After Effects by Susanne Dyckman

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It’s a great pleasure to share this gorgeous new work by Susanne Dyckman, and the interview it inspired…

How did you come to write After Effects?

After Effects began with several pieces I had written prompted by George Oppen’s poem “Of Being Numerous”.  I would open with a line, or part of a line,  from his work and let his language lead me to something of my own.  I found it a satisfying , sometimes exciting, way to write. Feeling it was a generative approach, I then tried doing the same with the work of other poets.

Could you speak a bit about your relationship to Oppen?

I first encountered Oppen through his long work “Of Being Numerous”. The opening stanza “There are things/We live among and to see them/Is to know ourselves” I find an irresistible invitation.

I have an affinity for cities, especially those that carry the weight of history. “The emotions are engaged/Entering the city”.  Oppen’s affection for the richness of urban space, for the “world of stoops”, and doors, of apartments and that “spot of light on the curb” is one I share.

Of course, much of the beauty of urban life is found in the humanity that exists there, which is significant in Oppen’s work. “A populace flows/Thru the city. “  He engages us with the subway riders, and the girls who “Stare at the ceilings”, the workman who “has swept this solitary floor”.  A city is not independent of those who inhabit it.

Still, Oppen’s poem is not only a long tribute to “the city”. It is an ever- changing lens, drawing back to see what came before and moving in closely on all that was going on in this country at the time of writing in 1968.  Within this context there is also an intimacy, a tenderness, with and about others as well as the self within those relationships.  All of this together in one long poem so clearly written, though “It is not easy to speak”, makes me return to reading it, with an emotional appreciation for all that Oppen has included.            

What was your process?

After working with the Oppen inspired pieces, I followed a similar procedure using  the poetry of  Christine McNair, Rosmarie Waldrop, and Tomas Tranströmer, as well as one of the children’s dream photographs staged by Arthur Tress.  As a  separate project, both challenging and fun, l wrote a traditional cento,  combining lines from René Char, Pattie McCarthy, Christine McNair, Frank Bidart, Blaise Cendras, and Patrick Cahill.  (My choices for the cento were the result of simply pulling some poetry books off the shelf to see what I could do.) I later took sections of the cento that I felt might stand alone and added them to the collection of the poems prompted by Oppen and the other poets.   

Finally, after looking at some of my originally unrelated work, I found a few pieces  where I felt there was a kind of interior observation and/or examination that I felt existed in the others and so included them.     

How did the form of After Effects come about?  

The form only revealed itself to me after the process of grouping together the poems.  While the individual poems originally had titles, it seemed that they were  part of one ongoing conversation. So I retitled them all with an ampersand, to signify that the end of one was not a final end. It was my  way of saying “there is this, and then there is that”. 

Though a good number of the poems were written in prose form, others were originally created with traditional line breaks. I changed some of those into the prose poem form when I thought doing so would better impact the rhythm of the piece and its fit with the others.      

Once I had them all together, I felt they needed something else to bind them.  Since there is quite a bit of interior circularity to the group, I took the first line, or part of it,  from the opening poem and inserted it in italics at the bottom  of the last poem.  I repeated this process throughout the manuscript. I did some light edits on the italicized parts and broke my own rule by putting the italicized words at the top of the very last poem, rather than the bottom. This weaving process seemed right to me, as there really is no end to the type of discussion the poems were having. 

Were there any challenges along the way? 

My biggest challenge was the format, asking myself how these individually written poems might fit together. But I reminded myself that in some ways writing a poem is re-writing an existing poem in a new way. There are similar concerns and questions that keep revealing themselves.   

The overall title of the collection, After Effects, refers to the result of my process. Most of the poems are the after effect of using some language from another poet.  I think the title can refer to the content as well, the thought or feeling that follows another thought or feeling.

How do your projects generally begin?  

They most often start serendipitously. I have written to visual images that intrigued me, or, as in the case of After Effects, as my response to another poet’s words, or as the result of a challenge or prompt given to me by another poet.  I have long found that when I come up with a rigid idea about what I might do, for example, “write about fire”,  the writing tends to fail as soon as I start. I am more satisfied with my work when taking a sideways approach, starting with one thing and seeing where it might lead. It is in the asking  “what if?” that can begin a new process or procedure.

How do you know when a project is finished?

I have great admiration for poets who can successfully take a theme or form and create a full-length manuscript. I am not one of them, having a concern with my own writing that I might overwork an idea simply for page length. Do I not have enough attention span, or enough persistence? I don’t know the answer to that, but there does always seem to come a point in my work when I’ve written about 20  pages that I decide I am done, that what I have wanted to do has been explored in a form and length that satisfies me.

Are there any places or rituals that are important to your writing process now?

For years I wrote in my small home office, with my back to its one window. When COVID and its isolation came into our lives, my daily activities, including my writing, became centered at my kitchen table, which has always felt like the heart of my house. This is where I continue to write now, in a larger space with more light. There is an old fig tree by the back door and I can watch its transformation across the seasons, or I can stare up at the sky through another window. Both views help me when I pause to find exactly the word(s) and form I want to use.

I don’t have a set external ritual for my writing, but I do have a type of practice. I need to be in a quiet space, allowing myself to focus only on poetry, shifting away from other demands. I can then enter into a place of partnership between language and the subject of the poem, be that the self, or an image, or experience, or simply an observation, often of the mind at work.

Why poetry?

Maybe we all have a memory of the first poem we wrote, usually in elementary school. I do, and I enjoyed the sense of freedom it gave me as a fourth grader. I didn’t take it up again until high school, when I started writing lots of poems and reading contemporary poets (such as Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, and Plath). Poetry seemed the most efficient way to express often complicated concerns with one’s personal life as well as those of the larger world. I have always been interested in how those emotions might appear on the page, without expressly defining them.

But it was not until I was an undergraduate student that I was exposed to a wider sense of what poetic language might do (beyond my gratitude for my Shakespeare professor), and that was through my discovery of the poetry of Wallace Stevens. While initially I didn’t always fully understand what Stevens was writing about, it didn’t seem to matter. I was mesmerized by his language, especially when reading his poems aloud. The experience opened a new world for me, and I go back to his work often so I can revisit that appreciation.

You’ve collaborated with other poets on projects. Could you speak a bit about your experiences?

I think collaboration can take place in a number of ways. The most obvious is to work with another poet. I first experimented with it during my time in graduate school, though it never became a sustained effort. The most consistent collaborative work I’ve done has been with the poet Elizabeth Robinson. We’ve written various projects together over many years, with the most recent work being the poems published by Apogee Press in our book Rendered Paradise.

The beauty of this process is found in the surprises that can happen when blending two distinct poetic styles. What I felt working with Elizabeth, and I believe she agrees, is that though two poetic voices can be evident, a third voice comes into being during the collaborative process. Is it too strong to describe it as a sort of unexpected language magic? It does feel that way.

It has been widely quoted that all art is collaboration, and I agree, whether or not one does so consciously. I do feel I am working collaboratively when I write poems inspired by those who I know only through their existence. I have used this approach in the past to write in response to a booklet of instructions on how to say the Catholic Mass, the paintings of Frida Kahlo, the photographs of Lewis Hine, and a collection of traditional Irish superstitions, and am continuing with some other more recent projects. In this way, rather than always moving from an internal state outward, I try to write with an “other”, to step into their world, giving me a sense of an interactive experience, even if across time. It is in some ways writing in a loop — they speak to me and I to them and then they speak again — and I find the process engaging.

What advice might you give to someone who wants to get started writing?

The first step I’d recommend would be to browse a bookstore or library or online journal as a way to be exposed to the work of a variety of poets. When you find one (or more) that speaks to you, think not only about the subject, but the language and form used. Poetry is like visual art, in that there are many ways to create it.

Using other poets’ works as examples can give you an idea of what you’d like do, and how you might do it. It’s fine to write in the style of someone else — give yourself permission. And don’t be overly judgmental about your own work, as every writer has had the experience of “this isn’t working”. Write, and read, and then write some more. Take a local poetry class or create a group of your own. You write for yourself first, but there will come a point when it’ll be important to share.

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You can purchase Susanne’s book equilibriums’s form here, at Shearsman Books, and her collaboration with Elizabeth Robinson, Rendered Paradise, from Apogee Press on Asterism.

You can read a review of her book A Dark Ordinary here. Copies of A Dark Ordinary are available from the author; please email Valerie at coultonv@gmail.com to learn more.