Tiff Dressen joined us live in the studio to read from and discuss her new book, Songs from the Astral Bestiary (lyric& Press, 2014). Many of the poems in her book are prefixed "Message:", and Tiff opened our discussion by reading a selection of these: Message: periodic, Message: I come to harvest light, and Message: a theory (song). Tiff's reading led us into a discussion of dreams and dreamscapes, as well as to a quote from the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard: "The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situation of our dreams." The conversation then turned to the topic of silence and an excerpt from an essay by Swiss writer Max Picard, who suggests that silence and words are of one texture. We then brought up the use of all-caps in parts of some poems, heard from Message:, and talked about language-creation myths, the act of naming, and poetry as a site where one can create one's own mythology. The conversation moved on to readings and reading out loud, and Tiff related an inspiring conversation with poet Hazel White about the poet creating a sacred space for the reader/listener.
After the top of the hour break, we talked about Tiff's use italics and the role of generative quotations from other writers in the creative process. We then learned that the Message poems were originally gathered together in a chapbook of their own, which led us to a discussion about the differences between the intimacy of the handmade chapbook and the more formal and persistent form of the book. With regard to her book, we discussed the extraordinary cover image, a painting by Fran Herndon. Tiff then read her book's final poem, In your hypoxia dreams, and touched on the lyric, dream imagery, Lorca, and Celan. We closed our discussion on the "we" that appears throughout Tiff's work.
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