BENET INTERVIEW - 10

Montag: (Q25) What is "a lessened brand?" ("Ghazal," p. 74)

Benet: You know those Rollex watches and Oakley sunglasses you can have for a song on the sidewalks of New York? Counterfeit, forgery... not the real thing, is what they are to the authorities. The law wouldn’t consider them "lessened brands," but to me they are. That’s because they are not only counterfeits, but they also seem to cast a shadow of sorts on the original. They take away something from the original, which in the case of Rollex or Oakley maybe is not so bad, because they democratize these brands. But that’s another argument, and not poetry’s to make. Maybe it’s a Platonic thing... and we better not go there, because, as you probably know already, Plato had more regard for table makers (carpenters) than he did for poets, who, he felt, were degrading the "divine" with their constant whittling at images... those lessening brands, if you will, of the Good.

Montag: (Q26) Let's talk specifically about your use of enjambment in these poems. Where did you learn enjambment, or who did you learn it from? Could you describe how and why you use it?

Benet: I already answered this question when you asked about "turning" my lines. I plow through the text to open up the sod of meaning so that the poem can take root. But enough with the metaphors already.

To give you a concrete answer, at least as far some of my enjambments are concerned, let me tell you that I learned my enjambment from the work of Louise Glück. She is the master of the plow in these fields (and coincidentally, her family hails from Hungary!).

Montag: (Q27) Some of these poems are about the act of writing, the art of writing. What attracts you to write about writing? ("Recursion," p. 78, and "Twitter of Dust," p. 81, are two examples.)

Benet: If some of my poems are about writing, it is because writing is a part of my life. I am not attracted to writing about writing - it just happens to be another subject I write about.

Montag: (Q28) The image of the poem as a "tower" in "Twitter of Dust" might suggest the "Tower of Babel." Is the edifice of sound that the poem makes also a confusion of languages?

Benet: You ask if in my poem "Twitter of Dust" the edifice of sound the poem makes is the "Tower of Babel" and also a confusion of languages?

It is the tower of Babel, but not the one in ruins, not the one in the line of fire of God’s wrath. It is also a building project for Sisyphus, who, as you recall, was stuck with rolling that stone uphill, over and over. Learning new languages and trying to write poetry in these languages is a bit like both signing on the construction crew at Babel and having the tenacity of Sisyphus.

In the end though, the tower stands, because the language spoken there is that of poetry, which goes beyond words and is intelligible to all, in spite of God’s wrath... or perhaps because of it!

[The interview concludes here.]

Comments

[Dave]

As always when Maria holds forth on poetry, I found myself nodding in agreement with almost every one of her answers. (Which is kind of spooky, really.) I would've liked more questions about her influences, favorite authors, and beliefs about the world, and much less about the minutiae of craft and composition.

[Dave]

I mean, how a good poem comes to be written is always a mystery, and I think we should respect that. (But then, I guess that's the kind of opinion you'd expect from an anti-Cartesian like me.)

[dale]

What a wonderful interview! Thank you, Tom.

[Marja-Leena]

What a marvelous interview and what an honour to be interviewed by you in such a thoughtful way. I've learned a lot about Maria Benet and her work, thank you.

[Tom Montag]

Dave--you said, "I would've liked more questions about her influences, favorite authors, and beliefs about the world, and much less about the minutiae of craft and composition." I'm sure, with a little persuasion, you could talk Maria into doing another interview, and I for one would LOVE
to read an Alembic/Via Negativa conversation!

[Tom Montag]

Oh, Dave, also--understanding how a child is conceived doesn't diminish the mystery of sex for me; so I'm not sure I could "respect that" if it means we cannot work towards deeper understanding....

[Tom Montag]

Dale & Marja-Leena--thanks for the good words. Maria made it easy to write a good appreciation with her good poems, and easy to do a good interview. It was like picking apples when they're all in reach....