Dialogue:
Joel Chace & Andrew Maxwell
"We agreed that we wanted to create a poetic dialogue in which each of us would craft new poems in response to elements selected from the other's work. Joel led off by featuring Andrew's remarkable use of repetition; Andrew began by inhabiting some of Joel's most prominent images and actions, particularly those related to listening and speaking. As we wrote back and forth, we found ourselves drawn to "emergence" as a guiding concept or experience, as well as to the roles played by different stages of evening across our original poems and our dialogue."
If, which, now
only, that aren’t
small words. A
listener might weep
after tallying emergences
of even one
of them as
it fills quotidian
interstices. Or a
listener might simply
attend to the
burble of language’s
freshets crossing a
landscape of years.
If, which, now
only, that tug
along the thread,
creating a labyrinth.
Emergence of twilight. As listening fades. As fixed
merely. Interior listening fades. As now
parted by
tangible distance that distance draped
over. Green branches draped over
that tangible
distance. Descending from twilight. Skies
pale. In that further emergence
that open
encounter. Skies pale. As
pale remnants of paper
are shredded. Skies
by which by
so much breath you now
are drawn out. Commingled with
twilight with
one breath one life.
Emergencies -- thicketed, secret,
deep. Emergencies of
thorns, dust, dusk.
Clouds thicken twilight.
On those distant
hills, lights begin
flickering and rising
in a line.
Following emergencies -- announcements
blood on this
ground. If there’s
hope, it’s up
in the mountains.
Emergence. As twilight embraces that
landscape of years of
years even
that landscape of
weeping. Leaves even. Unthreaded
by rainfall.
Black branches. Unthreaded
by that which that landscape. Leaves
even. Leaves
open. As therein breath enters
that open. Emergence that
wound which
across which words
never themselves yet proceed. As breath
enters. As twilight embraces
that open
breath by which.
No listener therein. Is
therein selfsame.
Departure leaves a
temple -- any place --
empty. So that
gathering can occur
elsewhere. Departure leaves
an absence, but
only after a
great recognition that
spirals into new,
naked life. Recognition
that everyone is
only nothing, while
greening. That one
can be ravished
by greening nothingness.
Vast after. No naked song after. No song of
blood secretly rising from
distant hills rising
from distant light rising
and falling. Far from which. Your greening
throat slowly begins
to repent. If now gathered by
flowers and thorns of
hope secretly
gathered. If gathered so
secretly gathered by
dusk by that
which now dusk only
will open that
which now.
No song in your throat will conceive.
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.
If you’ve been published in a previous issue of ballast and would like to participate in a dialogue, please reach out to our editors at ballastjournal@gmail.com.