by Nathan Spicer
Formerly the MFA Poetry Fellow in Wichita State University’s master of fine arts creative writing program, Michele Battiste returned to her native New York where she writes and works and misses the prairie.
She is the author of four books, Ink for an Odd Cartography (Black Lawrence Press, 2009), Raising Petra, (Pudding House, 2007), Mapping the Spaces Between, (Snark Publishing, 2004) and Slow the Appetite Down, forthcoming in 2009 from Spire Press.
Q: Your poems deal with different degrees of subject matter, from ostensibly esoteric things like a food processor, a bridge, a naked neighbor, to broad, universal themes. Sometimes you deal with both in the same poem. What connections do you see, if any, between the little things in life and the bigger?
A: I’m not any good at grappling with overarching themes and big ideas. Contemplating the expanding universe, for example, makes me anxious. If I try to explain my spiritual beliefs, I end up sounding like a carnival barker. So I don’t try to broach the big ideas. Instead, I investigate the singular to extract some small understanding of the universal. Ask me to write about love and I’ll write junk; give me the chance to explore the emotional impact of a kitchen appliance, and I’ll snatch a glimpse at the pressures of romantic love. So it isn’t really a connection I’m after, more an approach.
Q: Map themes and imagery frequently appear in your collection (e.g. the table of contents) Along with maps, what themes do you find yourself exploring the most?
A: Bodies. Place. Both are wellsprings, rife with paradox. The body is the most fundamental source of strength, but also the site of greatest vulnerability. Place is one of those big ideas I can’t fully grasp, so I won’t try to explain. I like maps because they are instructional and representative. They prepare us for what we’ll find and they guide us there, but no matter how well-constructed a map is, people still get lost. You see it all over NYC, people wandering around with map in hand, completely disoriented. I’m the same way. A map will lend me false confidence that I’m headed in the right direction only to realize that I’ve read it wrong and am completely off course. So I love both the absoluteness of a map and the meaninglessness of that absoluteness because of the fallibility of the map-reader. (Say that ten times fast.)
Q: Do you think about your poems when away from them, such as while walking and doing errands, or do you find you spend most of your times contemplating while writing?
A: I have a one-year-old, so I often don’t haven the luxury to wait until I’m sitting down with my notebook to think about poems. I’m usually too tired by that point. So I think about poems in the shower, or while pushing the stroller through the mean streets of Astoria, or while doing the dishes. Though, really, to cite my son as the cause isn’t honest. I’ve always been a kinetic thinker and will often leave my notebook to go do something else so I can think. Smoking was GREAT for this. But I gave up smoking, so pacing or vacuuming will have to do.
Q: You structure your poems in very interesting, untraditional ways. How do you choose to structure each poem?
A: I think it comes down to narrative. I love the narrative, though I sometimes think saying that is the literary equivalent of saying I love pimento loaf. Still, the narrative arc of every poem is important to me, and I choose a form that will best support the narrative style, voice, and tempo. Some poems are halting and embarrassed, some poems are rushed and hysterical, some are strident, some are resigned. Form orchestrates the narrative, and without the proper structure, my lines would resemble a pile of pick-up sticks.
Q: How did you get the idea for “Lessons in Stalking” and why choose a list?
A: I’ve never stalked anyone, but I’d be really good at it if I did. I have the potential to obsess, and I’m resourceful. And I’ve had a couple of cheating boyfriends. I think anyone who ever suspected a lover of cheating and set out to discover if her suspicions are true has come pretty close to stalking. If I got a cosmic do-over, I’d be a gumshoe. I find the ferreting out of clandestine information pretty thrilling. And I chose the list form because a stalker, at least a successful stalker, has to be methodical, has to separate emotion from the action, has to treat it like an office job. A list is administrative and objective, which is what a stalker needs to keep herself on track.
Q: What was the process of composing “First Part: To the One” and “Second Part—To the Other,” a piece in which the writer ostensibly writes a poem a day while her lover is gone?
A: I’m fascinated by the distance—physical, emotional, intellectual—between people in relationships. So when my partner left for some work in London, I thought it would be a cool project to document how the distance changed from day to day. So I set out to write a poem every day that he was gone. Unfortunately, the series turned out to be really boring. At least, at first. Then I met, in the middle of the project, the man who became my husband. So the project became really interesting again, if only because the initial distance created the space for such a juicy turn of events. Now I’m not saying that the series is autobiographical—that would be REALLY boring—but it is based on truth.
Q: You examine and explore the concept of distance, between people, between places, and between times. What is it about distance that fascinates you?
A: It’s in the distance where all the action is. Where all the interaction is. When the distance is great, the potential for chaos is great.
Q: What is it about Wichita that you miss the most?
A: It’s a tie between the prairie and the community. I’m a sucker for small cities. Wichita has this amazing arts and music scene that is unique—part rockabilly, part hot rod, part industrial-warehouse-turned-gallery, part grassroots, part outlaw. And the community is small enough that you run into someone you know everywhere you go, so opportunities for collaboration continue to grow and morph. In New York, I meet someone interesting, we exchange cards, we might email once or twice, but the next week I meet someone new and it starts all over again. In small cities, you can’t get away from the artists and writers who inspire you. And then there’s the prairie, which I’ve tried to write about, but it eludes me. Roethke’s poem “In Praise of Prairie” is one that I return to again and again.
Q: Considering your allusions to running, are you one who finds running fun, even spiritual as some do, or do you view it more as a hassle that has to be done because it’s good for you?
A: I hate running for exercise. I avoid it as much as possible. When I run for exercise it’s because all other options are unavailable. I sometimes see running as a form of penance, something I must do because of all the damn salt and vinegar potato chips I ate the night before. However, I don’t mind running if I’m doing it to get someplace quickly or to get away from someone or something. When running has a destination, or when it’s purpose is to achieve distance, I find it exciting.
Q: You write a lot about your travels, and often make them the centerpiece of a poem. What do you find so inspiring in travel?
A: It isn’t travel so much as place. I know I said I wouldn’t try to explain, but seeing as how it came up again…. I believe that people consist partly of place—the places where they grew up, the places they left behind, the place they occupy at the moment. When a person relocates, even for a week, a day, an hour, she changes. It makes sense that environment will have an effect on the psyche, but I think a person also changes biologically. She breathes different air, eats different food, and her senses are processing different stimuli. So I try to recreate the influence of place in my poems; I try to capture the transformative nature of geography. There’s this great little lit journal out of the University of Arizona called you are here: the journal of creative geography. The Department of Geography puts it out. At the back of each issue, they list all the places that are mentioned in the pages, and they also give the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates for each place. That’s magical. They get it.
Q: Name a writer who is currently making you jealous.
A: Erika Meitner.
Q: What kind of child were you?
A: Obedient. Odd. I talked to rocks.
Q: What is your relationship with rejection like?
A: Personally—gut-wrenching. Professionally—whatevs.
Q: What book did you suffer for the most, and why?
A: Old Yeller. I was a sensitive child.
Q: What was the greatest surprise for you in your most recent writing?
A: My reluctance, my inability, to depict violence.
Q: What writerly habit would you most like to break?
A: Settling for the less than perfect word.
Q: Lastly…what did you have for lunch today?
A: Tortilla with melted Monterey jack pepper cheese and Sriracha sauce, and an orange…and my son’s leftover pasta wheels and black beans.
