Interview | The creative arts - Joan Hambidge talks to Michelle Betty

JH: Dear Michèle, congratulations on this important book on the different ranges of creative scholarship.

1 The Creative Arts on Practice, Making & Meaning (Dryad Press) is an interesting compendium analysing the intersection between the creative arts in all its forms. How did you and Sally Ann Murray, poet and academic, conceptualise this?

MB: The idea to create a book composed of a selection of essays by various academics was something I conceptualised over 18-24 months ago. I wanted to stretch Dryad Press and begin to publish work that was outside the realms of what we normally publish, which is poetry collections. I have a personal interest in books of essays, Adrienne Rich, Louise Glück, being among my favourites -  but I had never come across a selection that featured South African writers. The form and shape of the book was discussed with both Sally Ann Murray, and I moulded and developed the idea in a 2023 funding application to the National Arts Council.  Sally Ann supported the funding application with appropriate reference letters. In the first quarter of 2023, I received news that the funding application was successful, and work on the book began in earnest.

2 Visual arts, music, literature, podcasting, performance, dance, WhatsApp as teaching tool. How does this shed light – as you write – on the relationship between imagination and “discipline”?

MB: Imagination provides the inspiration and originality required to produce creative work. It ignites the “spark “ required to conceptualise works of art across any artistic genre. But it is discipline in practice, that channels the creativity into measurable or tangible outcomes. It is a symbiotic relationship, where creativity and imagination and discipline work together, enhancing and complementing each other, in order to produce meaningful and impactful expressions of human experience.

3 Please comment on the riveting work of cover art by Henrietta Scholtz (On Humankind i) – walnut ink and charcoal on paper.

MB: When I sat down to conceptualise the cover, I engaged with Ashraf Jamal (a visual arts critic and lecturer who wrote an essay for the book on the life and work of Ernest Mancoba) on his thoughts on an appropriate artist for the cover design. He intuitively suggested Henrietta Scholtz. Henrietta is a self-taught visual artist based in Johannesburg, who has exhibited her work in many group shows and festivals. The work on the cover is part of a two-part meditation on what it means to be a ‘self’ within a body created by those who have come before. It is an archaeology of the self, influenced by the Cradle of Humankind. In Henrietta’s words, “we are process as we live and breathe everyday within our bodies, communities and geographies. We are renewing and regenerating and decaying. From flesh to bone to dust, we continue the creative process of the physical, historical, geographical, ancestral and temporal.” Immediately I saw Henrietta’s artworks, I knew that they would meld intimately with our thought processes for the book itself. And they do that in a uniquely meaningful, soulful and human way.

 

4 In your book we see the names of  T. S. Eliot and Helen Vendler. John Hollander alongside Taylor Swift. Carol Ann Duffy versus Robert Lowell. I view this as meta-modernist approach and the incessant search for a new discourse blending the popular with the old school.  Comment.

MB: there is an interesting trend in contemporary literature – a fusion of traditional and popular elements  - that creates a dialogue between the past and the present. An inclusivity. This blending of cultures (or what you refer to as a meta-modernist approach) reflects a cultural landscape where boundaries between different forms of expression are becoming increasingly blurred. This idea is embraced in the book when you read essays like that of Stephanus Muller, who writes on the collaborative nature of artistic practice and the benefits that can be harnessed by embracing a collaborative approach  - the juxtaposition of styles and perspectives that each person brings to the project allows for a more dynamic and creative end piece that also appeals to a larger segment of readership or viewership.

5 David Lehman who wrote a wonderful essay on postmodernism is quoted as well. This book reflects the movement to meta-modernism and serendipities. 

http://jacketmagazine.com/04/lehman-postmod.html

Simon van Schalkwyk reflects on the writer as reader and all the different reader discourses (reception theory).

In his conclusion he states that he recognizes the slippery significance of Language (Derrida) versus the referential aspect of language (Eco). (and draws his own conclusion : language thrown back at its abusers as looking through a glass darkly …)

Did you intend to make readers aware of the problems theorists are grappling with at the moment?

MB: In approaching various writers to contribute to the book, we created a detailed brief with suggestions as to what form, broadly, the essays should take and the general focus area of the transformative nature of creative practice. We made suggestions as to what might be of interest to various authors based on their own focus areas of work and research. However, the ultimate format of the essays and the detailed content of what was covered in the essays was left to each author to develop. In so far as Simon’s essay was concerned, we knew that he would be tackling the difficulties of reading the avant garde, but the theoretical framework that was ultimately tackled in the essay, was Simon’s own creation.

6 The refrain of uncertainty and pain is apparent post-Covid in most of the texts. Meg Vandermerwe  and Annel Pieterse reflect on new teaching practices. How do you see the interplay between teaching and research?

MB: Teaching and research have a somewhat symbiotic relationship: essentially, teaching involves imparting knowledge while research focuses on creating new knowledge. In order to enrich the learning experience for students, lecturers incorporate research findings and methodologies, which equip them with critical thinking skills that they can then impart to learners. Innovation and creativity are driven by research, which influences and affects how new teaching practices mould and develop.

7 The book also reflects on political and social issues, for instance, podcasts and storytelling (Annel Pieterse) and the arrest of Willem Breytenbach after Deon Wiggett’s podcast. Here creative work touches on the complex issue of the social sciences and ethical issues when a controversial “text” is published or broadcast.

The role of Pieterse as mentor here re-defines the role of mentor and mentee, supervisor and student.  Will we have to re-define these roles?

Any comments?

MB: the publication of controversial texts within the social sciences often raises complex ethical issues that require navigation. Authors and learners/students have a responsibility to ensure that their work is presented ethically, respecting the rights of individuals and communities and adhering to professional standards and guidelines. Annel’s essay addresses many of the issues a student may encounter in producing work of this kind: race, gender, sexuality and religion are all factors that must be carefully balanced and respected during the production phase of a podcasting project; upholding standards of accuracy and fairness when discussing controversial issues is key to contributing to responsible and constructive exploration of complex issues and the teacher as mentor in addressing these aspects is central to Annel’s essay.

8 writing queerness by vangile gantsho is extremely relevant. Please comment on the new pronouns in queer writing. 

MB: The emergence of new pronouns in queer writing is reflective of a broader movement towards inclusivity and recognition of diverse gender identities outside of the traditional binary “male” and “female”. For me, it highlights the dynamic nature of language and the ability of language to evolve in order to remain relevant. It offers validation to those who identify outside of the realms of traditional gender stereotypes and provides an opportunity for a more inclusive and approachable space for all people, regardless of their gender identity. vangile’s essay is a must read for anyone interested in the evolution of queer theory and her reference list in particular, provides a unique opportunity to access relevant and authoritative texts in this area.

9 Ashraf Jamal writes on the life and art of Ernest Mancoba. Making the invisible visible.

And understanding yourself (self) through the life of another. Comment please on this excellent text reflecting on erasure and liminality.

MB: One of the aims of this book is to invite the reader to engage with the aspects of the essays as they may relate to their own experiences, and in this way gain deeper insight into their own identity. In the case of the Jamal essay, Ashraf challenges the reader to re-examine conventional notions of identity and belonging: expand your understanding of diverse experiences (in this case the life and art of Ernest Mancoba) argues Jamal, and in this way confront your own biases regarding the invisible visible (to borrow from your phrase). So one begins to appreciate the transformative power of art in shaping perceptions and narratives. For myself, the writing in this essay as it applies to aspects of erasure (of the self) are vital and profound.

 

10 Lliane Loots writes on the dance curator as archivist. The curator as mediator and collaborator. Phillippa Yaa de Villiers escapes through dancing, drama and poetry from the betrayal of her parents who lied about her adoption. And Masande Ntshanga reflecting on the dystopian past, present and future.

Will we ever heal in this broken country?

MB: Loots’s essay on the curating in the field of dance and its wide ranging impact offers to the reader an opportunity to understand the impact of curatorship. However, its content applies not only in the field of dance, but to many aspects of curriculum curation across the university. Decolonisation of the curriculum has become a common term that many do not fully grasp. Many of these essays in this book, come into their own when read alongside the valuable and informative bibliographies that follow the essays. For a deeper understanding of curation, refer to the references in the Loots essay of Ben Okri and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong, amongst others. For any reader wishing to delve deeper into queer theory and the Black Divine, consider vangile gantsho references to bell hooks and Audre Lorde, or on poetry, read Vonani Bila’s references in his essay to Augusto Boal and Angifi Dladla. One of the means of healing is possible through the development and refinement of knowledge, and this is offered through the associated texts referred to in almost all of the essays in this book.

Please comment.

11 Any views on the loneliness of the long distance editor and proofreader?

MB: The editorial process is by its nature, lonely and this provides unique challenges for any editor. It requires long hours of focused concentration and fine attention to detail -  many hours poring over detailed manuscripts or, in this case, essays, without the benefit of real time or face-to-face input. It requires making judgement calls on aspects relating to grammar, clarity and coherence and a certain amount of grappling with ambiguity and subjectivity in the decision making process. However, over time, this self-reliance moulds into strength and a deep ability to trust one’s instinct and judgement on a text. This is uniquely exhilarating. Also, the satisfaction of contributing towards the production of meaningful content and the dissemination of knowledge and ideas is unique to the editorial process and something I value deeply.

 

Michèle Betty

29 August 2024

Joan Hambidge

16 May 2024

Interview | Joan Hambidge with Ron Irwin | 2023

Congratulations on the publication of your second novel My side of the Ocean. I started reading the manuscript last year after 1 in the morning and completed this compelling book at 4.30 in the morrow.

 

1. Flat Water Tuesday was your debut in 2013, a novel reflecting on male culture and rowing. Is this novel semi-autobiographical?

 

Yes, very much so. Most of my work has some basis in my own life, but Flat Water Tuesday is really a novelisation of my experience as a rower at an elite American boarding school...and navigating life a decade or so after graduation. It took me quite a long time to write because I found it difficult to return to some of the events of that time. The people who are making the film of Flat Water Tuesday have found a way to recreate the kinetic experience of rowing in a fast boat using new technology, which is very exciting. I also think that modern readers and audiences are ready for realistic movies about the complexities of teenage life and how the challenges of our formative years shape us as adults.

 

My Side of the Ocean is less autobiographical but it does address issues that have been on my mind for some time. The main premise of the novel--a woman who comes face to face with a shark close to shore while she is swimming--is based upon a story I was told by a South African paddle boarder. I think the most important part of the novel is exploring how people react to the sudden but sure realisation that life is finite. I wanted to explore what happens when this ceases to be just an academic question and really gets brought home to a character. All of us have this moment in life, when it becomes crystal clear we are not on earth forever and we need to react to this knowledge. All of us understand the concept of death, but there is a time when we have to accept the reality of death, and that’s a whole 'nother ball of wax, as they say.

 

 

2. You grew up in Buffalo, New York and are currently a senior lecturer in Film and Media Studies. You also worked as a freelance documentary filmmaker and journalist. You also completed two MAs: one in Creative Writing; the other in Literary Theory. A PhD in Media Studies.

 

Different hats, so to speak. How do you navigate your different roles a teacher in branding, mentor for many students and your work as novelist?

 

I like to say that there is no greater preparation for creating popular fiction than branding, which requires a kind of dramatic flair (to say the least!). And teaching is almost a kind of liberation from the rigours of writing and rewriting... I suppose I could teach almost anything and feel a kind of relief from the exhausting demands of producing a novel.

 

I also think that the modern novelist has to be a student of media: video, social media, advertising, personal brand building, blogging, podcasting, radio, you name it. The days of being a reclusive author living in a bunker like JD Salinger or in a cabin like Cormac McCarthy are over. Even Cormac is now giving interviews to major outlets about his recent fiction. And he has to do this. Bret Easton Ellis's new smash novel The Shards is based upon a popular podcast he started during Covid and critics say it represents his best work since American Psycho, which was published in 1990.

Today, unlike when I started, we have young writers building their own followings online and writing for them, producing novel-length work in just a month and self-publishing for thousands of eager followers. We have new voices demanding attention and of course every single novel competes for eyeballs (horrible use of the word) against the seductive pleasures of the phone and unlimited options on the living room flat screen. Social media is now where most people learn about new novels. And now we have AI in the form of ChatGPT and variations of it, which could be a massive transformative moment. So an awareness of how media works is really part of every creative person's life now. The same goes for artists of every kind, as well as musicians, salespeople and any kind of craftsman or designer. We are all in the same boat. If we want our work to be seen and bought, the use of different media platforms is the way to do it. Even graffiti artists are in on it.

 

 

3. J.M. Coetzee was a mentor. What implicit advice did this Master of Writing gave you?

 

Prof. Coetzee was the most meticulous and disciplined writer I have ever encountered. When I first met him, I expected a much more expansive type of person, but he really was a dedicated and tireless worker. He had a kind of iron discipline that I do not think I possess, very few people possess it. His capacity to revise and revise again was unbelievable. He demanded a kind of meticulous attention to the craft and all of its sometimes mundane details that every writer needs to develop in one way or another. It was the daily rigour of working with him that I remember most.

 

 

4. Your new novel could be read as an episodic novel using the eye of a shark to tell the story:

 

Eye: Sharks have an almost 360-degree field of vision and see ten times better than humans. Contrary to popular belief, the eye of a great white shark is not black. It is a very dark blue. Colored Pencil Drawing (one of many), from Stella Wright’s Private Collection, Cape Town (13)

 

The main character and narrator of the novel is a displaced American artist named Stella Wright. Each chapter begins with an artistic representation of a different kind of shark endemic to the waters of South Africa that is a recreation of Stella's work. There is also a short description of the shark (or an anatomical part of the shark). The shark images and the descriptions of them illustrate Stella's evolving relationship with sharks, from one of fear to one of fascination and acceptance. Each shark rendition and description tells the reader a little more about the main character's relationship not just with sharks, but with the possibility of death itself, and by that same token, the possibility of life.

 

There are about 440 species of sharks in the world and South Africa is home to about a quarter of them, representing all major families. These waters are without a doubt one of the great havens for the animal. And humans have a very tenuous relationship with sharks. To many, a shark represents a kind of mindless death. There is something very primal about our fear of being torn apart in the water...maybe even pre-primal. Yet, from another perspective, sharks are an important and crucial part of life on earth. They have been here hundreds of millions of years before us and will probably see humankind off to extinction relatively soon. From their point of view, our experiences and struggles are exceedingly temporary.

 

 

5. I versus eye. How do you see the implications of the so-called multi-focal novel?

 

Stella sees the world in a certain way at the start of the novel, and sees it in a far different way at the end. As an artist she can imagine herself, and representations of herself, which is interesting. But she also has to imagine a new reality for herself after a traumatic experience in the water with a massive shark that leads her into an affair. Part of having a secret affair is the desire to see one's self in a different light, to briefly step into a new reality or experience a reality you might have had if you didn't make certain choices in life. Stella is an artist who enjoys the unlimited support of an adoring husband, but realises this is not enough, that she needs to return to a more authentic existence. This awareness comes to her after the abrupt realisation that her life could be cut short at any time, and she would have left an important part of it unlived.  

 

 

6. Melville’s Moby Dick is an implicit intertext. I recall you listening to Harold Bloom’s lecture on YouTube whilst writing the novel. Comment.

 

Moby Dick is of course a far more ambitious novel than mine, yet we still see the idea of returning to the sea, of deadly animals there being a focus of concern, attention, and ultimately obsession. Ahab wants to literally destroy the white whale; Stella wants to get over the fear a great white shark has instilled in her by painting and drawing it. I think also the affair she enters into with another person who loves the water--Ben, a surfer--is illustrative of how two people use whatever is at hand to conquer their fears.

 

Melville was playing with an idea that essay-like examinations of men at work on the sea would yield a greater understanding of the nature of being human, and the nature of obsession. Tolstoy has similar asides in War and Peace about combat and family. Stella's asides in the novel about painting and teaching offer us insight into her own state of mind.

 

To use rather awkward contemporary language, Ahab is the ultimate trauma survivor, just as Stella is. Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick is an obsession to right the injustice of the past, to enquire into the damage done to him, to smooth out a massive shift in his own reality when the hunter briefly became the hunted. The Pequod sinks under Ahab's obsession, as does Stella's marriage and her home, which faces the wrath of a Cape storm. Both novels end with the final destruction of the previous reality, and the possibility of survival into a new existence. The last page of Moby Dick (before the Epilogue), I feel, is one of the greatest endings in western literature.

 

 

7. The perspective of a female narrator/focalisator is quite daring for a male writer. But you convinced me that you understand the psyche of a woman.

 

Coetzee also accomplished this with Elizabeth Costello. How did you enter the mind of a woman?

 

I find that in fiction the actual voice that comes to you from the character genders itself. Writing from a heterosexual woman's view is difficult at one level: men tend to internalise their thoughts and feelings and especially their fears, whereas more than one woman reader has told me this character would probably share her experiences and her trauma with other women. But she engages in a secret affair with a younger man, which is forbidden on two levels due to his age and her being married. So Stella is stuck with her decisions and cannot confide in many friends about her experience. She is also based upon a driven, rather prickly artist that I know in real life, who eschews most rational forms of female friendship but is quite demanding and tactical in her romantic adventures.

 

One editor suggested that perhaps this artistic woman would not want to leave a wealthy older (but not much older) husband who adores her and buys her whatever she wants, including a gorgeous studio in New York. My experience is that quite a few people would seriously consider leaving comfortable relationships for dangerous and exciting but doomed relationships. I think this is an all-too-human impulse.

 

 

8. Your novel deals with the complexities of the modern campus. Rhodes Must Fall, Fees Must Fall, etcetera. Could we read this as a modern campus novel? For instance, Vladímír by Julia May Jonas criticising the woke culture on campuses.

 

I am not sure I criticise "woke" culture on campus, but there are amusing academic peccadillos that I shine a light upon. I have been involved with UCT for almost my entire adult life. I have worked in the English, Commerce and Media Studies departments. And there are more political currents I discover on campus that I find amusing and funny than really disturbing or worthy of fictional representation. But the fact is that instructors are under a great deal of pressure to conform to a fairly rigid set of rules that do seem arbitrary and ever- changing from one perspective.

 

Stella teaches studio art, and supervising creative work is much different than supervising an academic project. I have supervised a few dozen creative MA degrees for the UCT Centre for Creative Writing and there is almost always a point where the relationship becomes slightly personal, where one is put in the position where students might need to talk about uncomfortable subjects that are routine in fiction: divorce, addiction, infidelity, violence, lust and many other things that one cannot avoid if one is going to write about reality that adults face. All of these are potentially tricky territories for an instructor and there has to be a level of comfort and mutual trust between the student and the instructor when one is talking about them. The current campus climate makes this rather difficult, perhaps rightly so in some cases. On the other hand, these subjects cannot be avoided if the student is going to get their money's worth from the project.

 

 

9. Or a modern love story with a woman experiencing liminalities: Ben in Perth, Jack in New York.

What is the story-line for you? Why the names Stella and Mandla?

 

This novel looks at the somewhat precarious life that thousands of expatriates like me live here in Cape Town. We can fly in and out at will, and a good many of us are here for the sun, the wine and the beaches. Whole swathes of the Cape shores are dominated by bungalows and vacation homes owned by people in the UK, America, Germany and so forth. Their attachment to the country is minimal, and when one is enjoying life on that side of the city it is easy to feel one has entered into a comfortably precarious zone where people can be unconcerned by the tribulations of life here in the Cape. Stella starts out like this, but the realities of water shortage, crime (suffered by her gardener, Mandla), and the gritty beauty of the place make her want to know more. Her husband, a New York financier, has no such interest. To him, Cape Town is a place of dwindling financial possibility and gorgeous views. But for Stella, and for many others, Cape Town is much more than that. The country itself offers her a chance of self-renewal.

 

And yes, Africa has always been seen as a place where people from overseas can come and reinvent themselves, often at the expense of the locals. I remember reading an essay that explored the idea that white Europeans are often presented in films and novels as arriving in Africa on an airplane, and the ability to fly away from what happens "on the ground" is a key feature of the outsider experience. Think of Out of Africa or West With the Night: the image of the colonial white person behind the stick of an airplane flitting over the endless vastness of Africa is powerful and troubling, although now they are simply sitting in the front of an Airbus, I suppose. But many people choose to reinvent themselves here as more concerned about their fellow human beings, more in touch with nature and the sea, and indeed their own art and self-expression.

 

The names were chosen because my wife worked for a very successful South African artist named Stella Shawzin years ago, and I once employed a multi-skilled builder called Mandla, which means "strength" in Zulu.

 

 

10. In Julia May Jonas’s novel a fire destructs a house and the only copy of the narrator’s novel. Here a storm lurks:

We lost another door at around 3 a.m. The framework simply tore out of the walls and then fell down with a splash into the flooded lounge, exposing the living room and the kitchen to the storm and the pitiless ocean. A single sheet of water lay over the pool, the terrace, the living room. The outside furniture was submerged. Water ran furiously down the stairs. The house was rocking back and forth. While Mandla continued bringing paintings and tools into the relative safety of the garage, Jack and I climbed up to the bedroom. He had brought up plastic bags. “Put in whatever is valuable.” (164)

Why this paranoia or angoisse in modern novels? Does it represent the Zeitgeist?

 

I think many modern novels are concerned with themes of uprooting and transience, as well as the impressions of foreigners in strange lands. I am not sure if it really is a "paranoia" but instead a focus on what lies behind the kind of massive change that is sometimes part of growth. Annie Proulx's novel The Shipping News is about a man who goes up to Newfoundland and "finds" himself, and embedded in this narrative is a house that is literally anchored to the rocks it has been built upon. At the end of the novel it becomes "unanchored" and literally blows apart, which represent a kind of coda to a tragic family history of abuse. I had that in mind, as well as the destruction of the Pequod, when I wrote the end of My Side of the Ocean...not least because so many houses on the coasts of Cape Town do indeed suffer enormous storm damage. While I was writing the novel, in fact, a massive storm hit the Camps Bay area and practically wrote the scene for me.

 

Stella's house is actually based upon a real house that was owned by friends of mine in the publishing world. I did change some things about it to fit the narrative, but the problems of living right next to the sea were the problems my friends faced: everything rusts, the wood gets sodden, the foundations of the house seem tenuous, and the wind and the waves are a constant noise--sometimes reassuring, sometimes frightening. The “problems” of immense privilege, I concede.

The main character also, after the major storm, has to come to grips with what happens to her gardener, Mandla, whose much simpler home is also destroyed. Without revealing too much about this, I can say that this scene was taken from reality...we were at one point trying to help people were living in sea caves outside of town. This experience has haunted me.

 

We in South Africa have the biggest divide of wealth in the world. Our fashionable beach houses and mansions are built near shacks and temporary dwellings. It is very hard to reconcile this, but fiction offers a means to begin to do so.

 

 

11. Reflect on the meaning of art in this novel. And how do you see the future of the modern novel?

 

In this novel, art is certainly a tool the main character uses to address her own trauma, but also a means of measuring her authenticity. Much of what the novel is about is the artist's attempt to recapture a sense of her former, more authentic, grittier self. Art is a means through which she also traces her feelings about sharks, and the many different sharks we have here ranging from smaller pyjama sharks all the way to whale sharks, which were first named here in Cape Town. This evolving relationship is of course her relationship with herself, her life, and the possibility (and inevitability) of death.

 

I think the modern novel is going to be greatly affected by technology, in terms of how we read it, how we write it, certainly how we promote it, and how readers find out about it and purchase it. Many of my readers will download My Side of the Ocean into their phones or "mobile devices" (surely a Swiss army knife is also a "mobile device"? But I digress). Many readers will learn about my novel on Instagram or Facebook. None of this stuff existed when I first started writing, and now they are as much a part of book publishing as paper and ink.

 

I also think that voices that have often been backgrounded will find bigger audiences. It is now possible for writers and publishers with very limited means to reach a very wide audience, and for the first time possibly ever there is a mainstream desire for novels from the former periphery. It is interesting to see that JM Coetzee has decided to release his new novel in Spanish first, with a focus on non-English speaking regions, and only later in English. My Side of the Ocean is being published in South Africa first, unlike Flat Water Tuesday, which came out in the United States months before it was distributed here. In the last twenty years I have seen South African voices eagerly accepted overseas and, most importantly, in their own country. It is incredibly exciting.

Learn more about Ron Irwin and his work here: Home | Ron Irwin

 

My Side of the Ocean is available in bookstores across South Africa and online here: 

 

My Side of the Ocean/ A Novel - Exclusive Books

My Side Of The Ocean (Paperback) - Loot.co.za

 

© Joan Hambidge

 

Interview | with Linda Ann Strang | 2022

Linda Ann Strang – Star Reverse. Dryad Press, 2022.

Interview @ Exclusive books, Cavendish, 7 April 2022

 

Hierdie aangrypende en slim debuut aktiveer Julia Kristeva se Black Sun – Depression and Melancholia (1987) en daar is vele toespelings op sterre en sterkonstellate. Van ou kennis (soos die Tarot) en mitologie vind ons in hierdie bundel wat imponeer met die uitsonderlike taalgevoeligheid. Ook die multiverse word ontgin: die idee van verskillende universums wat tegelykertyd bestaan.

1. You have written a compelling volume of poetry. Are you aware that Johann de Lange published a volume Die meeste sterre is lankal dood en Joan Hambidge a volume Nomadiese sterre. Jungian syncronicity this obsession with stars before lockdown?

Thank you. The short answer is that I was not aware, no. I’ll make a point of reading them. 

 

The collection had a different title, Blood on the Sextant, but I decided to call it Star Reverse in early 2019, when I noticed how I could order a meaningful pattern in the poems. That’s also when I started realising that ‘Nagasaki Deconstructed’ was a poem that could tie all the others together. ‘Nagasaki Deconstructed’ can be seen as an atom-like poem from which all the others concatenate and spin, in a story that is told backwards.

 

The title was going to be Star Averse, briefly, which is a quotation from one of the poems, but then the idea of Star Reverse occurred to me, by phonic association, a version with more reverberation. From there it all began to fall into place, quite strikingly.

 

Synchronicity, panpsychism, morphic resonance! They are all intriguing theories but who knows? Stars and planets as images / tropes / symbols / leitmotifs, appear in so many poetic works. Some of my favourites include Ben Okri’s ‘And if you should leave me’, Mxolisi Nyezwa’s ‘Quiet Place’, Thom Gunn’s ‘My Sad Captains’, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon’s ‘Bop: The North Star’, D.M. Thomas’s ‘Lorca’, and Bruce Smith’s ‘Devotion: Redshift’. Smith’s poem first appeared in Tin House and was later republished in the Pushcart Prize Anthology series. Looking back, I think that his poem has influenced some of my more recent writing, probably subconsciously. 

2. How do you understand the multiverse? Versions of different realities?

 

You’re referring to the poem ‘Everything’s Real Somewhere, They Say’ from Star Reverse. I can’t remember when I first heard of the ‘Many Worlds Theory,’ with which I associate the multiverse. It was probably through reading speculative fiction. 

 

The concept is so appealing – imagine every possible course that one’s life could have taken actually occurring in alternative realities. This would be the opposite of the ‘unbearable lightness of being,’ as defined by Milan Kundera. If the multiverse is understood as everything being real somewhere, then no tragedy completely defines one’s life – some other versions of you are happy, albeit in other universes. 

 

I admit that I understand the concept in literary rather than scientific terms. 

3. I find the reference to Chagall relevant for the understanding of your poems: spirituality and love.

 

You’re referring to this poem from Star Reverse:

 

Marc and a New Theory of Moment

 

Lovers do levitate as depicted by Chagall,

but only after a spectacular accident:

a motorcycle crash, a train off track,

an airplane exploding on impact, perhaps.

After the bad aster comes a circus hush

as the lovers rise above the rest of us.

 

If you don’t blink you can see them smiling

on a trapeze as trite as a V of geese. 

They gaze enraptured at the flow of moments, 

taste angel food cake, wear long velvet gloves, 

play Chinese checkers, fast and loose, swinging 

on gamely for the sake of love – and, carelessly, 

they swear that until death do them part

they will live in mid-air.

 

Then the lion tamer loses his head. 

A scream flaps away with the tent.

The lovers fall as we fret. 

The lovers fall. There’s no net.

 

The spectators forsake all silence – 

and the helicopter doctors come in 

with their coats, and their goats, and their violins.

 

Chagall often depicts goats and violins in his art, and, for me, those are key images for understanding the collection.

 

Obviously, such images are open to various cultural interpretations. Although, personally, I associate violins with spirituality; in folklore violins and fiddles have oftentimes been seen as leading people to dance and therefore sin – instruments of the devil. But for me they represent beauty.

 

Goats, on the other hand, are a powerful symbol that can be interpreted variously too. Historically, in Europe, they’ve represented all things satanic and evil, or in terms of rampant sexuality and fertility (in the morally neutral sense), they’re also associated with Pan, and, in the purely Western sense, they invoke the ancient Greek ‘goat song,’ tragoidia, which is what we now know as tragedy. Certainly, Chagall’s combining images of goats and violins invites the ‘goat song’ and the ‘temptation to sin’ interpretation, simultaneously. If one reads Star Reverse as a coherent narrative work of interconnected poems, it is a tragedy.

4. Tell us something about Chinese Checkers and games as a variation of Halma.

 

I use the concept of ‘Chinese Checkers’ in ‘Mark and a New Theory of Moment’ as shorthand for – um – any trivial pursuit. I’d never in my life heard of Halma, so thank you for that. I looked it up and there are some poetic possibilities there. To be honest, I don’t like board games, though I enjoyed Snakes and Ladders and Cluedo when I was a child. In 2019, as a concession to family members who do like board games, I bought one called ‘Pandemic’. Unsurprisingly, none of us want to play it anymore. 

 

But, of course, ‘Chinese checkers’ and similar tropes hint at the ludic thread running through the collection. Many of the poems are playful, flippant, irreverent, in the spirit of French feminism – the Medusa is laughing, as Hélène Cixous might say. 

 

As I’m sure you noticed, the star names forming each section are in reverse alphabetical order as a reference to the title of the collection. As a defamiliarization technique, I also moved from the most obscure star names at the beginning, to the more familiar ones at the end. The structure itself then generates meaning.

 

But there is no single view and perspectives vary. The connections between the sections and their titles are meant to be evocative, opening themselves to multiple interpretations; so, they are not necessarily supported by strict linear reasoning. 

My writing engages with feminist theory – mostly, but not exclusively, écriture feminine, as defined by Cixous. Consequently, in Star Reverse, broken patterns are preferred to complete ones; derangement take precedence over organised logic and there’s rupture over continuity. At the same time, playfulness and seriousness continually compete. While in the ordering of the poems there is some conventional thinking, it is a logic that is consciously subverted and disrupted.

5. And you also refer to the Tarot. I have different tarot packs. I consult the Morgan Greer for guidance. Yours?

 

Of course, one allusion in the polysemic title of the collection is to the star, reversed, as in a tarot reading. In the reversed position the star indicates disillusionment and despair, among other things. There is an astrological meaning too – planetary retrogrades – which is when planets appear to be moving backwards, inviting us to reassess the past.  

 

There are so many beautiful tarot decks, such as ‘Luna Somnia,’ for example, which, incidentally, is reminiscent of the lovely cover of your Nomadiese Sterre. I have Brigit Esselmont’s Everyday Tarot. I enjoy dabbling in tarot and astrology, I must admit. Conversely, I also love science, even though I deplore the damage caused by some scientists. So, every time I consult the cards, I condemn myself for being superstitious. You could say I’m conflicted. But, in the collection, the swirling together of competing discourses is an intentional feminist device.

6. The only difference between a geode and a nodule is that a geode has a hollow cavity, and a nodule is solid. Please tell us more.

 

You’re referring to the line: “No geode is bursting / with magnificent God”. I haven’t thought of nodules in terms of being solid as opposed to a cavity. I tend to associate the term with the nodes and internodes on plant stems and, root-wise, with nitrogen fixing. But, yes, in terms of studying rocks, there are nodules, which are lump-like. The word geode is just so much more evocative – Ge, the personification of Earth, and the pun on ‘ode’. Then there’s that wonderful word ‘geodesy’.

 

Structurally, geodes are nature’s pleasant surprises, and lovely things to use in metaphors, so unremarkable on the outside with all that beauty hidden within. As far as I know, nodules don’t provide an aesthetically pleasing and surprising display of crystals. A geode is a womblike structure, which is relevant to the poem ‘Visions in a Drought’.

 

Visions in a Drought

 

My ex-husband and my ex-father 

are engaged to the rain gauge. 

 

Today I have become a granadilla,

withered, my skin pitted and cracked.

 

Even the agave has given up. 

There are no mescaline epiphanies

 

in the Kalahari, no amusing mirages

in the ochre above. No geode is bursting

 

with magnificent God. The sky tastes of dust.

Paint is peeling all over the desert,  

 

a bitter pill – my placebo for love. 

Caprivi, strip because everything’s naked,

 

the sun’s carnal knowledge

in the corps of our bones. 

 

The terrified stars see their long hair on fire, 

their tresses fall on the earth in ash.

 

My salt rose is burning. 

My armpits are charred. 

 

Agave Maria, the poison bush weeps, 

the lions pick up my bones like sticks. 

 

Forgive them, my lavender snakebite, 

my Cleopatra pitter patter. 

 

Despite the night ocean, 

gelignite shattering the trachea, tripe,

 

offal – jackal benedictions,

please give them respite.

7. Betelgeuse, also called Alpha Orionis, second brightest star in the constellation Orion, marking the eastern shoulder of the hunter. Its name is derived from the Arabic word bat al-jawzāʾ, which means “the giant's shoulder.” Betelgeuse is one of the most luminous stars in the night.  This – according to the internet – and you reflect on the importance of stars for astronomers and astrologists. How do we understand this? 

 

This is Tracy Shaw from her weekly newsletter:

Dear Reader,

My computer was out of action, so I wasn’t able to send out my usual New Moon reflection on Wednesday.  As the New Moon offers us inspiration not only for the day but also for the lunar month, I am sending it out anyway.

 

The New Moon in Pisces conjunct Jupiter on Wed 2^nd offered us a magical reminder that there is an intangible dimension to Life.  A dimension that is as real as the realm of concrete reality.  A dimension that transcends logic and reason, but is accessible to feeling knowing, intuition, imagination and the heart-mind.  A dimension we most often sense when we slow down and become quiet… spend time being in nature… immerse ourselves in poetry or beautiful music… sit and reflect besides water… meditate or any of the many other ways of coming back to our essential self.

 

When we touch into this timeless, wordless dimension, even for a moment, a peace, a healing, a feeling of wonder, gratitude may arise.  For a moment we sense that all is well, we are not alone and love is present.  The stresses, fears and challenges of our life don’t disappear, but they are not all that there is.

 

Pisces symbolises the at-oneness at all life.  So, when we touch into these moments, not only we benefit, we become a conduit for peace, healing, wonder and magic to flow into the world.  Likewise, when we hold the suffering of others in our heart, meditation or prayers, we are bringing the power of the inner, intangible realm to bear on outer situations. 

 

The presence of Jupiter heightens the expansive, positive energy of the New Moon, inviting us to have faith in the Pisces realm and its felt, intuitive realities.  To believe in the power of the heart, prayer and reaching out to others.  To keep hope alive, not hope as an abstract ideal or wishful thinking, but as hope that feeds acts of love, beauty, creativity and generosity… energises visions… fuels life-affirming action without attachment to outcomes.

 

This beautiful Pisces messages comes at a time of heightened tension on the world stage.  A tension that reflects the intensity of the Mars conjunction to Pluto in Capricorn that has been building over the past weeks, culminating yesterday on the New Moon.  As Mars is powerful in Capricorn and Pluto intensifies the planetary energy it touches, this combination can manifest as brutal aggression or powerful acts of courage in meeting overwhelming odds.  These are the extremes.  Of course, there can be many other variations on the theme. 

 

Personally, it is a reminder to each of us to look at our own reactivity, unconscious anger, polarising projections and dysfunctional avoidance of confrontation. Venus is also in Capricorn with Mars and Pluto calling with peace, negotiation and accord.  However, she is having to work hard to embody, protect and stand by what she values.  We, too, are called to commit to doing the same in our daily lives.

 

So, the cosmos is speaking right now to our human capacity to walk with both feet firmly on the ground, while being guided by the truths of the heart and the sacred wondrousness of Life.

Wishing you the gifts of inner peace, healing and compassion for yourself, others and our suffering world, this Pisces Moon month. 

J: I have a chart from her included in Nomadiese sterre.

 

L: I love it that you used an astrological chart in your work, and I love that you mention Pisces. I am a Pisces. You’re a Virgo, I believe.

To go back a bit, what you say is completely correct, the name Betelgeuse is derived from the Arabic word bat al-jawzā, which means “the giant's shoulder”, but Betelgeuse has been known by many names and there are conflicting accounts. According to The New World Encyclopaedia, for instance, the name Betelgeuse is a corruption of the Arabic yad al-jawzā, which means “hand of Orion”. European mistranslation in Medieval times led people to believe that the star was called ‘the armpit of Orion’. The various interpretations and explanations sounded pleasingly deranged to me, so, I placed some of my more surreal and experimental poems in that section. I confess that I also chose the name because of my fondness for the 1980s movie Beetlejuice, which is how Betelgeuse is commonly pronounced, of course.

 

It’s interesting that for centuries astronomy and astrology were one discipline and then, during the Enlightenment, the discourses separated, and astrology lost its scientific credibility. That aside, humans seem to have found stars and other night sky phenomena fascinating since the dawn of time. In cities, with all the electric light, we often forget what an overwhelming display the night sky provides. If you gaze at the sky in some remote corner of the Karoo, for instance, you can see what all the fuss is about. In the desert it isn’t difficult to associate the stars with all things distant and divine. I suppose this sounds like the opposite of immanence.

 

I feel compelled to add that I was influenced by watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos when I was a teenager. That was where I first learned many words from astronomy, such as ‘supernova’ and ‘redshift’. I think Sagan helped to popularize many scientific terms, inviting us into the poetry of astronomy. Incidentally, thinking of Johann de Lange, that’s where I first learned that when we look at the stars, we are looking at the past. Stars are ghosts, then.

 

8. Aokigahara, also known as the Sea of Trees, is a forest situated beside Mt Fuji in Japan; many people go to commit suicide there. Please comment.

 

I first became aware of Aokigahara by coincidence when I was reading about Mount Fuji. I feel drawn to Japanese culture because of the long history of women being respected as writers in that country. Women’s history – especially art history, and I mean ‘art’ in the broader sense – is a particular interest of mine – Herstory. You may have noticed that I also allude to The Tale of Genji in this collection, in ‘Seaward’. It can be argued that Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji was the first novel ever written.

 

That aside, the poem ‘Sea of Trees: Aokigahara’ foreshadows ‘Nagasaki Deconstructed’. The link between the poems suggests that ongoing emotional suffering in Japan may be traced back to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. I think it may have been in Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire that I read about a Japanese man killing himself after being insulted by post-war American occupiers. That stayed with me and indirectly found its way into my writing.

 

I wrote “Nagasaki Deconstructed” in 2006. Since the pandemic, however, my perceptions have changed and I understand the poem somewhat differently, with the concepts of ‘enveloped’ and ‘non-enveloped’ viruses gaining ascendency in my thinking. All corona viruses are in the ‘enveloped’ category, which gives the poem implications it didn’t have originally. So, meaning is a moving target and interpretation never ends.

 

9. Please read this riveting poem:

 

Nagasaki Deconstructed

 

~ after Yoko Danno

 

Mozart in a cherry

blossom, Sagami adorns

her hair with music.

 

Sei writes butterfly-

netting villanelles.

Flautist of the floating world,

 

Lady Ise kisses chiaroscuro,

long-necked lovers,

burnt sienna, water,

 

colour; then the bomb,

quaint as a catfish

hiccoughing an earthquake –

 

a cancer Chanel, a fell

message. This is how to fold

an envelope into everyone.