Leesa Dean : On Revelatory Skepticism, The Moon and Antarctica

 

 

 

 

I once let a person read my astrological chart. The reading took place in Mexico 15 years ago, near Palenque, where I was volunteering on a dysfunctional organic farm. My volunteer duties mostly consisted of hacking tall weeds with a machete in exchange for lodging in a tent near what we called “the scorpion house”—a pile of rocks that had once been a house but had somehow become a home for scorpions.

The chart reader was a 23-year-old from New York who did not fit the visual profile of how I imagined a Vedic astrologer might look. He looked more like a bassist in an indie band. Somehow that made me feel more open to an idea I would have typically faced with skepticism under any other circumstances. We sat together under a banana tree while I took notes in my journal. He predicted my future using the twelve houses of the Zodiac and told me unbelievable things, like I’d one day be a teacher and a career artist. At the time, I was a functional alcoholic, stalled in an entry-level office job with no writing practice whatsoever. Apparently I was also going to marry an artist, and we would have a child. The path he described seemed diametrically opposite to where I was socially located. It felt dangerous to imagine myself in such a position of power, at least at that point in my life. Nonetheless I carefully, skeptically wrote down his words.

Somehow, he was not wrong. Somehow, I am a teacher, a mother, a working artist.

Lately I’ve been inclined to write about that iconic chart reading. I published an essay on the subject called “When Saturn Returns” which was included in Guernica Edition’s fabulous anthology, Changing The Face of Canadian Literature: A Diverse Canadian Anthology. Eventually, I started thinking about how two loosely connected frameworks—Vedic astrology and lunar orbits—might converge as a poetic personal narrative supported by visuals. This gave birth to my project, Apogee/Perigee.

The poems in Apogee/Perigee, published in April by above/ground press, physically orbit the page like the moon. Each explores a different Zodiac house, first from the perspective of apogee, when the moon is farthest from its origin. I employed the language of lunar cycles to depict my personal journey: when do we drift farthest from ourselves? When are we closest? What I like most about the word apogee is the double meaning— it can refer to the positively connoted pinnacle or climax of something, or it can represent an isolating point of orbit farthest from the origin.

Each “apogee” poem has a complementary “perigee” poem. Those poems explore what to me feels like a centre point, a home base that my life will inevitably spool away from and return to at different points. I was careful not to conflate the idea of perigee with some ideal, unattainable version of myself, nor did I imply through my poetry that my problems have been resolved.

From the beginning, I knew I wanted this to be a visual poetry project. I was able to work with my graphic designer pal Nathan Vyklicky, most famous perhaps for his comic in The New Yorker. Nathan orbited through all my vague directions and pivots as I mulled over what kinds of visuals could best support the poems, and finally we landed in the right place.

I’m not usually one to listen to music while I work. I have a distracted mind, and I usually prefer to sit in full silence when writing and editing. I wear earplugs even when no one else is home. For this project, though, I often listened to The Moon and Antarctica by Modest Mouse while I worked. The music on that album does something similar to what I aimed for in my poetry—it presents diametric opposites in ways that are complementary. It’s also an album I’ve listened to throughout my adult years, in states of apogee and perigee.

 

 

 

 

 

Leesa Dean is a graduate of the University of Guleph’s Creative Writing MFA program and an instructor at Selkirk College. Her first book, Waiting for the Cyclone, was a finalist for the 2017 Trillium and Relit Awards. Her novella-in-verse, The Filling Station, was recently published by Gaspereau Press and is based on the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. She is the author of two chapbooks with above/ground press—The Desert of Itabira (2020) and Apogee/Perigee (2023)—and lives in Krestova, BC (unceded Sinixt territory), with her artist husband Matty Kakes and their daughter Scarlett Heart.

Tim Duffy, Sarah Venart, Joshua Beckman, Joshua Corey + Leesa Dean : virtual reading series #25

a series of video recordings of contemporary poets reading from their work, prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent cancellations, shut-downs and isolations; a reading series you can enjoy in the safety of your own protected space,

Tim Duffy : “Between the Church and the Door” and “Cart”

Tim Duffy is a poet and teacher working in Connecticut. His work has appeared recently in Bodega, Pleiades, Entropy, Rabbit Oak among others. He is the founder and EIC of 8 Poems Journal.

Sarah Venart : “Octopus Laser” and “Stun Guns”

Sarah Venart was raised in New Brunswick and lives and teaches in Montreal. She is the author of I AM THE BIG HEART and WOODSHEDDING.

Joshua Beckman : “If You Pray These Days” and “poem n form d bill bissett”

Joshua Beckman is the author of a number of books including The Inside of an Apple, The Lives of the Poems & Three Talks, and most recently Animal Days.

Joshua Corey : “Exterior Century,” “Interior Medusa,” and “Interior Birth.”

Joshua Corey is a poet, critic, translator, and novelist whose books include The Barons (Omnidawn Publishing, 2014), The Transcendental Circuit; Otherworlds of Poetry (MadHat Press, 2018), a new translation with Jean-Luc Garneau of Francis Ponge's Le parti pris des choses as Partisan of Things (Kenning Editions, 2016), and the forthcoming Hannah and the Master (MadHat Press). He lives in Evanston, Illinoi with his wife and about-to-be teenage daughter, and teaches English at Lake Forest College.

Leesa Dean : “Self-Isolation”

Leesa Dean is a graduate of the University of Guelph's MFA program and a Creative Writing Instructor at Selkirk College. Her collection of short stories, Waiting for the Cyclone, was nominated for the 2017 Trillium and Relit Awards. Her poetry chapbook, The Desert Itabira, was published by above/ground press last year. She is a settler on Sinixt territory in the Slocan Valley where she roams her small acreage, finding inspiration in the wildness surrounding her, and mostly fails at trying to grow melons. The long poem read for this series is from a manuscript in progress titled How to Survive which explores macro and micro forms of survival, ranging from the species level to the personal, including meditations on the author's summer spent at Aircrew Survival camp in Northern Alberta in 1995 and her mother's life-long repercussions from having polio as a child, a condition that ultimately killed her at the age of 60.