Q&A: The Way Things Go

With the release of my latest book, and my second collection of poetry, available here, I thought it would be fun to do a little Q&A in honor of the project getting put out in the world. Thankfully, you all came through and I hope the answers are satisfactory. This entire project has been one hell of a journey and I’m glad it’s here. Art is an intensely therapeutic thing, and in many ways this one in particular feels like setting free the saddest part of me, as if it had been a bird trapped in cage.

Thank you all for your support. I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.

Always,

Luke

What was your inspiration for your book?

When it comes to poetry, the inspirations are always in constant and evolutionary flux. Some poems are caught in a moment like a butterfly in a child’s net, others are the recognition of something odd, written down in a little notebook as a single line to be remembered and then explored at a later date. Since the one thing that is unavoidably true is that I wrote this collection, it’s very me. So the inspirations are existential explorations of art, life, and the pain of falling in and out of love. They’re very human inspirations, I suppose. Very ordinary. But my hope is that they are enjoyable just the same.

How did the concept of the cover art come about? I certainly feel a statement made about its contents with this one featuring a drawing of yourself on the cover.

There is a deliberate frankness to this collection that I think is reflected in the cover art. Though my work in the poetic field has always been on the nose and deliberate, there is a sense of openness and honesty to almost every single one of these poems that I think is a bit of a departure for me. Instead of cloaking myself in the safety of metaphor, I wanted to feel everything I was going through so that I might finally let it go. The cover is a reflection of that. When in conversation with my artist, the immensely talented Bree Reetz, I had an idea in mind: A memory of the past that I needed to let go, a reflection of what wasn’t there any longer. And what was born was the finished product you see now, a poet who (for a brief moment) learned the lesson that sometimes there isn’t anything in the window.

Sometimes there’s no one there.

What kind of timespan do these poems cover? New? Old? Ancient? Fresh out of the womb?

Unlike my last book of poetry, which was very much a collection of my life as a poet up to that point and a gathered together bit of decades-old writing, this book is very current. It is a reflection of how far I’ve come and how far I’ve yet to go. Written predominantly over the last year, I hope that they represent a new side to my work, an embracing of openness, that I think is important not just in art but also in ourselves.

How did you organize the pieces in this collection? Just by what felt right, chronologically by when they were written, or something else? Was it difficult to settle on?

For the most part, much of the collection is chronological and a reflection of my mindset at the time of the book’s writing. We are all, in many ways, just stories that haven’t ended yet. This story is mine, and so I hope the reader will see some progression as I worked and wrote through some of the hardest months of my life. There are recognizable arcs in all things, all you have to do is look for them.

This is clearly going to be some personal poetry. How did you select poems for this collection, and otherwise leave them out of others, such as your first poetry book for example?

Generally speaking, especially with poems, I tend to try to write between 150 to 200 pages of work and then cut them down so that I’m able to weed out any that I’m not feeling especially bullish about. This book was a little different in that I didn’t cut nearly as many as I have in the past, because I wanted to keep the tone of the expression intact. While this might mean there are some that are a little too introspective and personal for the reader to fully connect with, I hope everyone is able to appreciate what I was going for in leaving less on the cutting room floor than I have in the past.

What kind of tones should we expect? Is it all devastatingly depressive or are there happy or upbeat poems as well?

That’s the weird thing about poetry, isn’t it? It really does depend entirely on which poem you happen to be reading. I know I’m not the most cheery of writers (this has been pointed out to me a time or two before), so I’m sure no one will be surprised that the contents are a bit somber. But I had moments in writing the book that I think might surprise some folks, as I dabbled here and there in a little more oddity, dark humor, and wistfulness than I have in the past. I like to think that might be a reflection of artistic growth, but then again maybe it’s little more than an obvious sign of a fracturing and uncertain artist. That, I suppose, will be up to the reader to decide.

Who hurt you enough to inspire these poems? Can we harass them if we figure it out?

I think that’s better left alone. The people that are reflected in these poems are less a full picture and more a reflection of a moment in time, as I came to terms with the fact that I had to let go of the memory of them just as a ship must release an anchor that is causing it to sink. In the end, these poems aren’t people, they are just poems and words on a page.

How do your experiences writing poetry, short stories, and novels compare?

There is a deep relief that comes with writing poetry that isn’t necessarily shared by the short story and novel writing I tend to do, or at least not in the same form. While in novels, and even short stories, I’m able to really poke and dig at some themes, exploring them through spiraling lives and emotions, world-building and dialogue, my poetry is and will always be a bit more of what I guess you might call the release of a long-held breath. An instant of art reflected in the instant of creation. While the short stories and novels are explorations of something I find I enjoy exploring, my poetry is much more an act of saying something I deeply need to say.

What are your thoughts on where poetry is at in the greater literature space, and with today's consumers?

To be honest, I’m very much detached from the current trends in poetry and its creation. I read a fair number of poets from time to time, but for the most part they lived more than a couple decades in the past. I don’t think I’ve read much of anyone more current than Mary Oliver in the last year or two, and it has been a hot minute since she was in her hayday. I can’t say I particularly care for the rise of Instagram poets and their heights of literary greatness that come with writing little more than two to three lines of navel-gazing simplicities, but I suppose even that is enjoyed by someone. There are great poets out there, there always will be, but as with all things I will always be a little bit annoyed at what it is that takes up the majority of our bandwidth and is reflected in popular culture.

Does the agonizing march of time ever stop?

Yes. But when it does, we’ll realize that we wish it would go on a little while longer anyway.

What do you hope people take away from this book?

That art matters. That resilience doesn’t always look the way you think it might. That it is okay to feel hurt by the things that hurt you. That it is better to let go of something that is gone than it is to hold onto something that was never really there. And that life is hard and it’s okay to feel like you just can’t do it all anymore, but, if you do keep going anyway, there are more than enough things in the world to make the trial feel like it’s worth it- if you let them.