Susie Deford interviews poet and Wave Books editor Joshua Beckman about his new book Take It.

 

The Connecticut-born poet Joshua Beckman seems like a modern day cross between Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg, but it may just be the beard. Beckman is an editor at Wave Books and has numerous books of translation, including the forthcoming Five Meters of Poems by Carlos Oquendo de Amat, and Poker by Tomaž Šalamun (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2003), which was a finalist for the PEN Poetry in Translation Award.

He is also the recipient of a number of other awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. He is the author of six books of poetry: Things Are Happening (Winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize 1998); Something I Expected To Be Different (2001); Nice Hat. Thanks. (2002), written with Matthew Rohrer; Your Time Has Come (2004), and most recently, Shake (Wave Books, 2006).

With all of the hype around this young poet I was curious to review his sixth book Take It (Wave Press 2009). Opening Take It is like peering into an unassuming poet’s private notebook. Beckman’s rough poems have a stream of consciousness, unedited feel—no titles, varying line styles. His seemingly unedited style allows the reader a sense of intimacy: getting to know the poet without all of the polish.

One of Beckman’s strengths is his knack for strange comparisons between two seemingly unrelated things: a romantic relationship to cabbage; the satisfaction of ownership to a cotton bug, or a baby to a banana. His succinct lines pop out and slap you in the face with their twists and turns. There are funny, strange lines like:

Financially I’m made of music,
Spiritually, I’m full of cookies.

And serious, thoughtful lines like:

When we are down we want fear and the acts of God.

And:

What monstrous impulse allows us to turn on those we love.

These lines, whether fun or serious, emerge from quiet stream of conscious ramblings and give the reader pause to consider.

On June 18th I went to hear Beckman read with poets Noelle Kocot and Jenny Kronovet at St. Marks Bookshop’s reading series at Solas Bar. Beckman approached the microphone unassumingly, wearing denim overalls and a bandanna. His reading, mostly from Take It, was funny and irreverent. He had a down-to-earth appeal that is often missing in the (at times) high-falutin literary world. I sat down with Beckman after the reading while he was signing copies of Take It to ask him a few questions.

 

Susie DeFord Tell us about your new book, Take It. Your poetry often reads as stream of consciousness, like you’re taking notes throughout the day, and doesn’t seem to have a particular form or even titles (as in Take It). Can you speak on your thoughts about form or lack thereof in poetry? Is there a particular theme to the book?

Joshua Beckman I don’t think so. I wrote it over a bunch of years. I don’t think of it as a book with a particular theme. You had asked about why there are no titles. There’s a movement from one poem to another, that while they are discreet, individual poems; they also blend into each other at times and I’m not certain what that does. My hope is that it happens differently each time.

SD What do you think your voice and this collection adds to contemporary American poetry?

JB (laughter)...I have no idea. I think it adds my voice.

SD You’ve written a lot in collaboration with Matthew Rohrer. In interviews you’ve likened it to playing in a band. When I was in bands we often had disagreements in the collaboration process. Do you and Rohrer ever fight about lines or ideas in your poetry collaboration process? How do you work that out?

JB The experience of the push and pull with us happens within the creating of the poems. Matt and I don’t edit. The only editing is deciding whether or not we make the poem public. There isn’t tension in that there is a sort of combined energy in that. My feeling is that each time you’re in a collaborative relationship it’s different, and there should always be an energy that isn’t purely simpatico. There should be an energy that can’t be resolved and that energy is what makes it happen for us. It’s why we enjoy doing it.

SD How did you become interested in translating Slovenian poetry?

JB I met Tomaž Šalamun, and he asked me to translate.

SD How did you two meet?

JB When my first book was published they (APR) asked me if there was anyone who could give me a blurb. I said, “I don’t know anyone.” They said, “Well if you could get a blurb from anyone who would you ask?” and I said, “Tomaž Šalamun.” So he called me and left me a blurb on my answering machine, and then we hung out cause he was working at the Slovenian Consulate and New York.

SD How does the nomadic life between New York and Seattle inform your poetry?

JB Probably the most important is that a good number of my poems have been written on airplanes, especially if I have a window seat. When I lived just in New York I wrote a lot on the subway or on the Staten Island Ferry. I lived on Staten Island for five years. I enjoy writing on public transit.

SD You’ve been quite successful as a young poet. Do you have any advice to other young poets wanting to be published?

JB Published? I don’t know, I sent out things a million times; it’s hard. I don’t think age or how much you’ve published matters. It’s always the same. Even a poet who’s reached the pinnacles of success still had the same challenges: they need to read, they need work, they need to think, they need to grow and learn. There are some really basic things about trying but there are poets I love who can’t get published. I think they’re doing everything right and I think the editors are doing something wrong by not publishing them.

 

Below: Beckman reads his poems in a fake forest.

 

Joshua Beckman’s book Take It is out now from Wave Press.