q & a

julianna mccarthy

My name is Brendan Constantine and I’m a poet living and working in Los Angeles.  The household in which I grew up was one where the arts were considered as important as any other aspect of child-rearing.   Poetry was a fact of this household, but not an emphasis.  My parents were actors.

After a successful career as a stage and screen actor, my father has begun to churn out scripts.  Despite having recently starred in one of the most successful comedy features in history, he seldom identifies himself as an actor.  He prefers the title “writer.”  Likewise, my mother answered the muse’s call a few years ago and has emerged as one of the finest poets I know.  It’s not often one gets to rediscover their parents as colleagues.

Here, then, is a conversation on the life of poetry between me and my mother, Julianna McCarthy.

March 29, 2006--The Claim Jumper Restaurant, Valencia, California

BC:  You’ve mentioned to me over the years several authors who made an impression on you in your late teens.  One experience which you characterize as pivotal was reading Kenneth Patchen’s “Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer” in 1947.  Can you describe what excited you about it?  Furthermore, was there something specific to Patchen which compelled you or was he merely the first poet in your experience to do what he did?  In other words, was the work impressive because you were impressionable or was there something special about it which is evident in retrospect?

JMC: Oh, he was so impressive, and after twelve years in a convent school, I was so naïve – ignorant of the new voices.  I was a drama major at the University of Iowa when I picked up that book – and I picked it up because the title grabbed me.  I was nineteen then and my favorite poets were Millay, Teasdale, Stephen Vincent Benét – dramatic and lyric poets. Remember that line of  Noel Coward’s that I used to quote – “Will you never come down into the cheap seats, closer to the warm smells?  Are you never afraid?”  Well, Patchen had come down into those seats and looked around and reported what he saw - I was hooked.  Don’t misunderstand, I still admire Millay and the others – but Patchen took me across the border into a new country.  I found Rexroth around the same time.  A friend in the Art Department at Iowa gave me a little booklet of his poetry, with line drawings by surrealist painter Matta – it was a real treasure and I wish to god I knew what became of it.

BC:  This April you have been invited to read in one of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival’s most prestigious events: The Emerging Poets Series.  As a poet recently “emerged,” can you say what it is that compels you to write poetry?  Do you have an artistic agenda?

JMC:  Ufff – why do I feel compelled to write?  Well, Josephine Hurbst answered that question with another question – “Why do we fall in love?” – the answer was/is “because.”  Because we do feel compelled, because we can’t help ourselves, because it feels so painfully good to do it.  If I have an agenda it is to “act” on paper.  To put the stage on the page.  And to use any and all forms at once if I feel like it.

BC:  Per my last question, you tend to describe yourself as being still in the early days of your journey as a poet.  What if anything have you brought with you from 1947?  Anything of Patchen, Millay, Teasdale or Rexroth?

JMC:  I hope I have brought some of their fire and bravery along with me.  I still read them all – Millay’s propaganda poetry was a major part of my thesis in grad school.

BC:  William Carlos Williams said there was no subject the modern poem could not approach.  Is there any subject you would suggest a poet avoid?

JMC:  Yes, avoid the “popular.”

BC:  I recently gave a final exam to my poetry students and I’d like to get your answer to one of the questions.  It begins with a hypothetical circumstance:  You are traveling in Niger.  While touring various sights, you witness a local woman walking through the market place.  She has deep scars on her face.  You see her only briefly and the two of you do not speak.  Later you are told that her name is Adwoa and that her scars are ritual “beauty marks,” given to her as a young girl, to make her more desirable to the men in her tribe.  Upon your return home, you write a poem about Adwoa, giving her name, and telling of the day you saw her.

QUESTION ONE:  Is it ethical to submit such a poem for publication even though Adwoa will likely never see it or know it was written?  Explain.

JMC:  As William Carlos William’s expressed in your last question, any subject can be approached.  In a way, every piece of poetry is born walking through some market place of the mind.  All poetry is an attempt to embody – a place, event, person, or emotion.

It is an interpretation and the poet is a presence in the poem.  So, it follows, in the hypothetical poem about Adwoa – there would be two people on the page, Adwoa and the poet – nothing stands alone in a poem.  Art is always very crowded…very noisy. 

TWO:  Is this scenario different from taking a stranger’s picture and then putting it on the internet without permission?  Explain.

JMC:  The internet would seem to be something else again, wouldn’t it?  But I’ll hazard a distinction – the poem, as I just said, is an interpretation and so the subject (Adwoa) could deny it - “oh, that’s not me, that’s nothing like me.”  A photograph is different – it purports to be an exact depiction.  Barring hugger-mugger in the dark-room, it would be hard for Adwoa to deny, if she chose to object.  This is a tough question - because I just remembered that famous photo of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square on V-J day – what an icon it became.  I understand the subjects were finally identified, but after the fact.  I’m inclined to think the content of the hypothetical picture would determine my assessment of whether it’s an invasion.  Hmmmmmmmmm.  It’s to wonder, isn’t it?

BC:  Without asking you to risk “talking out” anything on which you are currently at work, what are some of your favorite words these days?

JMC:  I just rediscovered “feckless” – isn’t that a great word?  I haven’t found a place for it yet, though.  Do you want it? 

BC:  Do you have any advice for other poets who are starting their careers as poets “late”?

JMC: I don’t have advice for anyone – but I do think there is one big advantage to coming to any art late in life – there is not enough time to concern oneself with “building” a career, a name – what a blessing to be free of that.  Then you can concentrate on the thing itself and leave the results to the gods of commerce.

BC:  W. H .Auden is famous for continuing to alter and edit his poems throughout his career, often going back over very old pieces and rewriting them.  In your mind, is a poem ever done?  If so, when?

JMC:  My forty years as an actress influence my answer to this question.  When I was doing eight shows a week in the same role, I promise you my performance changed in some way each and every time the curtain went up.  Familiarity broadened my understanding, and emphasis and intention changed.  In a few instances, I’ve played the same role in different venues with years interrupting the productions.  My interpretation changed in every case.  In music, there are variations of many of the classic compositions - why not variations in poetry?  My God, look at Dickenson.