Dennis James Sweeney, In The Antarctic Circle

 

66°13’S 110°36’E

I believe in Antarctica the way I believe in God’s white palm. The way it brims with snow. The way the night ice is new to the morning ice. I believe that the moon shines down on a union, that somewhere in this tundra two are frozen into one.

Some day: I believe in that day.

In my life, a desperate insect drags lint across the living room floor.

Not a single memory fills me. I remember the beach. The flags we covered ourselves in. The beer we drank. No snow. The sky pretended to go on forever but stopped just beyond the eyes.

Forever was only an idea then, something someone said to someone and both quickly forgot. Waiting there for us.

Amherst, Massachusetts poet and editor Dennis James Sweeney’s full-length poetry debut is In The Antarctic Circle (Pittsburgh PA: Autumn House Press, 2021), a book of absences and solitudes reminiscent of the geographic lyrics of Ottawa poet Monty Reid’s The Alternate Guide (Red Deer AB: Red Deer College Press, 1995), with both titles writing out alternate takes on specific geographic locales across a contained stretch. “Scan the snow for objects of love and wonder.” Sweeney writes, to open “74°0’S 108°30’W,” “Boil seal meat, stirring / with both arms.” For Reid, the boundaries of his specific map were the province of Alberta, and for Sweeney, he writes the Antarctic circle, but one as a space of shadows, legends and imprecisions. He writes an open space upon which the emptiness allows him to mark and remark as he wishes, putting on his own particular imprint, writing love, heart, hearth and environmental crisis. How does one love during a crisis? How does one allow a benefit of doubt? Even the shadows, one might say, betray. As “76°20’S 124°38’W” writes: “You will learn: Negative sixty degrees is not absolute zero. // You will learn: In a whiteout you cannot see shadows, but that does / not mean the edges are not there.”

 

Let’s suppose the world never ends. Let’s suppose we’re here into perpetuity, cooling heels at the rim of the great gone-cold hot tub. I throw in the towel. It begins to sink. Hank dives in, reaching one heroic hand out of the water where he’s drowning, the towel clutched in it. Soaked. Drying for only a moment before his weight pulls it down to the bottom.

We enact the cycles. We buy in, whether we want to or not, to biotic recursion, watersheds, the boogaloo. But we haven’t forgotten silence, not with as much armchair in front of us as we’ve got. The silence doesn’t circle. Rather lurks, impatient, then jumps on whatever slows. (“67°31’S 64°37’W”)

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Dennis James Sweeney

Dennis James Sweeney is the author of Ghost/Home: A Beginner’s Guide to Being Haunted, as well as three other chapbooks. His writing has appeared in Crazyhorse, Five Points, Ninth Letter, The New York Times, and The Southern Review, among many others. He is a Small Press Editor of Entropy, the recipient of an MFA from Oregon State University, and a former Fulbright fellow in Malta. Originally from Cincinnati, he lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Denver.

1 - How did your first chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

The feeling I had when I found out What They Took Away was going to get published is a feeling I've been trying to get back to for the last seven years. I liked that little chapbook, and magically, someone else liked as much as I did. But I think my relationship with my writing was very unconscious then. I wrote without intending. It was amazing to see someone approve of that.

Now, I'm much more intentional about what I write about and how. That comes with more disappointment, because if it isn't lovingly accepted I am too invested in the work to let the rejection go. But in the long run it's better, because if/when my writing does get published, I am committed to accompanying it into the world. I want to share it because I have poured myself into it, instead of being a little frightened of it, as I was with What They Took Away. My new chapbook, Ghost/Home: A Beginner's Guide to Being Haunted, does scare me, but it is a fear I know how to carry.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

Poetry has always been revelation for me. I began writing with fiction, but only because that was the form that found me when I was ripe to begin. When I found poems that I loved—when I saw Dorothea Lasky read in Boulder, and when I read Emily Kendal Frey's Sorrow Arrow—they gave me a sense of total possibility.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

I always think I'm a fast writer, but I'm never done when I think I am. I'm only just beginning to view my initial attempts as skeptically as I should. That means revising is mostly emotional work, these days; once I've convinced myself that a work is not golden, the changes I need to make seem surprisingly clear.

4 - Where does a poem or work of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

It's always a book. That's my unit of reading, which is why I write that way. A style or form comes to mind to contain an obsession that has already been brewing—and I'm off, and the form holds, then breaks, which is how I know I can keep going.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

I like readings because I know I'll never be as nervous as I used to be. It's amazing: to stand and read from a page that you've nearly forgotten you've written. It's like reading someone else's work. That's the other reason I like it. I feel like the person I have a responsibility to is not me.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

Theory doesn't guide my work. Internal conflict does. All my questions are ones I don't have the words for.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I think your role as a writer depends on who you are. For me, a white man with familial wealth and a chronic illness, my role is to question the conditions of power that have given me the privileges I have. This usually means telling the story of some form of conflict or difficulty that I've been through myself, because these conditions of power create impossible-to-resolve situations even for the people who benefit from them.

I want to use my privilege to contribute to its dismantling. I want to put myself on the line, because many qualities that I've inherited contribute to my own suffering and the suffering of others.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Both, although I've rarely done it. I hope that when working with an editor becomes more regular for me, I have the courage to appreciate it. More likely I'll resent it.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

Writing advice comes to me through osmosis rather than language. The best writers I know...just give off this feeling, which doesn't have to be named. I just know I need to cultivate the same feeling, and be precious with it, and allow it to guide me.

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to fiction to essays)? What do you see as the appeal?

For me bouncing between genres is necessary. I have to write poetry in order not to lose my mind while writing nonfiction. I have to write nonfiction in order to make me feel as if my poems have a ground to stand on. I have to write fiction as a decoy, because I need a genre to convince myself I write while I am doing the other things.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

My best two hours are in the morning, after having a smoothie. After that it's harder and more variable. But if I get those two hours in, that's enough to feel good about my day.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

When I get stalled, I just keep writing very badly, and very angrily, until I have a crisis and stop for several weeks. To my amazement, rest actually helps. I never thought I'd be quoting Banksy, but a friend of mine told me about this quote that I remind myself of frequently: "If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit."

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?

Skyline Chili. You never smell it anywhere outside of Cincinnati, but sometimes there's just the right combination of spices coming out of a restaurant somewhere else. It stops me in my tracks.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

My partner and I have been realizing recently how much we have inherited from the music we listened to when we were younger. The Modest Mouse influences are clear, I think, in the slightly off-kilter quality of my writing, and its desire to be both weird and pleasant to listen to. I'm less sure how bands like Brand New and Taking Back Sunday fit in, but Jess Row's essay on emo in White Flights might have something to say about that.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

I have a very bad memory, and a very high level of enthusiasm, so whatever I'm reading is always the thing that's transforming my thinking and my work. Here's a few small press books I've been amazed by recently: Schizophrene by Bhanu Kapil, from Nightboat; All Hopped Up on Fleshy Dum Dums by Lara Glenum, from Spork; Under the Knife by Krista Franklin, from Candor Arts; NOS (disorder, not otherwise specified) by Aby Kaupang and Matthew Cooperman, from Futurepoem; Tender Points by Amy Berkowitz, recently reissued by Nightboat; Poems (1962-1997) by Robert Lax, from Wave; Days by Moonlight by André Alexis, from Coach House; nothing fictional but the accuracy or the arrangement (she by Sawako Nakayasu, from Quale Press.

I feel grateful to be alive at a time when works like these are accessible and flourishing.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

I'm a bit superstitious about how I respond to questions like this. I'm grateful for everything. I don't need any more than I already have.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

My dad sells insurance. I think if I had gone down that road, which I never even considered, I would be very good at it. It would be hard, and I would probably long for something else, but I would also be pretty happy.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

I was lucky. I made the decision to write before I knew what I was getting into. Happily, I didn't know how hard it was until I was too far in to quit. I am thankful to my past self for whatever made him choose this path—probably some combination of hubris, imagination, and a desire to be listened to.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

For books, see question 15. As for film, I don't know much. But I saw Czech new wave film called Daisies at a writing residency recently. It was strange and good.

20 - What are you currently working on?

A memoir in essays about living with Crohn's. And poems, when I can't fit myself into prose.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

12 or 20 (small press) questions with Jake Syersak and Paul Cunningham on Radioactive Cloud

Jake Syersak received his MFA from the University of Arizona and is currently a PhD student in English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. He is the author of the full-length Yield Architecture (Burnside Books, 2018) and several chapbooks, including Neocologism: A Trio of Encyclopedic Entries for Treading the Anthropo-Scenic Psyche (ShirtPocket Press, 2017), These Ghosts / This Compost: An Aubadeclogue (above/ground press 2017), Impressions in the Language of a Lantern’s Wick (Ghost Proposal 2016), and Notes to Wed No Toward (Plan B Press 2014). His poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, Conjunctions, Verse Daily, Omniverse, and elsewhere. He edits Cloud Rodeo, serves as a contributing editor for Letter Machine Editions, and co-curates the Yumfactory Reading Series alongside Paul Cunningham in Athens, GA. He is currently at work on an anthology of American surrealism and translating the works of Moroccan writer Mohammed Khair-Eddine.

Paul Cunningham is the author of a chapbook of poems called GOAL/TENDER MEAT/TENDER (horse less press, 2015) and he is the translator of two chapbooks by Swedish author, playwright, and video artist, Sara Tuss Efrik: Automanias: Selected Poems (winner of the 2015 Goodmorning Menagerie Chapbook-in-Translation Contest) and The Night’s Belly (Toad Press, Fall 2016). His translations of Helena Österlund have appeared in Asymptote, Interim, and Sink Review. He is a contributing editor to Fanzine and his writing can be found in Yalobusha Review, DREGINALD, Dostoyevsky Wannabe’s Cassette 68, Fireflies Film Magazine, DIAGRAM, Bat City Review, LIT, Tarpaulin Sky, Spork, and others. His poem-film, It Is Announced (a collaboration with Valerie Mejer Caso and Barry Shapiro), premiered in the 2016 Kochi-Muziris Biennale. He co-curates the Yumfactory Reading Series with Jake Syersak in Athens, GA. He holds a MFA in Poetry from the University of Notre Dame.

1 – When did Radioactive Cloud first start? How have your original goals as a publisher shifted since you started, if at all? And what have you learned through the process?

Paul: Radioactive Cloud is still a relatively new operation. Cloud Rodeo and Radioactive Moat Press only recently joined forces in fall 2017.

Jake: I’d been wanting to publish chapbooks for a while, but I never really knew how. Then I met Paul, who had successfully published a number of chapbooks but had since halted production. I think we were downing $1 pints of lager at Grindhouse during a very sweaty Georgia summer day when we got talking about the possibilities of making it happen. I really wanted to learn how to do it and he seemed to not want to do it alone: so there you go. I think it was pretty clear to both of us that our respective literary journals had similar enough aesthetics that we would be compatible as editors but also that their aesthetic leanings were different enough that it would make for an interesting mashup.

2 – What first brought you to publishing?

P: I started Radioactive Moat in 2009. My aim has always been to publish work from both emerging and established writers. Since I grew up in the green of the radioactive, slime-saturated 90s, it’s no surprise that my endeavors tend to include dark ecologies, grotesquerie, abject bodies, and the Anthropocene. I’m also interested in poetry-in-translation, poetry that seeks to decolonize, and poetry that responds to queerness.

J: I’ve been involved with a number of journals/presses, including Cloud Rodeo, Sonora Review, and Letter Machine Editions. I realized pretty early on that trends in literature don’t happen spontaneously; they’re cultivated over time by those that provide them a venue. But it’s not just a line of influence I’m interested in. I’ve always wanted to have a more direct line to the artists themselves. Running a press and/or journal gives you a great excuse to reach out to and establish relationships with artists you might not get a chance to communicate with otherwise.

3 – What do you consider the role and responsibilities, if any, of small publishing?

P: To put the needs of your authors and contributors before your own.

J: Right, it really comes down to that. If you don’t believe whole-heartedly in every single work you publish, and aren’t prepared to defend and serve that work in every capacity at your disposal, you shouldn’t be in that position. There’s no room for editors just going through the motions. The literary sphere will be what we make it.

4 – What do you see your press doing that no one else is?

P: As far as ‘ecopoetics’ go, I think we’re kind of tired of that. When it comes to nature, we’re looking for something more than a description of the view from a mountain or someone’s reflection on an afternoon hike. That might be one thing that separates us from other presses. Maybe it’s time for a ‘nature poem’ that scares the hell out of people. I think that’s what we’re looking for. It’s not enough anymore to dedicate an ode or a few euphonic lines to a nearly or already-extinct species. It’s too late for that kind of poem.  

J: Considering the first two books we’re publishing, it’s clear we’re aiming to reconfigure how ecologies intertwine with poetics. The fascinating thing about both Carleen and Dennis’ books is that they both implicitly reject traditional ontological models that separate the human from the nonhuman with laser-like precision. Making that boundary more spectral and fuzzy is vital to a future ethics. I think we’re in this as much for ethics as we are for aesthetics. We’re not aiming low here. We’re looking for work that shifts paradigms. We’re lucky to begin our press with two books that do just that.

5 – What do you see as the most effective way to get new chapbooks out into the world?

P: Encouraging others to review chapbooks and thanking them for their time and care with review copies. Being active on social media or at least having some kind of presence on social media.

6 – How involved an editor are you? Do you dig deep into line edits, or do you prefer more of a light touch?

P: We don’t dig too deep. After all, we liked our authors’ poems for a reason, right? Give us your wonkiest grammar, your lowest references to pop culture! Give us your apple cores, your most nourishing jargon! We’re not interested in rewriting poems. If something seems off about a piece, we’ll just ask.

J: I’m willing to be as involved or non-involved as the author wants. Above all, I want to respect their vision. If we’re publishing it, we’ve already agreed on a fundamental level that we share the vision of the work, and that’s good enough for me.

7 – How do your books get distributed? What are your usual print runs?

P: Chapbooks are shipped in the mail. We do a print run of 100 copies of each chapbook. Once a chapbook has sold out, we ask our authors if they would like us to make their chapbook available as a digital download on the Radioactive Cloud site.

8 – How many other people are involved with editing or production? Do you work with other editors, and if so, how effective do you find it? What are the benefits, drawbacks?

P: There’s just two of us at the moment and four hands are better than one.

J: It’s funny, I think we began the venture just needing someone else’s motivation to kick our asses into gear. We both wanted to do it but I don’t think either of us wanted to go it alone. I know I had had enough of being sole editor of Cloud Rodeo. I wasn’t growing in any respect as a publisher in isolation.  

9– How has being an editor/publisher changed the way you think about your own writing?

J: I’m always inundated with work that’s far better than my own, so I’m always thinking “shit, I’ve gotta do better.” It keeps me from becoming too comfortable, complacent, or satisfied with my own work. It’s keeps me in a consistent positive panic.

P: I agree with Jake. I think there’s definitely a risk in feeling ‘too comfortable’ with your own writing. Something David Bowie once said has always stayed with me: “If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area.”

10– How do you approach the idea of publishing your own writing? Some, such as Gary Geddes when he still ran Cormorant, refused such, yet various Coach House Press’ editors had titles during their tenures as editors for the press, including Victor Coleman and bpNichol. What do you think of the arguments for or against, or do you see the whole question as irrelevant?

J: I don’t see anything inherently wrong with it as long as the press doesn’t become a vehicle solely for promoting the editors’ work. There’s certainly more incredible work out there than there are publishers, and so a lot of it doesn’t see the light of day.  I would abstain from publishing my own work only because I’m generally uncomfortable with self-promotion and I think there are far better writers more deserving. I see editorial work as a chance to serve rather than as a personal opportunity. An editor/press out for themselves is a dangerous thing for everybody.

P: I agree with Jake’s take on editorial work as a chance to serve other writers. I might have fewer concerns about self-promotion than him though. I have been a vocal supporter of writers like Steve Roggenbuck. You have to do what works best for you.

11– How do you see Radioactive Cloud evolving?

P: It would be awesome to publish full-length books down the road, but that takes more money. In the meantime, we’re focused on printing one to two chapbooks a year.

J: Yeah, hard to say. I’d love for it to evolve to full-lengths, too. We’ll keep working with the resources we have and take it one step at a time.

12– What, as a publisher, are you most proud of accomplishing? What do you think people have overlooked about your publications? What is your biggest frustration?

J: Well, we had a really successful first open reading period. And we got far more impressive submissions than we were able to take on as projects. So far, so good.

13– Who were your early publishing models when starting out?

P: I was influenced by chapbook publishers like Encyclopedia Destructica, Greying Ghost Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse. Lately, I’ve been really impressed with everything going on over at Bloof Books.

J: As far as chapbooks go, I’ve always really loved the things that Doublecross and Anomalous do.

14– How does Radioactive Cloud work to engage with your immediate literary community, and community at large? What journals or presses do you see Radioactive Cloud in dialogue with? How important do you see those dialogues, those conversations?

P: Those conversations are very important to us and our website lists journals and presses that continue to inspire us. Just click on “What We Like.”

15– Do you hold regular or occasional readings or launches? How important do you see public readings and other events?

P: We currently co-curate the Yumfactory Reading Series (named after Lara Glenum’s Pop Corpse) in Athens, Georgia.

16– How do you utilize the internet, if at all, to further your goals?

P: We share our own work and support the work of others. We review new books when we have the time and share reviews to help spread the word.

17– Do you take submissions? If so, what aren’t you looking for?

P: We will most likely hold another Open Reading Period some time in November or December of 2018.

18– Tell me about three of your most recent titles, and why they’re special.

P: For now, there’s only two in the making. In fall of 2018, we’ll be proudly distributing Dennis James Sweeney’s Poems About Moss and Carleen Tibbetts’ DATACLYSM.jpg. Whether it’s Tibbetts’ “river of zeroes” or Sweeney’s “Black moss,” we see both of these titles as very much in conversation with one other.

J: I am over-the-moon excited about our first two books. These books are innovations of their genres, not just “good” works. Carleen Tibbetts’ DATACLYSM.jpg is full of jewel-sharp, picturesque, lyrical trudges across an unquantifiable digital landscape, fetishizing its own spit-up of cultural ones and zeros as it goes. It’s grotesque and tender and cacophonous and full of beautifully winding human and inhuman turns. Reading it makes me feel like I’m some weird stream unsure of where an algorithm ends and where the human begins. That’s pretty cool. And how can I describe Dennis James Sweeney’s Poems About Moss? Part poem, part essay, part collage, part political treatise: it opens up all these abstracted sores/spores of Trump-era politics, language-powers, moss languages, subject-object dualisms, confessional voices, textual ecologies, and sites/cites their weirdly weird and unexpected exchanges. I’m in awe of both books. They’re special because they’ve renewed my faith in the undiscovered that poetry has special access to.

12 or 20 (small press) questions;