
Paula Bernett Q & A with Eastern Iowa Review
Q: I notice you use the “I" pronoun and its variations very sparingly in the text ("The Smallest Leaning Begins" - Issue 3). Why?
A: The I is there, but not overtly. It is generated from the particular combinations of language, choice of metaphor and peculiarities of syntax. I am always seeking a broader and deeper and more universal connection with my readers, and if the I is too present, the potential for direct contact w perfect strangers is diminished. The universal You, I think, is inclusive of the I. In other words, resident in the densely populated world of You. There’s a real implied intimacy in that. That being said, I choose to make an overt appearance from time to time as an “I” but not the “I” which for me is act of bravery.
I recall Frank Bidart eschewing the use of the “I” and as I was thinking on this, found the following text. It’s an interview with Ashley Hatcher at the Tucson Poetry Festival in 1996. Asked about the presence of the “I” Bidart says:
I think I have a lot of skepticism about the "I." I think in my poems there's always a layer of remove from the "I." To my mind, in the poems about my family, I am very much a character. I am that person who has this past who, at a certain moment in time, can see certain things. But there is a consciousness that is separate from that, that is looking at all this from some distance. … Or the "I" is extremely aware of how little it knows, how it's kind of a fly caught in a system, in a structure, in a surround. The self becomes a prior self at the very moment of speaking. You are not, at the next moment, the person you were when you spoke the moment before, and there's something false in pretending that you are.
In the interview at the back of In the Western Night, I quote Yeats' statement, which for me is a fundamental statement about poetry: "Out of our argument with others we make rhetoric; out of our argument with ourselves we make poetry." These arguments are happening within myself or within the self of a character in my poems, but the self becomes the arena of the argument, rather than a single pole that uses the word "I.”
Q: After many years of writing poetry, how did you come to settle on the lyric essay as the genre that best suits you as a writer?
A: My poems embody my sensibilities and deepest concerns as a human person on this earth, but I found that the poetic form, even as I pulled it open to accommodate the concerns that became ever more pressing, ever more nagging for more air time, as it were, the form continued to resist the kind of reshaping and retooling necessary to the work I wanted to do. When I discovered the lyric essay I had the broader canvas, or vessel I needed to better receive all that I wanted to explore. It is inviting, accommodating, and completely flexible, and allows me to follow all leads as they are generated through the act of writing. The genre is built on the sensibility of a poem while paying homage to the rigor of an essay. For me, that fusion offers the best of both worlds.
Q: Has writing poetry laid the foundation for your work in the lyric essay form, and if so, how?
A: My poems are often source material for a lyric essay. The Smallest Leaning Begins … was generated from a group of poems I called Matrix, sets of four poems which taken together explored the oozing and blending of human emotions in myriad dynamic ways from moment to moment in our lives. Capturing that movement on the static page is an exciting challenge for me in the lyric essay form, which can range far and wide in its exploration. At its heart, my fascination with duality and its offspring leads me far afield into neurology, physics and the fundamental machinations of our world and our human lives. Certainly, this is possible in the poetic form, but voracious as I am for deeper, wider and more dimensional work, I often look to my poems for the seeds, the saplings, the blueprints I can use for what I consider greater effect in the lyric essay.
Q: When you look at the trajectory of your writing life over the years, what is the fundamental impulse that has driven your work?
A: Even as a child, I felt chased by my mortality, having lived within a lie that revved up all of my survival strategies. As I reached adolescence, I began writing and have never stopped. I consider myself the recipient of a generous grace, unlike my older sister who was unable to emotionally survive those early days and ultimately destroyed her life. For the decades of my existence, I have remained keenly aware of the gift of my time on earth and its all too temporary span of years. It is that awareness that continues to be the subtext of all of my work as it has been continually transformed along the trajectory of my life. Adversity, it is said, builds strength, and I count myself among the lucky ones for whom that has been true. When I write I know a wholeness that enriches all that I do and carries forward into the many hours away from the page.
Q: I notice you use the “I" pronoun and its variations very sparingly in the text ("The Smallest Leaning Begins" - Issue 3). Why?
A: The I is there, but not overtly. It is generated from the particular combinations of language, choice of metaphor and peculiarities of syntax. I am always seeking a broader and deeper and more universal connection with my readers, and if the I is too present, the potential for direct contact w perfect strangers is diminished. The universal You, I think, is inclusive of the I. In other words, resident in the densely populated world of You. There’s a real implied intimacy in that. That being said, I choose to make an overt appearance from time to time as an “I” but not the “I” which for me is act of bravery.
I recall Frank Bidart eschewing the use of the “I” and as I was thinking on this, found the following text. It’s an interview with Ashley Hatcher at the Tucson Poetry Festival in 1996. Asked about the presence of the “I” Bidart says:
I think I have a lot of skepticism about the "I." I think in my poems there's always a layer of remove from the "I." To my mind, in the poems about my family, I am very much a character. I am that person who has this past who, at a certain moment in time, can see certain things. But there is a consciousness that is separate from that, that is looking at all this from some distance. … Or the "I" is extremely aware of how little it knows, how it's kind of a fly caught in a system, in a structure, in a surround. The self becomes a prior self at the very moment of speaking. You are not, at the next moment, the person you were when you spoke the moment before, and there's something false in pretending that you are.
In the interview at the back of In the Western Night, I quote Yeats' statement, which for me is a fundamental statement about poetry: "Out of our argument with others we make rhetoric; out of our argument with ourselves we make poetry." These arguments are happening within myself or within the self of a character in my poems, but the self becomes the arena of the argument, rather than a single pole that uses the word "I.”
Q: After many years of writing poetry, how did you come to settle on the lyric essay as the genre that best suits you as a writer?
A: My poems embody my sensibilities and deepest concerns as a human person on this earth, but I found that the poetic form, even as I pulled it open to accommodate the concerns that became ever more pressing, ever more nagging for more air time, as it were, the form continued to resist the kind of reshaping and retooling necessary to the work I wanted to do. When I discovered the lyric essay I had the broader canvas, or vessel I needed to better receive all that I wanted to explore. It is inviting, accommodating, and completely flexible, and allows me to follow all leads as they are generated through the act of writing. The genre is built on the sensibility of a poem while paying homage to the rigor of an essay. For me, that fusion offers the best of both worlds.
Q: Has writing poetry laid the foundation for your work in the lyric essay form, and if so, how?
A: My poems are often source material for a lyric essay. The Smallest Leaning Begins … was generated from a group of poems I called Matrix, sets of four poems which taken together explored the oozing and blending of human emotions in myriad dynamic ways from moment to moment in our lives. Capturing that movement on the static page is an exciting challenge for me in the lyric essay form, which can range far and wide in its exploration. At its heart, my fascination with duality and its offspring leads me far afield into neurology, physics and the fundamental machinations of our world and our human lives. Certainly, this is possible in the poetic form, but voracious as I am for deeper, wider and more dimensional work, I often look to my poems for the seeds, the saplings, the blueprints I can use for what I consider greater effect in the lyric essay.
Q: When you look at the trajectory of your writing life over the years, what is the fundamental impulse that has driven your work?
A: Even as a child, I felt chased by my mortality, having lived within a lie that revved up all of my survival strategies. As I reached adolescence, I began writing and have never stopped. I consider myself the recipient of a generous grace, unlike my older sister who was unable to emotionally survive those early days and ultimately destroyed her life. For the decades of my existence, I have remained keenly aware of the gift of my time on earth and its all too temporary span of years. It is that awareness that continues to be the subtext of all of my work as it has been continually transformed along the trajectory of my life. Adversity, it is said, builds strength, and I count myself among the lucky ones for whom that has been true. When I write I know a wholeness that enriches all that I do and carries forward into the many hours away from the page.
Fantastic interview. Many thanks to Paula! - Chila
Paula Marafino Bernett's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Clackamas Literary Review, The Louisville Review, Rattle, and Whiskey Island, among others. Her lyric essay "Digression and Memory, The Handmaiden Effect," and a companion essay, "Four Hands Improvising on a Piano" appeared in Fourth Genre. She is the recipient of the St. John’s College 2011 Essay Prize, and holds an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.A. from St. John’s College.
Paula Marafino Bernett's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Clackamas Literary Review, The Louisville Review, Rattle, and Whiskey Island, among others. Her lyric essay "Digression and Memory, The Handmaiden Effect," and a companion essay, "Four Hands Improvising on a Piano" appeared in Fourth Genre. She is the recipient of the St. John’s College 2011 Essay Prize, and holds an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.A. from St. John’s College.