{"id":1603,"date":"2016-10-31T02:21:11","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T02:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arielsheen.com\/?p=1603"},"modified":"2017-08-07T13:59:42","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T13:59:42","slug":"interview-with-niina-pollari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/31\/interview-with-niina-pollari\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Niina Pollari"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Niina Pollari<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: So, tell me about Dead Horse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Well, the form or the function or some other aspect of it?<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Surprise me.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Well, do you know Dead Horse Bay<\/a>, the place<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: No.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Okay, so there is this weird place in Brooklyn called Dead Horse Bay, which is down in South Brooklyn kind of near the Verrazano Bridge. The reason for its name was that it used to be surrounded by glue factories, where the carriage horses would go get processed.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Oh, wow.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Yeah, it is kinda grim. Especially after the automobile took over New York City, the carriage horse thing was no longer lucrative, so they made it a dump. Even better, right? And, so, it went from a glue factory to a dump. But then they were like, oh crap, we shouldn\u2019t have a dump this close to the city. So they capped it and sealed it, and then the cap at some point later burst. So, now when you go to Dead Horse Bay, you find horse bone shards and fifties-era garbage, like weird bottles and shoes and things. And so it\u2019s a very weird experience to go there. Like, you can actually take the bus and disembark and go through some hedges and then you\u2019re on the beach filled with garbage. It smells weird, like chemicals. At low tide you find horseshoe crab corpses and it feels very much like, not a part of New York City. While, definitely very much being a part of New York City.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Still goth\u00a0and somewhat obsessed with death after all these years! [laughter] I love it!<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Yeah, I know. I almost like to talk about it, because once I find a place that talks to me, I kind of think of it as mine. You know?<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Yeah.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: But of course, thousands of people go there all the time. It\u2019s not a beautiful beach, but if you\u2019re into the decay of cities, it\u2019s a really cool place to visit. And so, and then there\u2019s of course, like the idea of beating a dead horse and how much that kind of sounds like it\u2019s about the body. As you know there\u2019s a lot about the body in the collection, so that title seemed fitting. Plus my editor pointed out that I use a lot of single-syllable, elemental words, and the title is just like that. You know, the thing down to its essence, basically.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: So, Carl Phillips has said that poetry is more of a transformation of experience, rather than a transcription of it. What do you think about that?<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: I think all good literature is a transformation of experience. Poetry can perhaps be more obviously that because people expect poetry to take certain cognitive leaps. It\u2019s not as specifically straightforward as an art form. As the sort of the weird cousin of prose, it doesn\u2019t always make sense. So, in that way it allows you to be very transformative. You can hop from one thing to another, subject matter-wise, a lot faster and with greater ease that you could in prose. With prose you\u2019re almost forced to explain your thought process and connections more. I think readers of poetry allow themselves to make connections more intuitively. In poetry, readers don\u2019t necessarily expect you to do that, so that\u2019s the great part.<\/p>\n

At the same time, though, I\u2019ve gotten a lot of comments about being very clear and straightforward in my own poetics, in terms of like what I write. People are always coming up to me and saying \u201cOh I\u2019m not usually a poetry person, but…\u201d and then they go on to say that they enjoyed it, or got something out of it, or bought my book. I think that is really cool too. But although I try to keep my language clear and essential, I still expect my readers to get weird with me.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Speaking of clarity, I wanted to ask you how important accessibility of meaning is to poetry? Put another way, should one have to work hard to solve a poem?<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Of course it\u2019s wonderful if a poem talks to a lot of people. And when I edit, I really want things to be clear. But a poem takes its own life once it\u2019s out in the world. It gathers its own momentum and it doesn\u2019t always do what you meant for it to do. I think if your poem\u2019s meaning is accessible to people, that\u2019s amazing. But if you\u2019re trying to intentionally obscure or hide your meaning, or make yourself seem smarter by being needlessly complicated, I think that\u2019s where poetry really gets a bad rep. I can\u2019t stand overly academic writing, period. That goes for poetry and prose and everything in between. I just think that you should know what you\u2019re saying. Have enough control over your language to guide the reader, but leave some room for them to be surprised.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I can\u2019t stand obtuse poetry. When I took poetry workshops with Susan Mitchell at FAU she had us read a lot of language poets, because that\u2019s what she was into and I just couldn\u2019t stand it. And then there\u2019s what\u2019s published in, say, the New Yorker, which for me is sometimes hit, mostly miss.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Yeah, language poetry is not necessarily for me either. I need to have something tangible in the world. I need to be grounded in reality, at least part of the way. Even when some of your content is impossible or implausible or surreal, there needs to be something that keeps you oriented or grounded within the framework of the poem. In that book, for me, the tangible thing was often a sense of place.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Oh, yeah, I agree and I think Dead Horse does exactly that. I even said in my review there was only one part that I found myself, like unsure of, and the rest I was like, yeah I get this. This is, this is comprehensible and that was great.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: When you\u2019re reading something and you understand the location or the premise or you understand something fundamental about it, it allows you to get at the subtleties of it and that that allows the complicated stuff to sneak up on you. Then you\u2019re not flailing to understand the mechanics of it.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Yeah, once you get the, have the general focus, you can start looking at the little pieces and maybe like, play around with them.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Exactly.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Okay, tell me a little bit about Kiss Me in the Boring Rain<\/a> project as I too am somewhat obsessed with Lana Del Rey.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Oh yeah. So, I found myself listening to Born To Die and thinking a lot about it and not quite being able to grasp why I liked it so much. Some of the lyrics are kind of basic and it\u2019s not that\u2019s it’s musically that complicated. The album wasn\u2019t even that well produced in some parts. But something about the persona that she adopted \u2013 the absolute certainty with which she talks about her devotion to the darkness of love, made it rattle around in my brain. And so, I slowly wrote the poems while listening to particular songs, like on repeat, until I got some lines down. There is something about her that I can\u2019t get over, but that project helped me a lot with my obsession around that album. It helped me put the album away a little bit.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: I know how you feel. She\u2019s easily one of my most listened to artists in the past five years. When I saw her play live a few months ago I didn\u2019t even care about the lackluster stage show just because I was so caught up in the lyrics music. Anyway. Shift of topic. I know you attend a lot of poetry readings and even host your own, Popsickle. I\u2019m curious how has the Internet informed and contributed to the well-being of poetry in your mind?<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Quite a lot. It makes sense to poets. I think poetry benefits from the immediacy of Internet because it reduces the turnaround time on publishing in journals, or in any form of print really, and I feel that poetry works best when it\u2019s reactive to the zeitgeist. When there\u2019s a faster cycle between writing and publishing it, it\u2019s good for the medium. It\u2019s also easier to reach more people than a print subscription to a journal would. Not that print is not valuable, of course it is, but it\u2019s just like more, it\u2019s got a wider reach and more tentacles, you know.<\/p>\n

\"tumblr_nir7h6n6zx1rpk21wo2_1280\"
Niina at a poetry reading accompanied by violin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Cool. What books in print are you reading right now?<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Right now I\u2019m reading Cannibal <\/em>by Safiya Sinclair, and Green Girl <\/em>by Kate Zambreno.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: I\u2019m reading a history of Miami\u2019s segregationist housing policy<\/a>. It\u2019s academic history, but written in an accessible way and I find the subject fascinating.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Actually that sounds extremely interesting. I\u2019m working on a little bit of prose which takes place in Florida. So I was just reading about Everglades draining, which is another smart idea Florida had.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Yeah, Florida\u2019s land developers haven\u2019t always been bright, but they\u2019ve always known how to sell the idea of a potential that on closer observation is detrimental to everything that made it in the first place. I took a Florida History class at FAU and the professor had said about how it\u2019s this underserved niche in the field.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: I think Florida\u2019s a really interesting state because of it\u2019s heterogeneity in population and it\u2019s proximity to different areas of the Americas and of the world. And because, it\u2019s the place sketchy people go to disappear for many reasons.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Yeah.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: There\u2019s also its various environmental issues. There\u2019s just so much to say about it, and it should be taken seriously, but like, Florida\u2019s sort of the crazy bitch of America, right? Everyone\u2019s like, \u201cOh Florida, there it goes again!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: \u201cFlorida man does something unusual and awful again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Exactly. I wanted to start a Twitter account for like heroic Florida Man<\/a> stories that were like \u201cGood job Florida man!\u201d, or something. That stuff happens too it just doesn\u2019t get as much circulation.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Yeah. We\u2019re not all dying from eating too many roaches.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: Yeah, we\u2019re not all like throwing an alligator into a Wendy\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Haha! And of course that happens in my hometown of Jupiter, way to go Florida Man!<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: I know! That made me laugh so much when I read it.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Yeah, all my friends were sharing that too. Almost as a counterweight to that kind of notion I\u2019ve been reading a lot of works by Florida authors lately. I just finished a collection of short stories by Jennine Cap\u00f3 Crucet<\/a> about like Cuban life in Hialeah. Then there\u2019s Paul Kwiatkowski, who wrote Every Day Was Overcast<\/a>. Weird coincidence, but after I interviewed him a couple of months ago, I\u2019ve since found out that I have three mutual friends with him.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: That\u2019s awesome. Karen Russell and Kent Russell both write about Florida too.\u00a0 And Sarah Gerard is publishing a collection of essays about Florida<\/a> next year with Harper Perennial.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Karen Russell wrote Swamplandia!<\/a>, right? My eleventh grade students are reading that in their English class right now.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: That\u2019s awesome. Yeah, I love her. Her short story collection is really good.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: Yeah I want to read Swamplandia! too, but, like, I need to stop buying books for a little bit and finish reading all of what I have, so I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

So now that we\u2019re talking about all these books, I wonder how did your MFA influence your creative process?<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>: If I could go back in time I would do a lot more research about MFA programs. The program I attended maybe wasn\u2019t the one for me, because it was super narrative, and about as literal as poetry can be. But, the main way it influenced me was getting me to New York and, so you know, hooking me up with an initial community of people who were my first readers and all that stuff. And I still stay in touch with like a couple of the people and they\u2019re critical in my process. So, that part, that part mostly, community I guess.<\/p>\n

Ariel<\/strong>: I read this article in Jezebel<\/a> that touches on some of the subject we\u2019ve been talking about – the internet, reactivity and poetry communities – and was wondering if there was any overlaps with your experience.<\/p>\n

Niina<\/strong>:\u00a0 I attended one of the schools where this particular \u201cinappropriate literary man\u201d taught, and although my personal experiences were different than the ones this article touches upon, I felt that the program\u2019s atmosphere was very male somehow. Maybe it has to do with some old-school notion of the MFA program, but in retrospect it\u2019s especially confusing to me at that school because the program was mostly non-men. That was ten years ago; it does feel like there\u2019s a change in the air now. Voices that might have stayed silent even as recently as then aren\u2019t staying silent anymore, and that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n

\"10854378_10152567078932293_1827545056150246777_o\"<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Make sure to read my review<\/a> of Dead Horse<\/a>\u00a0and then buy it of course! You can follow Niina’s website by going here<\/a>. Also, as\u00a0a special Halloween treat, dear reader, feast your eyes on this collaborative poem that Niina and I wrote when babies for duo-poetry performance: I present to you\u00a0Degothalizer 2000<\/a>!<\/p>\n

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Ariel: So, tell me about Dead Horse. Niina: Well, the form or the function or some other aspect of it? Ariel: Surprise me. Niina: Well, do you know Dead Horse Bay, the place? Ariel: No. Niina: Okay, so there is this weird place in Brooklyn called Dead Horse Bay, which is down in South Brooklyn … Continue reading “Interview with Niina Pollari”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[87,88,24,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative","category-eclectic-intellect","category-florida","category-interview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8e7kf-pR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1868,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1603\/revisions\/1868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arielsheen.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}