Edward Smallfield : Notes from the Field : Stranger in a Strange Land

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poets live in language, and living in a country where the language is different from the poet’s mother tongue creates an interesting dynamic. Like everything in the practice of writing, what unfolds is specific and individual, never generic. A part of that process is the poet’s effort to maintain a connection with new work in the language in which her/his work originates.

I’ve always believed that poets have to be solipsistic in their reading, looking for work that feeds their writing, and paying no attention to work that doesn’t engage them, however objectively marvelous that other work might be. Anything I say will be completely idiosyncratic, a personal confession, and nothing more.

My wife (the poet, Valerie Coulton) and I have lived in Barcelona for about 19 years, so our distance connection with North American poetry has evolved over time. I said I would be idiosyncratic, and idiosyncrasy often involves rule breaking. I have to confess that one of my main channels of connection with new writing has been and continues to be publications from above/ground press, periodicities, Touch the Donkey, and rob mclennan’s blog. rob connects with such a wide range of poetry (not the entire range, but a wider bandwidth than my own) that I have to call attention to his publications even though this piece will be published on periodicities. I especially want to mention two new chapbooks from above/ground press: how to count to ten by Kevin Varrone and Autobiography by rob himself.

The second broken rule will be nepotism. Valerie’s new project palabrosa fascinates me. The project is only online: https://www.palabrosa.net. Valerie has posted two original chapbooks, Memory Yard by Stephen Hemenway and Three Efforts at Arrival and a Series of Departures by Elizabeth Robinson. A third chapbook, A Woman Reflected by Barbara Tomash, will arrive soon. Each of these poets has a unique voice, and the three voices are in an intense conversation with each other. Valerie also posted some translations from the Catalan poet Joan Brossa’s book Joan Brossa Made Me. Brossa’s work is almost completely unknown in North America, and these few translations would be a way to enter the fascinating labyrinth of his work.

Publishing the work of other poets is a wonderful way to engage with new poetry, and more poets should try publishing work by others. There are many more interesting poems waiting to be published than there are venues to publish them, so there is no lack of supply. With two amazing coeditors, Emilie Delcourt and Harriet Sandilands, Valerie and I collaborate on a magazine in Barcelona called parentheses. We publish work in English from both sides of the Atlantic, and we always include a number of Spanish and Catalan writers in each issue, so hopefully the issues are diverse (or a mess, as some might say). The engagement with the work of others constantly pushes us to keep our own work fresh. I also continue to work as an editor at Apogee Press, where I have learned so much over the years from the wonderful poets that we’ve published. So, poets—get to work! Start publishing the work of other poets. It’s a wonderful adventure.

I do want to mention one other press, Nightboat Books. They consistently publish astonishing work. I would especially note Cole Swensen’s Art in Time, published last year, and Tiff Dressen’s Of Mineral, which will appear later this year.

          There is another conversation about the way the local language begins to influence the work of a foreign writer. Because Barcelona is bilingual, two languages are involved, Catalan and Spanish. But that is another story, for another time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward Smallfield is the author of to whom it may concern, equinox, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (a book-length collaboration with Doug MacPherson), and The Pleasures of C. He is also the author of several chapbooks, most recently a journal of the plague year from above/ground press. His poems have appeared in Barcelona INK, Denver Quarterly, e-poema.eu, Five Fingers Review, New American Writing, Páginas Rojas, talking about strawberries all the time, Touch the Donkey, where is the river: a poetry experiment, and many other magazines and websites. He is a coeditor at parentheses and at Apogee Press. He has participated in poetry conferences in Delphi, Paou, Paros, and Sofia, and lives in Barcelona with his wife, the poet Valerie Coulton.