Contributor Tsering Wangmo Dhompa On Reading Poems in the Bathroom and Other Topics

Hollie Hardy, Poetry Editor of Fourteen Hills, sat down with Tsering Wangmo Dhompa in her San Francisco home to talk about a wide range of topics. Here are a few highlights from the interview:

14H: Can you talk a little bit about your poem “From Catabolism” published in Fourteen Hills, Vol. 15.2? I looked up “catabolism” in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary and it is defined as: “the part of metabolism involving the break down of complex molecules.” The poem begins, “A body is not always everything we are taught to expect…”  How does this title illuminate the themes of that particular set of poems?

TSERING: It is part of a larger set of poems. Initially I was going to title the book “Catabolism” because it was sort of this break down of certain ideas. What is perception?  What is truth?  That was my intention. But then I just realized that it was too confining of a title and also it makes me think too much. And then I was getting confused about the meaning and its relation with the poems. So then I made it a title of a smaller group of poems.

The poems in this group have to do with the process of thinking. Stemming from a particular verse in a Buddhist text that talks about how we see. The epigram is: “But if the mirage is the mind itself, what then is perceived by what?” The guardian of the word himself had said that mind cannot be seen by mind.

So in Catabolism, I sort of weave around the idea of how we say things, how we come to say what we say. They are sort of definitions but then they are reiterated. So we say it many times. Also the notion that learning to say correctly is no longer necessary. The notion of perfection, does that exist? All these different thoughts. How do you instruct the mind?

14H: What is your revision process like?

TSERING: I’ve become a little better about revision. I think I’m learning to be more patient. It seems like you need to read [a poem] so many times in order to really see each word.

So I have a few pages stuck on my wall and I’ll read them when I’m just walking around. Because when I’m reading on the computer, I’m reading with the intent to find something. But when it’s on the wall I’m sort of on the way into my closet and I’m just brushing my teeth. And then I’ll take them to the bathroom. I have two in the bathroom now. When I’m in the bathroom I’m just vacantly looking at them.

So there are different levels of concentration, perhaps, different methods of reading. And when I feel that, okay fine, I don’t think I should change anymore because then the whole meaning changes, you know, if you do too much, then I don’t know what the poem is about. So then I sort of consider it done for now.

14H:  Do you ever get stuck with writer’s block? And if so, how do you unstick yourself?

TSERING: Oh I get writer’s block quite often, but I don’t think of it as writer’s block really. I just expect it. How can you just sit down and expect to just write away?

So, if I cannot write, I don’t. I don’t sit and force myself. I just read. Or I do something else. I’ll go for a walk. Or I’ll think about certain things. Very often I’ll just read. Somehow all of it influences. Every day I try to write something in the morning. Whatever it might be.

To learn more about Tsering’s life in Tibet and Nepal, and the many conflicting meanings the word “home” has for her, read the full interview here. 

Check out her poem From Catabolism, published in Fourteen Hills and picked up by Verse Daily, here.

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa was raised in India and Nepal. She received her MA from University of Massachusetts and her MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her first book of poems, “Rules of the House,” published by Apogee Press in 2002 was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Awards in 2003. Other publications include “In the Absent Everyday” (Apogee Press 2005), two chapbooks, “In Writing the Names” (A.bacus, Potes & Poets Press) and “Recurring Gestures” (Tangram Press). Tsering lives in San Francisco.

-Editors, Fourteen Hills

Truong Tran's "lost and found" at the Mina Dresden Gallery, Tomorrow Night

Dear Readers,

It's our pleasure to bring to your attention the first time visual artist Truong Tran will be exhibiting his work to the public in a dedicated solo show.

You may remember Tran's artwork from Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review issue 15.1 or you might recognize his work as the same as the artwork on the homepage of our website, 14hills.net. Or, even better, you might've never heard of his work before now.

Tomorrow night, Truong Tran's first public exhibition, a solo show that will last the entire month of February, will have its opening reception.

Details:
Mina Dresden & Kearny Street Workshop Present:
Truong Tran's lost & found
Mina Dresden Gallery
Opening Reception
February 5, 2010
7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
312 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

From the gallery:
Truong Tran is committed to making art accessible through the creative reuse of everyday materials. His process includes merging disparate objects, forcing them to compromise and accommodate one another in their process of becoming something new, something difficult and beautiful. In his work, Tran explores themes of surfaces, containers and the self-portrait. Tran uses wax, thread, light, color and found objects as a way of constructing veils that must be lifted to arrive at the meaning embedded within. He uses boxes to represent the containers that hold society's expectations of identity and self. It is here that he reinterprets and challenges these expectations and the construct of the self-portrait.

Artist bio:
Truong obtained his MFA from San Francisco State University and has received numerous honors including the Fund for Poetry Grant, three San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants, and The Intersection for the Arts' Writer in Residency Fellowship. He has shown his work locally at Intersection, APAture, Kearny Street Workshop, and A. Muse Gallery. He has published many volumes of poetry, most recently Four Letter Words, Apogee Press. He is currently the Visiting Professor in Poetry at Mills College. Of his visual art, Truong says, "they are poems that won't fit on a page or in a book." Visit http://gnourtnart.com

There will definitely be at least a few Fourteen Hills staff members in attendance. You can count on it.


Cheers
-Editors, Fourteen Hills

What’s In A Name: The Genesis of “Fourteen Hills”

Back in October, we started wondering how the SFSU review came to be named after the picturesque hills in its hometown. Michelle Carter, a member of our esteemed creative writing faculty, brought to our attention the quote that inspired the name:

“The greatness of Rome is somehow associated – whether correctly or not – with the fact that it was built on seven hills. How much greater, then, should San Francisco be, standing on fourteen hills? … The answer, so it seemed to me, surely must be ‘Twice.’”

That’s Scottish writer A.G. Macdonell quoting the American Railroad Guide in his 1935 book, A Visit to America. Macdonell continues his ruminations on the wonders of San Francisco on the next page:

“I think that the compilers of that Railroad-Guide were lamentably deficient in the art of advertisement. Why did they stop at the comparison with Rome? Is not San Francisco therefore to be reckoned as fourteen times as great as either of them, or better still, seven times as great as Athens and Troy put together?”

Given that some believe San Francisco has as many as seventy-four hills, it seems that our city is exponentially as great as any other city in the world. We’re beginning to work on making the Spring issue of Fourteen Hills just as great right now.

You can read more from A.G. Macdonell’s book here.

And if you’re a fan of Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun and many other wonderful things, she was one of the original staff members of Fourteen Hills. We’ve heard that she was, in fact, the one to give the magazine its name. Thank you Frances!

-Leanne M., Fourteen Hills staff

Randall Mann Discusses His Use of Form: "It Gives Me Something To Push Up Against"

Randall Mann took the time to discuss the use of form in his poems, and much much more, in an interview conducted by Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review poetry editor Tera Ragan. Here's an excerpt:

14H: Many of your poems can be called formal poems, with your use of traditional forms: villanelles, sestinas, pantoums, etc. How do you think these forms influence or affect your work specifically?

RM: I take every poem and the subject matter of every poem individually. I’m grateful that I was trained with the tools to be able to use formal mechanisms. I can’t imagine not being able to turn to subjects the way formal poetry allows you to turn to things, or the way it compresses arguments and reveals new insight.

If you think about one of the most famous formal poems, Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle, as you go through her stanzas you know what she is saying, while at the same time knowing that more information is being kneaded out.

In my mortician poem, which is a sestina, we already know what happened to Harvey Milk, that’s not the question. I chose the sestina form because it let me look at this really huge historical moment both in terms of my queer history and in terms of how it changed this city.

But, how do you look at something so well known? Especially when the publication comes serendipitously after the release of the film Milk—now everyone knows him and gets this lesson of what happened—then the question becomes: how am I able to put my stamp on it and say something new? I didn’t feel comfortable doing that in free verse because sometimes I don’t know how to say something fresh or complex without the benefit of form. It gives me something to push up against and I trust those boundaries. They're really helpful to me as a writer.

14H: Do you feel that sometimes the form chooses you or do you have the form in mind for the poem in advance?

RM: I definitely choose the form but I’m cognizant that certain forms might work well. I have a poem in my book called “Career." It’s a bit of a satire about a younger poet sleeping with an older poet for a blurb, that’s told in trimeter tetrameter with rhyme. The music of that formal choice helped to bring out the satire of that particular moment. It shocks you and yet you have the comfort of the movement of form.

I think that titillating subject matter and traditional forms work extraordinarily well together because while there may be a shock, there’s also shock of the recognition of the poem.


Read the full interview on our website: 14hills.net


Randall Mann is the author of two collections of poetry, BREAKFAST WITH THOM GUNN (University of Chicago Press 2009) and COMPLAINT IN THE GARDEN (Zoo/Orchises 2004), winner of the 2003 Kenyon Review Prize; and the co-author of the textbook WRITING POEMS, Seventh Edition (Pearson Longman 2007). He lives in San Francisco.


- Daniel Lichtenberg, Fourteen Hills managing editor

Questions for Marcus Pactor, 14 Hills 16.1 Contributor

A young man overhears his neighbors’ violent relationship, calls the police, and then goes fishing with the policeman who comes to investigate. Sound intriguing? We thought so, which is why we included Marcus Pactor’s short story, Let Me, in issue 16.1 of Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review.

Mr. Pactor, a Writing Instructor at the University of North Florida, flew all the way out to San Francisco to read at our release party in December. We were so intrigued by his work, and also impressed by his reading, and so we decided to feature him here on the Fourteen Hills blog.

14H: We published your story, Let Me, in our volume 16.1, because we felt it raised some interesting questions. We are curious about what inspired the story, and what it is about your characters that make them work so well.

MP: I think I hinted at the inspiration (if that's the right word) at the reading. I've lived in some places with thin walls. Twice, I've lived next to some seriously dysfunctional types. I guess I have a hero complex, or maybe I'm just stupid, but I've made it my business to try to help these abused girls. Those attempts never worked out well. One of them was so grateful to me that she nailed me with a phone to the back of my skull. So I imagined a guy who decided not to help, and everything ran from there

14H: We couldn't help but notice that although the policeman (Timmons) and the neighbor (Sarah) are named, the protagonist himself goes unnamed. Was that a conscious choice? If so, why?

MP: The narrator's namelessness just kind of happened as I was writing. He never seemed to need one, so...

14H: Your story explores themes of loneliness, as well as the paradox of needing and offering help. At one point, the main character distills the main idea to: "“We don’t help when we need to, and we do help when none is necessary. And we can’t possibly help ourselves.” When writing this story, did you start with this idea in mind, and then construct the characters around it, or did the story come first?

MP: I came across the idea as I was writing. I start with people, and as they find their way through the maze, they usually lead me to some idea or other. I know some writers come up with an idea and shape a story around it, but I'm always afraid that if I tried it, I'd end up with some Ayn Rand cut-out characters, 100-page speeches, and a lot of lousy moralizing.

14H: You live in Florida. Perhaps coincidentally, one of the story's main scenes takes place at the beach. How important is the setting throughout?

MP: Setting's always important to me. A story with a good setting suggests knowledge of particular places and particular worlds. When a reader trusts a setting, he can begin to trust the story. Particularity, specificity--these are friends to a writer.

14H: What is your writing routine?

MP: I teach four classes and I cook on weekends, so I write whenever I can, an hour here, twenty minutes there. Some days I get a magical three-hour block. But I can't wait for them.

14H: How did you first hear about Fourteen Hills?

MP: My ex-girlfriend was very good at finding places for me to send me work. I guess this was one last nice thing she did before we said good-bye

14H: How has your career as a writing instructor influenced or affected
your writing? Or, has it at all?

MP: Teaching is like detective work. When I read a student's story, and things go awry, they always go awry in a unique way. I have to read again and search for clues in order to solve the mystery and, later, offer some advice. It's made me a much colder reader and editor of my work.

14H: Sound advice. Thank you again for contributing to Fourteen Hills, and for reading your work at our party!

Marcus Pactor is a writing instructor at the University of North Florida. His work has also appeared in Peeks and Valleys.

- Julia Jackson, Fourteen Hills staff

An Interview With Yiyun Li: Featured Content From Issue 16.1

After her first novel, The Vagrants, was released, I had the honor of sitting down with Yiyun Li to discuss the book and talk a little about her writing process. Here are a few of the highlights from our interview, which is featured in the current issue of Fourteen Hills:

14H:  In your short stories and in The Vagrants, parents of girls born with physical or mental handicaps, like the parents of Beibei and Nini, often wish aloud that their children were dead or had never been born. Here, wishing away children is certainly taboo. Do you take such cultural disparities into account when you are writing?

YL:  Well, I think people here, probably some of them, do wish. It’s just that they don’t speak. And I think it’s more of a cultural thing, where at that time people would make those comments, but they were only meant half-heartedly. A mother would say to a child, “I wish I’d never given birth to you. You are such a trouble.” But it didn’t mean she hated her child so much. Although I think Nini’s parents did wish, in a moment, that they didn’t have her.

But I was just reading Lydia Davis, her latest book, and there was one part about a teenage boy and a teenage girl who had a baby together. The baby was prematurely born, and the grandparents, especially the boy’s mother, wished that the baby would die in the ICU. It would be so much better for everybody. Those are the kinds of things people don’t talk about in their everyday lives. Those are the things I think writers should push to know. People do have those moments of doubt. It’s important to portray. Deep inside, it’s within human nature. I don’t think we should run away from those things.

14H: The fate of girls and women in Communist China plays an important role in your work. Your female characters are martyrs, caretakers, mother heroes, and orphans, yet you often choose not to portray your female characters sympathetically. Most of the time, you do the opposite. Why?

YL:  That is a very interesting observation. And I don’t mean I hate women, and of course I can’t hate women because I’m one of them. But I do think, consistently, that communism turned Chinese women into less feminine, less loving, less gentle creatures, and I’ll always believe that. Because I’ve grown up with all these women. My mother, aunties, all these people. I feel that some traditional, beautiful things they didn’t keep.

Women’s nature, as a whole, got lost in forty years of revolution, and that was a huge loss. I’m not saying women should be weak or submissive, but I’m very close to how Teacher Gu felt about these things. These beauties he really appreciated and cherished were shut up. Women were not supposed to have long hair, they were supposed to have short-cut hair and wear very neutral colors. The system was taking away feminine beauty. It is a generalization that there would be less maternal love, after all this, but that’s how I see it.

14H: A New York Times book reviewer suggested your novel was comprised of a series of horror stories, and indeed, no thread leaves your reader without a palpable sense of despair. Has your work achieved a desired effect, leaving us feeling haunted?

YL:  I think that feeling haunted is one thing, and despair is another. I notice that people always talk about the horrors. I think there is a lot of humor as well, but not all the reviewers talk about those moments. To me, they are a very important part of the work, and they were very important for me to write. Because otherwise, I would have just been writing a dark, dark novel without any hope. There are actually some very funny moments. I was laughing, maybe I shouldn’t have been. Some of the reviewers picked up on the lightness. I’d say about one-sixth of reviewers picked that up, and I was very happy for them.

You can read the full interview in the most recent issue of our  literary magazine, plus many wonderful stories and poems. The journal is available through Small Press Distribution, and look for it in  a bookstore near you. 

-Amy Glasenapp, Fourteen Hills fiction editor

Now In The Archives: Bob Hicok’s “Trying To Stay In Shape”

Happy 2010! Here at Fourteen Hills, we’re continuing to update our online archives. As part of that process, I just read a poem that took me back to my childhood. It takes a very special and honest poem like Bob Hicok’s “Trying to Stay in Shape” to unify my experience with his storytelling.

Here’s my favorite section:

…When I was a kid
I lied and said chlorine hurt my penis
so they’d leave me to land, where I understood
breath. I hadn’t thought of that in years,
I’m cringing, hoping I’ve become
a better swimmer, better liar…

This poem has such a wonderful voice. Every line breaks and sifts down. I'm most taken with his  ability to combine a surreal and witty narrative inside such concrete diction. Hicok talks of values without sounding preachy. And his confession sounds like he is simply being himself.  Every time I read it, I  feel as though he's talking to me.

If you want to see how Bob Hicok succeeds in the rest of the piece then check out the full poem which appeared in the Fall of ’07 in Issue 14.1. While you’re at it, look for more established and emerging writers in upcoming issues of our literary magazine!

Cheers,
R.R. Reese, Fourteen Hills staff