Dialogue:
Nicholas Alti & Damon Pham
Nicholas Alti on Damon Pham’s “Landscape”
Crater under concrete. Crumbs of agate are teeth
chewing toward creek bed, or a single silver sliver
hidden in a nematode nest.
Flames spawn like flies in such aridity. The old farm
caught a menagerie of new flus, plagues, and even
the miniature tin windmill only flutters if influenced
by storm cells.
Icebergs as artifacts and puddles of obelisk,
residual heat-death hymnal: warhorse hooves.
The duelists remove handles. Only blades remain.
Innards were burned, but the flesh felt frigid.
Damon Pham on Nicholas Alti’s “Levitation, Hypothetically and Now It’s Eleven, Actually”
You let a name you don’t know the thing for stay unthinged, receive
what of its scent effortlessly meets you and carry onward the survey by
this guess. In several instances. You had prepared yourself to believe the
ecology is particular, that the setting is one well-established. You find all
doors unlocked, move inward like light through the casement windows:
A game of solitaire in a drawing room. Stains on the settee, the credenza.
Shagreen, camphor, terrazzo, told to you, strawberry and blackcurrant
the glass of apple juice. Strain and disuse of provenance. Authenticated
correspondence over a set of chinoiserie. It’s been a brief history, here on
this frozen shield, and you know to find the object inside the nightstand:
Growl’s judgement. Personal depth mixed with convenience. Overly
embarrassed by other screams. Client splashes fail to obtain. Beyond, the
arid swaths you genuinely never ask of. Burgeoning innervation. Canny
pronouncements and a surprising burn. After all the hydrangea, when
did you begin to fight for us? Your stiff heart, it has the one move.
Tue, Jun 24, 8:01 PM
Damon, your poem is so sick, I love it so much. I’m happy I get to spend some good time with your work, and I’m stoked to check out your website tomorrow.
I’ll be in touch soon! I’m not a great critic or analyst but I am happy I get to think about your work. I’m also super super down to rip a quick collab before our July date if you want to try to give that a go.
Thanks y’all!
Cheers,
Nick
Sat, Jun 28, 5:38 PM
Hey Nick, it's so nice to make a connection with you!
I've been enjoying your poem a lot too; I'm not sure if I "get" it, though I'm able to see beauty in it. Would you say the speaker is writing from some kind of apocalypse in North America? Do you have any "hints"/reference points for me I might not know? :)
Funny, I tell my friends that I always glaze over plant species' names in books, because I know very few of them. I just kind of let those pretty, alien words stand there and let them be without searching them up. Because I'm lazy. Like maybe I've encountered "sassafras" across a few different books, but I would have no idea if all this time it referred to that same tree in my neighbor's yard. I did get to know the plants in your poem though!
I think a collab could be very fun. ... Would it be a stretch to say that both our poems are a troubling of the pastoral? "phantoms on the railroad, ghouls in the gas station" -- I also feel a resonance between this line and my poem, which in my imagination takes place in the interior of a car parked somewhere outside. Maybe this is a starting theme we could explore from?
I'm also not crazy about writing a lengthy criticism or analysis (unless you'd really like that for your poem, I could certainly try!), so maybe a weirder collaborative writing Thing could be the way to go.
Cheers,
Damon
Tue, Jul 1, 5:11 PM
Hello Damon!
Shoot, friend, I think it sounds like you get the poem just fine, probably more than I do! My intent was to do a sort of speculative ecopoetic thingy, and in my head, it was in an ambiguous rural Midwest setting, and very much apocalyptic.
I do that all the time! I usually take the same approach with plant names (unless they are herbs, cause that's good to know for bartending), but I figured sort of listing specific, semi-obscure plants would add some grounding to the overall ambiguity. I freely admit my passion for ambiguity lol.
Not a stretch at all! I think both of our poems have a sort of anti-pastoral concern with an intense pressure on the senses that makes them feel surreal in a paradoxical way. I got a very intimidating tone from your poem that I adore and it's got a really startling perspective. It's awesome. Also, your confidence in language is super impressive and admirable.
I love where your imagination is taking you, and I'm happy to join you there! I'm going to get started on some lines with this in mind and hopefully I can have some creative stuff to send your way tomorrow. I'm very excited I get to work with you :-)
Okay, I'm relieved we are on the same page with the analytics stuff. Let's just get a little weird with it, and these emails can serve as proof that we got a little into the critical side of things.
Talk soon, friend. Cheers,
Nick
For each issue, ballast asks pairs of poets to read each other’s work and respond in some way. We hope these dialogues will sound the resonances contained within the issue as well as serve to foster a sense of interconnection and community among our authors.
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