quieter

Mary: I’m obsessed with wind/air passing through things
hollow things

me: what else keeps popping up in your writing lately

Mary: holes

me: i have been noticing trends in mine
any reason why

Mary: I am obsessed with “made emptiness”

me: oh that is interesting

Mary: which is what Anish Kapoor does

me: i’m trying to think of what else is made emptiness

Mary: like how the body of the vase relates to the shape of its belly

me: pie crust is for a short time

Mary: I think people are

me: how so though. we do have things in there

Mary: we create structures of identity around emptiness
but we’re also a tube

me: i agree that we create structures of emptiness, but we’re kind of always looking to fill them
yes?
i mean even with holes. we’re digging to get somewhere to fulfill something or to make room for something that can grow or hoping that something will end up suddenly being in the hole.

Mary: yes, which is why I like the trope of being vessels

me: got it.

Mary: wind passing through
voices passing through
I think we talked about this before, the absence of a person leads to building mythologies
anyway what are your trends?
I feel like I’m talking too much

me: mine are far less intellectual

Mary: mmm that doesn’t mean anything, I’ve realized

me: i was really intrigued by hands recently
my friend told me that he likes to steal people’s high fives at parties

Mary: that can be disconcerting

me: and i was really interested in how hands could ruin or make a human relationship

Mary: oh yes
hands and eyes
I think the word eye appears my poetry more than most other words
but I try to avoid the staleness of eyes in literature
I multiply them instead

me: it would be horrible to try to read a bunch of eyes at once
sometimes eyes really creep me out. i feel like i am bad at looking at people right in the eye
there are a lot of eyes out there
in the poems

Mary: “Don’t we relate to all things. Such is the sucking power of the eye.
I have eyes all over my body. I have eyes inside my body.
The inside of a human is not pink. It is black and circular, filled with dilating pupils.”

me: along with the birds and artichoke hearts and ghosts

Mary: yes

me: somethings are just constantly interesting though
is that from a poem you wrote

Mary: yes. it’s gross
in a way I like
I think people are constantly interested in a few things and it is our job to remind them that
sharpen the knives
of human tropes

me: mary
yes
you are killing me

Mary: don’t die without me

me: i agree with that. though i would add that it is our job to remind them to celebrate the weird too

Mary: yes, I agree
many people don’t understand the arbitrary nature of their fears and dislikes
the strange can be beautiful

me: what story/poem do you feel close to right now?

Mary: I’m reading “Light Years” by James Salter
I don’t know what poem I’m close to
what about you?

me: after we went to see dean young
i went home and read mike young’s new book
“we all are good if we try hard enough”

Mary: and it’s awesome?

me: my friend brett said it is like orbiting
i said it is like a mind trampoline and a wash cycle together

Mary: yes he tends to do that

me: it can feel hectic but there are these blurbs of clarity that are pretty fantastic
mike young is kind of fearless and also seems to work towards making a certain point

Mary: I think he’s the kind of poet I have to sit down and read

me: that is very true, though he kind of tends to make me want to play rigorous rounds of tennis at the same time
word tennis
do you feel like your poetry makes a definite “point” every time

Mary: he’s a champion
well, all my poems are about the same thing

me: this is something i feel really self conscious about
what is that

Mary: they sort of float in a circle
the idea of being a skin about a wind
which is a phrase from Djuna Barnes

me: being reminded that you are actually a body

Mary: pretty much hunger/desire/hollowness/sex

me: got it

Mary: also multiplicity, which takes away individuality but creates something else

me: do you know what that is

Mary: depends on the situation
hmmm
what about you and your feelings about making points?

me: like i said i feel self conscious about that because i’m not sure that my poems make points

Mary: I see
I don’t think poems have to make points

me: sometimes i think my poems reflect confusion about feelings
i think sometimes my poems try to deal with that confusion by finding some joy in it

Mary: I like that
that is how I live, mostly
in confusion
with points of light

me: you can interject a lot of imagination in there too and feel like you are controlling the confusion a little bit.

Mary: I’m interested in simultaneity
which can be confusing
yes

me: simultaneity between what though

Mary: I mean the nature of our thinking being many things happening at once

me: definitely
this is sometimes why i can’t do points.

Mary: and also how it doesn’t reflect reality, since reality is complex
yes, because points are false

me: i don’t know where to find them

Mary: emotions are not points

me: what do they even look like

Mary: thoughts can be points sometimes

me: temporary points

Mary: they are pinholes

me: yes. i don’t want to sound like i don’t believe that there are sometimes conclusions

Mary: I think conclusions are useful

me: i am just always wary that i will turn around and they will have climbed out the window

Mary: I know
communication makes me anxious sometimes because I feel like I’m always lying

me: ha. i don’t just want to say hes
*yes
but yes
so writing process?
maybe
or something else
collaboration?

Mary: up to you. we can talk process
or both

me: i don’t think people talk about collaboration very often

Mary: ok sure

me: do they?
i might have no idea

Mary: i’m not sure
most poets don’t collaborate
most writers

me: that’s true
i don’t totally understand why though because having a writing community is so important
multiple eyes
in real life
ppl who understand what you’re doing

Mary: does taking pieces of published work and incorporating them count as collaboration? i guess not. it’s stolen

me: no
i mean specifically working together with people

Mary: i think most writers care about their own voice and want to protect it

me: on one poem or a series
i don’t know. i guess i don’t feel that way
about my own voice
because my own voice still feels like such a fledgling
working with other writers helps me try out things

Mary: I think I’m really um… what’s the word
controlling, when it comes to my work
but not about anything else
however I like writing among other voices
and cross pollination
this happens in my class sometimes, our ideas permeate

me: that’s so interesting. i always kind of like to see what someone else does to my words etc

Mary: each others

me: right. definitely.

Mary: we should do another project that is more intimate than our last

me: i think we should try it again
with more seriousness
i did not feel up to par with you

Mary: you were more busy

me: but i feel like i was moving closer towards understanding how to make a better poem

maybe but i don’t think that matters
i made time for poems
i feel like i have a lot to learn

Mary: maybe we can do this after the month of november?

me: i would like that

Mary: yeah, because november would be warm up

me: i see my potential. if that makes sense

Mary: and we’d get to know each other’s idiosyncrasies even better

me: but i feel like i’m still digging the hole towards it
that would be excellent
because i think we are parallel and different in lots of unexpected ways
i never know

Mary: my class did a really interesting exercise, where we each contribute a line, then everyone takes the collected lines and makes a poem. then the poems are exchanged and edited
the results were great as a collection

me: that is cool

Mary: sometimes you can really tell who edited what though it was all anonymous

me: i mean poets already build a lot of things they collect throughout a certain period of time
haha that doesn’t surprise me

Mary: I like to think of that video game
um

me: i was just thinking scavenger hunt

Mary: takamari domangi or something
that rolling one

me: i have no idea what that is
my parents were not pro video game
i only played duck hunt
once
ok maybe one more question
then i have to be done
do you want to do it

Mary: oh its katamari domancy
yeah
in that game you roll and collect whatever you roll over
and you get bigger
a giant mass

me: like an avalanche

Mary: yeah what’s the question

me: do you want to make it up
or do you want me to think of one
or take one rather
from the e-mail
i’m trying to think of something i’m legitmately curious about

Mary: hmm

me: video games weird me out
to be honest
like they shouldn’t
imagination!
colors!
but i can’t touch or smell things
i need all my sense faculties going

Mary: it’s interesting that you don’t feel that way when you read

me: i was just thinking that
i think because the video game makes a pointed effort to be unreal
and it doesn’t want me to make comments
or have thoughts really

Mary: it also wants you to accept that as reality
that depends on the game

me: right and to just move through it
quickly!

Mary: yes, it is easy existence
sometimes I wonder if thinking is overrated

me: it upsets me a lot of the time

Mary: same here

me: as much as i have “control” over it

Mary: I have awful anxiety

me: i still find myself unable to stop thinking about certain things
me too
but i also find my thoughts comforting

Mary: also it just seems like such a feeble muscle sometimes

me: or i should say my imagination

Mary: which is why I like that other people share greater thoughts
and why I like talking to you

me: it’s neat. i’m always surprised everytime
agreed.

Mary: I feel like I’m dying when I’m not getting other people’s thoughts
I mean, the interesting ones at least

me: i think we seem very different but are a differently shaped vessel for the same things

Mary: which is why I read
yes
I think language dies unless you disguise it again
and we keep disguising it in new costumes
to keep it alive
or else it will be killed
the thought

me: yes. do ever feel bad that you think, thank god this person feels as terrible as i do

Mary: yes

me: i have a lot of guilt about that

Mary: I don’t have much guilt in general
I don’t think you should feel guilty

me: really?

Mary: yes
I would feel guilty for hurting someone
but I don’t trust guilt

me: i guess they would feel bad either way

Mary: plus I think pain is necessary and good in some ways
I don’t begrudge people who hurt me

me: but i do think…i am getting relief from this person’s pain
i don’t really either
i will feel hurt and have inevitable angry thoughts

Mary: well, I have gotten pleasure from other people’s pain
that is much worse

me: but i think deep down i understand

Mary: but I don’t feel guilty
I don’t think pain is necessarily bad. and sharing it is nice

me: i think i often want people to feel better because i can’t make myself feel better
to a particular degree
yes
that is true

Mary: I like making people feel comfy too

me: i am attracted to the darkness
i tried to buy a happy record today
and i failed so hard

Mary: I am also in love with darkness

me: ok i have four minutes
is there anything else we need discuss
i have enjoyed this mary

Mary: I try to write happy poems and fail
me too

me: me too

Mary: complexity is fun
I like it more than happiness
darkness can make things complicated when you add it in
it’s like some kind of awesome spice

me: haha
happiness is curry
that’s all there is
it’s all you can smell and see

Mary: happiness is simple sugars

me: darkness is something understated
it has a low glycemic index

Mary: hehe

me: or at least hard to taste
wait that’s wrong
i lost track of where i was going with that

Mary: my friend likes what he calls “joyous complexity”

me: 1 minute!

Mary: hmmm
do you like french kissing?

me: i think the word combo is gross
the actual act is fine

Mary: yes the words are gross together

me: fuh-wrench

Mary: I’m not sure how I feel about it

me: kissss-inG

Mary: I have a teacher who laughs like a snake
I don’t like it

me: it sounds sloppy

Mary: sss sss ssssss sss sss

me: lol
my friend told me
my laugh is so distinctive
he could find me in a chilean mine

Mary: haha that is great
men seem to notice women’s laughter more than the other way around

me: that is true
ok
i have to go

Mary: ok thanks for this
you made my day

me: i might let stephen edit this
really?

Mary: my day was deep assholeness

me: i felt so junior newspaper reporter with my microphone and being like uhhh
it was
and mine was train on blacktop

Mary: sss ssssss sssss
I want to hang out
sometime

me: it was someone saying fuh-wrench Kuh-isss-ING over and over
me too
in a place

Mary: with lighting

me: for me bourbon and for you fairy drink

Mary: glitter

me: volcano
ok we have to end right there

Mary: goodnight!

me: that was perfect

Mary: yes

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