ICYMI, Part XI
‘I was at a reading of Andy Young’s yet-to-be-completed manuscript, Museums of the Soon to Depart (since released by Carnegie Mellon University Press in 2024). Contemplating the title of her book, I envisioned a book of poems that explored a single museum, and decided on the project in your hands.’
Standing almost 3 years into the future, how do you feel about your original intent with this project? Have the goals been set & matched? Did you achieve what was meant to be or find that the result was out of your hands all along?
JP: I feel I accomplished and exceeded my goals with this book. It has everything I originally wanted, with more depth and complexity than I thought I had in me. BUT it's been far more than three years. It took me three years to write, but I took a break of five or six years halfway through, for no good reason. I need to work more consistently on my own projects, because I'm really happy with the results.
And from a reader's perspective, I was elated having a signed copy!
Some of the poems in this collection have left me with the energy of a moth trapped inside a light bulb. Not sure if you’ve seen ‘Tetro’, but Vincent Gallo’s portrayal of the disillusioned artist living above a theatre in Argentina has always given me comfort, until that particular scene. I need an escape plan, always. Your poem, ‘Restrained’, invokes that same spirit:
‘The noselatch needs adjusting
The noseband is too tight
Arms down, legs stiff, little agonies
Run across its back and shoulders’
Someone without knowledge of your recorded readings at the NOLA Sculpture Garden could simply surmise and easily overlook the adjunct metaphors: what you are describing in the moment versus what has been at a boiling point inside of you as the author.
Did the sculpture itself:
‘Restrained, 1999
Gift of Sydney and Walda Besthoff. 2000.202
Installation funded by the
Patrick T. Taylor Foundation’
Was it a catalyst for such a release as you have mentioned this book was in the making much longer than your trek through the garden, or was this a piece that needed a physical vessel for a relative exorcism?
JP: "Restrained" was based on the sculpture more directly than many of the poems in the second half of the book. I definitely wouldn't have thought to include throatlatches just out of the blue like that, if I didn't see a horse-like sculpture. But yeah, by that point in the book you can see some of the stuff that I'm struggling with, and that poem is about Michaela's struggles.
I know as a parent of someone who struggles with identity/mental health issues, that experience was very taxing for you both and obviously the end result did not leave a desired effect. As parents, and you being a new father, I’m sure you can relate with the need to see your children do better than what you did at their age? It must’ve been quite the quandary having another child. Where do you stand on the evolution of parenting being a ‘late-in-life’ father, especially after what happened with Michaela? What poems in this collection primarily describe the mourning process you’ve dealt with; I’m currently dealing with the prospect of my daughter living with her abusive mother again, while being married to someone I don't respect and knowing her inherent tendencies, I’m always concerned for the state of my daughter’s decision-making skills.
JP: So here's the thing about my age: my wife Rosalyn Spencer was declared infertile more than a decade ago, so we stopped using protection. We were caught by surprise by the pregnancy, but we believed, despite our fear of dying too soon, that we could raise, love, and provide a good home for a child, so we went ahead with the pregnancy. Roz was 45, and I was 50, and both mother and child almost didn't make it, but our son is in good health now and Roz continues to safely recover. I've had a vasectomy since.
The rest of it's more complicated. I very much wanted Michaela to do better than I did. And, shortly out of childhood, she chastised me for this, telling me I put pressure on her when she needed to make her own life. I didn't want her to be anything or anyone in particular --really, just happier and healthier than I was-- but she said I still hurt her with it. I still don't know exactly what to do with that, other than to try not to make decisions or plans for my surviving kids.
When Michaela's death was fresh, I told the parents around me that it's a privilege to fear for your children. Beats the alternative, you know? And I am afraid, for my surviving children, all the time.
Most of the second half of the book is about Michaela. A lot of it is about parenting both Michaela and my young daughter, and one is about no longer being entangled with my ex-wife. Some are an attempt to write from Michaela's perspective. I probably tried to write as her more often than I wrote as me. The purest, simplest grief poems are probably "Sunyatta," "The Drummer," "Gran Val de Grâce," and "Barrier (Big Bird)." Plus there's a lot of approximate ones.
So, I hear your panic --Michaela was living with her mother when she committed suicide-- but for me, there's also tons of self-blame. I know she was an adult who made an autonomous decision, but obviously I was a part of her story, and how she got to that point. She left no note, and we'll never know all the factors, but I obsess over what I could've done differently every day. As far as parenting my surviving kids, that probably makes me a more neurotic parent, but it also makes me try really, really hard to do right by them.
Oh, and as far as the timeline, we were already in the process of adopting our daughter when Michaela killed herself. So it was a very confusing time. Still is.
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