April 29, 2025 • 34 mins
Poet Gustav Parker Hibbett joins host Seán Hewitt for a chat about metamorphosis poems, trusting the rhythm of the body, and Joni Mitchell’s artistic betrayal. Parker reads their poem “Joni Mitchell dresses up as me (parts one and two)” and Donika Kelly’s poem “Love Poem: Chimera.”
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Parker Hibbett (00:05):
I also think finding it through poetry has been
a healing process. Yeah, as a blackbody, as a queer body, I've been
taught not to trust, trust my body,or like, trust its instincts, its
feelings. And High Jump was soimportant to me when I did it,
partially because it was all aboutme trusting this sense of my body
and its own sort of rhythm that itknew better than I could.
Seán Hewitt (00:29):
Welcome to The Glimpse. I'm your host, Seán
Hewitt. Gustav Parker Hibbett is apoet and essayist. Their first
collection, High Jump as IcarusStory was shortlisted for the T.S.
Eliot Prize. Their work hasappeared in Guernica, Adroit, The
Stinging Fly, and Poetry IrelandReview, among many others. Gustav
Parker Hibbett is our guest todayon The Glimpse.
(00:59):
In Gustav Parker Hibbett's poems,we are let loose into a world of
transformation and flight, thoughParker is always aware of the
forces of gravity, pressure and theties that bind us. With a daring
gymnastic ability to adapt theforms of their poetry and a
glittering intelligence just as athome in the world of Greek
mythology as in critical theory,music and athletics, Parker's is a
(01:23):
poetry that lifts up the self, thebody and the world in which we
exist for brilliant and powerfulexamination. Stylish, tender,
playful and rigorous, Parker is apoet whose poems have the ability
to remake themselves and to remakeus along the way. Parker, welcome
to The Glimpse. Thank you so muchfor being here.
Parker Hibbett (01:44):
Thanks for having me, and thanks for such a lovely
intro.
Seán Hewitt (01:47):
You're very welcome. I want to start by congratulating
you. Your debut collection, HighJump as Icarus Story, which came
out this year, was just recentlyshortlisted for the T.S. Eliot
Prize, which is the biggest prizefor poetry in the U.K. and Ireland,
so well done. It's such a brilliantbook, and it's threaded through
with a sort of coming of agenarrative. I think it's such a
(02:09):
beautiful exploration of the way inwhich we are kind of pressurized
and molded into, into people, andwhat we can do about that, how we
might kind of explore our ownmetamorphosis and how we might
change ourselves.
I wanted to start by asking you,you know...one of the things that
really struck me when I was readingyour book was the way you pull in
(02:31):
mythology and athletics and musicand critical theory and so many
other things to talk abouttransformation and the way we exist
in the world. I wonder what it isabout poetry and metamorphosis
that, that seem to go so hand inhand for you.
Parker Hibbett (02:48):
Yeah, I've actually done a lot of thinking about this
recently, because I think I feel somuch more at home in poetry than I
do in many different types ofprose. I don't know, and there's
something about poetry where... Ithink part of it's the lyric "I," I
think the lyric "I" is a little bitmore, I think, flexible in holding
(03:08):
a self in a way that maybe borders,like, fiction and non-fiction. But
then I also think that poetry, morethan any other form, is like open
to formal and linguisticexperimentation.
Seán Hewitt (03:22):
Yeah, yeah,
Parker Hibbett (03:23):
Which means that it's just like, it's open to, I
think, evidencing or makingmanifest, like, transformations.
Seán Hewitt (03:32):
Yeah. I think there's something about the way poetry,
particularly your poetry, moves.That seems to —you know, I keep on
wanting to make kind of circulargestures with my hands, but I'm
thinking of kind of unfoldingthings and unraveling them and
re-raveling them and remaking them.It seems to go hand-in-hand with,
with transformation. I wasn't goingto ask you about the lyric "I", but
(03:54):
now I want to. What is yourrelationship to that "I," that
speaking voice in the poem, and hasit changed over time?
Parker Hibbett (04:03):
Yeah, I think it maybe changes every time I sit down
to write, and I think that's why Ifeel really at home in poetry is...
I think there's that, the "I" frompoem to poem can be a different
angle of yourself, and you get tosort of exist fully in that angle,
(04:25):
and think through that angle.
Yeah, I think, with the poems inthis book, there was this, I think
gathering of mass, if that makessense, where it slowly had to sort
of build itself as making mecomfortable, I think, writing in a
way that I was able to have thatrelationship to the lyric "I." And
(04:47):
then I think once I accumulatedenough mass there, enough poems
that I had sort of written thatway, that relationship felt really
natural. And I think still feelsquite natural.
Seán Hewitt (04:58):
Yeah, I love that idea of an accumulation, particularly
because it could be the case thatan "I" speaks for us in a totality.
You know, it's expected to perhapsrepresent us at all times, which
is, of course, kind of impossible.And I like the idea that when you
(05:19):
start a new poem, you start again.You kind of essay your way forward.
You try another angle. You come ata different direction. And there's
a freedom in that, because youdon't have to sum everything up,
but also a freedom in that you canbe a different part of yourself.
And I wonder if, you know, lookingback over over the collection that
(05:42):
you have now, do you feel that youhave got a more pluralistic sense
of the "I"—that is the speaker ofall of these poems? Is there
something kind of choral about thebook?
Parker Hibbett (05:56):
Yeah, I think I would definitely say that, because
I think a lot of the poems werewritten not necessarily with the
intention of being put together inthis way. Like, that all sort of
came together as it came together.So it's been interesting to, like
read the book since it's been likea physical, completely together
book because, yeah, there is this,I think, chorus of selves that I'm
(06:21):
quite proud of. I think.
Seán Hewitt (06:23):
I think you should be; it's such a great book. And I mean,
you know, writers, I think, areoften asked about other writers who
inspire them. But for the subjectof your poem this week —and also a
lot of the poems in High Jump asIcarus Story—I wanted to talk to
you about music. Do you feel thatyou take inspiration in any way
(06:46):
from music, whether that's themusicality or the emotion of a song
or a singer's voice? And do youlisten to music as you write?
Parker Hibbett (06:55):
I do. I think, I'm trying to maybe cool it with this,
but I'm one of those people who,like, has to be listening to music
almost every idle [moment]. So ifI'm like, in the office, working,
I'm listening to music. If I'mwriting, I'm listening to music. If
I'm making dinner, I'm listening tomusic. I think I've had this
relationship with a lot of songs, alot of artists where I'm really
(07:17):
interested in rhythm and, like, thesound of how things work. I think
I've developed this very personalsense of how, how I think my
writing should sound. Yeah, itfeels really good to trust that
sense and then have that bevalidated the way that it's been.
Seán (07:34):
Yeah, yeah. But I think that that is, you know, so evident
in your poems that they come with abeat, and you feel them pushing
towards the place that they'regoing to; you know, there's a
momentum to them. You know, I don'twant to stretch the metaphor too
much, but I think there's somethingin the body that is rhythmic, and
(07:59):
as the title of your book, and anumber of the poems in the book
refer to "high jumping," I can'thelp but think that you must be
someone who was attuned to rhythm.You know, you need rhythm and
momentum for both of these jobs.
Parker Hibbett (08:16):
Yeah. I also think finding it through poetry has been
a healing process. As a black body,as a queer body, I've been taught
not to trust, trust my body or liketrusts its instincts, its feelings
and High Jump was so important tome when I did it, partially because
it was all about me trusting thissense of my body and its own sort
(08:37):
of rhythm that it knew better thanI could.
Seán Hewitt (08:39):
Yeah.
Parker Hibbett (08:39):
Yeah.
Seán Hewitt (08:40):
There's something kind of primal about it, perhaps, which
I love for you, that you found thatkind of freedom in the voice and,
and the rhythm, and it comesthrough in the poem so, so
strongly. You know, that there'ssomething instinctive and primal
about needing to find that rhythmin a voice, in a way of speaking,
(09:03):
that is definitely yours anddefinitely free of the sort of
doubt that is trying to ground it.
Parker Hibbett (09:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Seán (09:15):
So one of the poems that you're going to read today, your
own poem, is about one of myfavorite singers,—she's having a
renaissance again. But JoniMitchell, I feel, half-raised me.
(laughter) And, you know, when Iwas listening to Joni Mitchell as a
(09:38):
as a teenager, I kind of stopped bythe time I got to this album. I
don't think I was ready for thesort of experimentalism of Don
Juan's Reckless Daughter. Ipreferred the acoustic-y...Hejira
was kind of as far as I got. Butthe poem that you're going to read
refers to the album artwork forthat album [Don Juan's Reckless
(10:00):
Daughter] right?
Parker Hibbett (10:00):
Yeah, and it was something she did, like for a
series of years. Like, the firstinstance was at, like, a Halloween
party, then on the album of DonJuan’s Restless Daughter and then
kind of just continuously, likeshe'd sort of trotted out as this
thing that she was really, I think,artistically, proud of.
Seán (10:23):
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's very strange. So give us the
context for what we're talkingabout here.
Parker Hibbett (10:29):
Yeah. So I similarly was obsessed with Joni
Mitchell's music. I think the firstrecord that I bought was Blue,
like... I was in there. It was justmy soundtrack for so much, I think,
in the way that— I don't know—youcan come to a book and you could
think, like "The whole world iscontained in this book." I really
(10:51):
would come to, like, Blue or Hejiraand be like, "The whole world is
contained in how she's talking inthis, this album."
And then in grad school, a blackfriend of mine was like, "Hey,
like, I don't know if you knowthis, but the whole, like,
blackface thing," and then— I don'tknow— it, I was really, I think,
(11:12):
hit really hard by that in thisweird way, because it felt like
someone who had been so close to mehad hurt me in this really weird
way. Someone who I thought had seenme so clearly had, like, costumed
as me.
Seán (11:29):
I think, you know, that there is something that you can't
doubt about the immediacy of thatsort of pain and disappointment,
because, as you say, we connectwith singers and poets and writers
on such a deep level, because theybecome part of who we are, you
(11:51):
know, and we feel that they're kindof echoing inside us. And then to
see that they're not quite that,that person, and that they're
actually taking a, sort of, whatfeels like a direct aim at you, and
to let you down and hurt you musthave been a really, actually
discombobulating experience.
Parker Hibbett (12:12):
Yeah, I think the weirdest thing for me about it was
that people have sort of brought itup to her in interviews. I think as
recently as, like, 2015, peoplehave sort of asked her about it,
and she's really stood by it, like,refused to apologize, refused to
believe that there was anythingwrong.
I was reading the Anne powersbiography of her. She wrote: "She
(12:35):
didn't just cross a line. Sherefused to acknowledge its
existence."
Seán Hewitt (12:38):
Right?
Parker Hibbett (12:39):
I thought that kind of encapsulates it. I was like,
whatever about maybe not knowing ornot realizing when someone brings
it up to you as that you've donethis thing that has hurt people
potentially, and you sort of refuseto acknowledge that hurt, like,
what?
Seán Hewitt (12:55):
Yeah, kind of baffling. And especially, you know,
when we connect so closely to thevoice in those songs, which is
vulnerable and empathetic and hurtand expansive, and all of these
things that feel like the sort ofperson we want to be beside. To
(13:19):
have that, you know, really sterndismissal is crazy.
I was looking at the album DonJuan's Reckless Daughter, and I see
the album artwork on Spotify. It'schanged now, which... it's just
like a wolf now, strangely enough.But Parker, you know, you've
(13:42):
transformed that experience, whichis so full of disappointments and
pain— but also much wider culturaland historical questions— into the
most brilliant poem. I wonder ifyou would read "Joni Mitchell
dresses up as me" for us.
Parker Hibbett (14:01):
Yeah. “Joni Mitchell dresses up as me.” Dark-felt fedora
and sunglasses; little black-hairedmoustache; afro wig; skin the hue
of walnut wood painted over face,neck, hands; gold chains; earrings;
jewel-toned blazer— I am the sortof man an artist wears to sing in,
dons to shed herself (14:24):
puffed-up, pimpin', perfectly impermanent. I
am beautiful, she says (14:30):
the wisp of something Negro in the twilight
timbre of her mezzo, piano riff ofblack bird wings, noble sorrow
turned arpeggio. My brass bravadogrand enough to make her troubles
soulful jewellery, leave herfeeling freer, deeper, natural. She
(14:50):
loves that I am the friend she'snever had to worry for, the man who
jives and jukes so centrifugal thatmy noose is dew drops slipping from
a crocus stem, who grooves so fastthe cops can't catch my saxophone.
Seductive, tragic, lovely Joni saysshe loves my self- possession, how
it feels to possess me.
(15:12):
That's part one, and then part twois: When she leaves me in a pile at
the end of her bed, turns back intoherself for sleep, I up and walk
the streets, the jagged jazz clubs,alleys of the white imagination,
trail smoky grace notes in my wake.Dance with other bodies, muses,
curios on break from metaphor: Saartjie Baartman back from endless (15:36):
undefined
exhibition; the Zealy seven cut,emancipated,from daguerreotype:
Alfred Renty, Drana, Fassena, Jack,Jem, Delia; Caliban, Othello. We
end most nights with candles,whiskey tumblers, playing cards at
(16:00):
bars with little tables where welaugh off all that makes our
eyelids heavy, stay for hours andthe minutes before morning dawns.
Part with kisses on both cheeks,reminders of the kind of love that
stains us lipstick-red, until wesee ourselves again.
Seán (16:18):
That's so strong, and this poem is kind of riffing off
dress-up and these "costumings ofthe self." You know, lines like,
"I'm the sort of man / an artistwears to sing in" which is such a
brilliant line, and the idea ofbeing free from metaphor and seeing
(16:41):
ourselves again, it made me think,you know, that this is a poem about
the gaze, in some ways, and variousgazes being seen from without and
being seen from, from within. And Ijust wondered if you could speak a
little bit about how you'renavigating those, those gazes in
this poem.
Parker Hibbett (17:02):
Yeah, I think I initially sort of had the two parts
of the poem together, and I thinkwas very interested, maybe
principally, in that, that gazeelement. What it all came down to,
sort of, for me, was this idea ofthe way that I think people might
see me, or that I think manydifferent types of marginalized
(17:26):
people have to be sort ofhyper-aware of the way that people
might see us in these bad ways, andhow that, I think, just, like,
dominates our thoughts. And I thinkI was interested in the idea of,
like, when she goes to sleep, andArt Nouveau is just off to his own
(17:48):
devices, as an opportunity to be inthis space where he and all of
these other sort of historicallymetaphorized and exhibited and
violated black bodies are able to,I don't know, exist, seeing only
themselves.
Seán (18:07):
Yeah, yeah. "Art Nouveau" is the, what she calls the alter
ego, right? This black-face alterego on the album artwork. You know,
one of the things that this poemdoes and many of the poems in your
book do, is, you know, they'rereally concerned with the interplay
between the self and history, or asingular and a collective
(18:32):
imagination. And, you know, theseare really big things to get inside
a poem. And I just can't help, insome ways, marvel at how you get
them in. How do you approach such abig subject within a poem, without
it collapsing the poem? Because itnever does with your poems.
Parker Hibbett (18:55):
I don't know. I think weirdly with this one,
especially, I think, almostfocusing on something else, like,
knowing that that was what I was inthere writing about. But I really,
especially in the first part of thepoem— in ways that at the time I
was maybe like, "am I enjoying thistoo, too much?"— I got really,
(19:15):
really into the sound and liketrying to set up these line breaks.
I think thinking of the poetic lineas this, like fabric that I was, or
the sentence as the fabric I wasstretching over the poetic line
and, like, making that as tight andas smooth as possible, and making
(19:37):
all the, all those little moments. Ithink having that to focus on meant
that, I think I was able to holdthe sort of bigger ideas, because
there was, there was anotherengine, also sort of driving,
driving the way that the poemmoved.
Seán (19:54):
Yeah, it feels like an engine. It feels like there's so
much surprise and energy availablein those line breaks, you know,
even the one where you split, "sheloves my self-," break,
"possession." And there's somethingso jugular about that that line
(20:16):
break that feels that it pulls thepoem. "With an engine," is a lovely
way of putting it. Parker, we'regoing to take a quick break now,
but when you come back, you'regoing to tell us a bit about
another sort of mythical creature,which is a goat's head, the lion's
body and a snake for a tail.
Cathy & Peter Halstead (20:46):
We hope you're enjoying this second season
of The Glimpse. It's just one smallpart of the Adrian Brinkerhoff
Poetry Foundation. We're thefounders Peter and Cathy Halstead.
Our goal is to make great poetrymore accessible to everyone, and we
do that in a variety of ways,through partnerships, our film
(21:08):
series, this podcast and ourwebsite, brinkerhoffpoetry.org. We
hope these works will lure you intoa parallel universe, the way a
Möbius strip brings you intoanother dimension without leaving
the page you're on. Thank you somuch for listening.
Seán (21:29):
Welcome back to The Glimpse. So, Parker, you've chosen
a poem by Donika Kelly as yourinspiration. Will you tell us a
little bit about what drew you tothis poem first?
Parker Hibbett (21:40):
Yeah, I think there's just this, this charge,
like, I think she's doing somethingreally exciting here. And it's
something that I think that hasreally inspired me in my own
writing. This sort of mythologymade personal, yeah? And mythology
made not just personal, but, like,intimate and moving and shifting.
Seán (22:01):
Yeah, and we were talking before about that the kind of
energy of form in your poems. Andthis poem feels to me like it has
such energy in its form. Would youread it for us? It's called
"Chimera," right?
Parker Hibbett (22:13):
Yeah, "Love Poem: Chimera" I thought myself lion and
serpent. Thought myself body enoughfor two, for we. Found comfort in
never being lonely. What burst frommy back, from my bones, what lived
along the ridge from crown tocrown, from mane to forked tongue
(22:34):
beneath the skin. What clamor wemade in the birthing. What hiss and
rumble at the splitting, at thehorns and beard, at the glottal
bleat. What bridges our back. Whatstrong neck, what bright eye. What
menagerie are we. What we've madeof ourselves.
Seán (22:58):
I feel like you need to take a breath after reading that
poem. You know, when I first readit, it really took me by surprise,
because it was almost as if therewas this kind of creature emerging
out of it, breaking out of thispoem, and it took me a while to
recognize what was happening in thepoem, and then I was getting bowled
over by the end of it.
Parker Hibbett (23:17):
I have like exclamation points written in the
book next to "What bridges ourback," and then "what menagerie,"
line break, "are we?" Just,[exhales]
Seán (23:24):
Yeah, I was staring at that line, "what menagerie / are
we?" And I was trying to figure itout, you know, why is it so good?
And I, I kind of came to this ideathat there was... "bright eye,"
"menagerie," is a kind of rhyme,and then "menagerie/are we" is a
kind of rhyme, but it's, it's kindof a changed rhyme. You know, "are
(23:46):
we" doesn't rhyme with "brighteye," but with "menagerie" in the
middle, they both rhyme. Do youknow what I mean? There's some
trickery going on in this poem,which is...
Parker Hibbett (23:55):
Yeah, it works so well on a sonic level.
Seán (23:57):
Amazing, and I think it just has a soundscape that, that
just keeps fizzing and kind ofdetonating in places. And, you
know, it feels like it's almostgymnastic, like dancing and moving
on, on the page. Was it somethingabout that movement and the kind of
soundscape of it that drew you tothis poem?
Parker Hibbett (24:18):
I think so. And I think it's those lines, like, that
hit really well. But as mentioned,I love, I think, all of the poems,
all the, the love poems that kindof sequence throughout the
collection. But there's somethingabout this one, and it was, it was
almost intangible, like, I couldn'texactly describe why this one, but
it was just, I think, that sort ofdouble valence of the, the "what,"
(24:42):
like, how it sits somewhere betweenquestion and statement, which means
that as you're reading forwardyou're kind of, it's kind of taking
shape as it moves through each ofthose sentences.
Seán (24:52):
It is. It's kind of, it's kind of shifting the poem, and it's
just kind of inching its wayforward in such a surprising
grammatical way. "What bridges ourback. / What strong neck, what
bright eye"— something of itreminded me of "The Tyger," the
William Blake poem, you know. Ihad, "What the hammer? what the
chain, / In what furnace was thybrain?" You know, I wondered if
(25:14):
there was something of themonstrous vision of "The Tyger" in
the back of the monstrous vision ofthe chimera in this poem as well.
Parker Hibbett (25:23):
Yeah, I'm sure that before and in the process of
writing this book, she must havesort of read just a lot of, like,
animal or monster poems.
Seán Hewitt (25:34):
Yeah.,The book is called Bestiary, right?
Parker Hibbett (25:36):
Yeah,
Yeah. It also seemed to me, youknow, to be a poem about hybridity.
It's about community orinterdependence. I'm gonna butcher
the line if I don't look at it, but"Thought / myself body enough for
two, for we. / Found comfort innever being lonely," You know, and
(25:57):
the whole poem kind of breaks openthat certainty or the or the
stubbornness of the idea ofself-sufficiency, you know—it has
to break out of itself. I think inthat way the, the poem kind of
becomes a metamorphosis poem, youknow, in the same way that, that
(26:17):
yours, so it fits so so wellalongside the poems in High Jump.
What is it that kind of drew youoriginally to the mythology and
these myth-making poems? Has thatalways been a kind of obsession for
you, or has it come later?
I think I always, as manyadolescents did, that, had that
(26:39):
sort of Icarus obsession, just... Ithink I was really interested in
the idea of this transcendence andthen like, failure, which in turn,
sort of evidenced, like, not afailure of him, but a failure of
the world that he was in to holdhim or something. Which I think
speaks to a lot of sort ofadolescent growing pains,
(27:02):
especially for any sort ofmarginalized kid. There's this,
like, fierce desire to, like,become...I don't know. So I think
Icarus was my sort of entryway intoa lot of stuff. But then it became,
like... the labyrinth was sort of aheavy focus.
Seán (27:19):
Right? Because the Minotaur kind of shows up in your
book as well.
Parker Hibbett (27:22):
Yeah, I feel like Minotaur was another big one from
that kind of set of mythologicalfigures. And then I read H.D.'s
Helen in Egypt, and that made, Idon't know, this like, enormous
impact on just what you could dowith myth. H.D. does this thing
(27:42):
where she frees Helen from her mythwithout really confining her to a
new one. She gets to exist in thislike plurality of the lyric "I",
like... she is poetic, opaque inlike a Glissant way, like, thing
and she is free. Like, the detailsare fuzzy, it stays, like, hazy,
(28:03):
and it's...oh my god. So I thinkthat sort of helped ignite a lot of
stuff.
Seán (28:10):
Yeah, I think, you know, there's a way in which the myths
are always there as a sort ofopportunity to transform our own
experience through this kind offund of, of stories and ideas that
are common language between us, youknow. And and it seems that you
know, in this poem "Chimera," it'stransforming what might have been
(28:36):
a, you know, a poem of ordinaryexperience into a poem of quite
extraordinary power. Because thechimera gets at the heart of, of
contradiction or hybridity inourselves and in our emotions as
well, and it... you know, ifanything, this poem feels like it's
(28:58):
in a in a locked battle betweentwo, two forms of the self. I
wonder you know, did you say thisone comes from a sequence? Are they
all love poems?
Parker Hibbett (29:09):
They're all, there's a sequence—it's kind of
spaced throughout the book—butthere are two "Love Poem:
Centaur"s (29:12):
there's a "Love Poem: Centaur" with a capital "C," "Love
Poem (29:16):
centaur" with lowercase "c." I think this one is in this
interesting space of, again, thatsort of contradiction, where it's
like somewhere in between talkingabout self-love and, like, I think
you can also read it in some ways,about sort of the space that opens
up between two people in arelationship.
Seán Hewitt (29:38):
Yeah.
Parker Hibbett (29:38):
I think that has that double valence. Some of them
are sort of more explicitly, likelove poems to someone. "Love Poem:
Centaur" starts, "Nothingapproaches the field like me."
They're all sort of like thiselectric movement. She kind of,
like, I think comes at all ofthese, from these different, I
(30:02):
guess, like kaleidoscopic, maybe,parts of sides of a prism or
something,
Seán (30:06):
Yeah, I think kaleidoscopic or, or kind of
crystalline, you know, in the wayit's bouncing the light around this
poem, or refracting things. Youknow, it just seems to be, the more
you look at it, the more it means,but also that it can mean
contradictory things. You know,it's both a love poem and, and
(30:30):
perhaps a regretful poem aboutwhat... "What we've made of
ourselves" can be read two verydifferent ways, I think, according
to how you want to read this poem.You know that it can be a kind of
sign of strength for what we'vemade, you know, the strength in the
making, but also a kind of "lookwhat we've done," in a regretful
(30:55):
way.
Parker Hibbett (30:55):
Yeah.
Seán Hewitt (30:57):
I've been reading this poem over the past week kind of
repeatedly, and I still not quitedecided the definitive reading. And
I think that's what I love aboutit.
Parker Hibbett (31:07):
Yeah. I think in preparing for talking about it
here, I was like, "oh my god, Iactually don't know how to talk
about it." Like "if I, if I presentthis reading of it, that's not the
only reading, like, I can't," Idon't know, it...
Seán Hewitt (31:20):
Yeah, there's something. But I think that's what
the best poems do, right? They kindof confound the other language that
you might, might try to summarizethem with. You know that this poem
exists in its own kind ofirreducible space, and part of it
is that kind of sparking nature of,of the words, "What bridges our
(31:42):
back. // What strong neck, whatbright eye. What menagerie / are
we." So good, so good. I loved it.So Parker, it's been a big year for
you with the publication of yourdebut book. What's next?
Parker Hibbett (31:58):
I I'm in the final year of my, my literary practice
PhD, where I'm working on, like, anauto ethnographic series of essays,
kind of memoir-esque. But yeah,working, towards, like a non
fiction book, which has beenmaddening and impossible, and I
(32:21):
think I'm starting to feel like Idon't ever want to touch prose
again after this. But by the end ofthis, I will ideally have a, like,
a nonfiction book of essays.
Seán Hewitt (32:31):
That is something really to look forward to. I can't
wait to read it. Parker, thank youso much for taking the time to
speak to us today, and for readingyour, your poems, it's been a real
pleasure.
Parker Hibbett (32:43):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been great.
Seán (32:52):
Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host. Seán Hewitt.
Seán Hewitt (32:56):
Parker’s poem "Joni Mitchell dresses up as me (parts I
and II)" is from High Jump asIcarus Story, now available from
Banshee Press.
"Love Poem (33:04):
Chimera" by Donika Kelly is from Bestiary, published
in 2016. It was used withpermission from Graywolf Press.
Coming up next week, poet JaneClarke talks about her journey from
psychoanalysis to poetry, buildinga wall, and how her visits with
farmers, ecologists and naturalistsinform her work.
(33:29):
Make sure to subscribe to TheGlimpse wherever you get your
podcasts. You can also findepisodes on our website
brinkerhoffpoetry.org/podcast, We'dalso love to hear from you. Drop us
an email attheglimpsepoetrypodcast@gmail.com
The Glimpse is a production of theAdrian Brinkerhoff Poetry
Foundation. I'm your host, SeánHewitt, our Senior Producer is
(33:51):
Jennifer Wolfe, Kat Yore is ourTechnical Director and mixing
engineer. Editorial Director AmandaGlassman is our curator and
production coordinator. Amy Holmesis the foundation's Executive
Director, and our co-founders areCathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks
for listening.
I also think finding it through poetry has been
a healing process. Yeah, as a blackbody, as a queer body, I've been
taught not to trust, trust my body,or like, trust its instincts, its
feelings. And High Jump was soimportant to me when I did it,
partially because it was all aboutme trusting this sense of my body
and its own sort of rhythm that itknew better than I could.
Seán Hewitt (00:29):
Welcome to The Glimpse. I'm your host, Seán
Hewitt. Gustav Parker Hibbett is apoet and essayist. Their first
collection, High Jump as IcarusStory was shortlisted for the T.S.
Eliot Prize. Their work hasappeared in Guernica, Adroit, The
Stinging Fly, and Poetry IrelandReview, among many others. Gustav
Parker Hibbett is our guest todayon The Glimpse.
(00:59):
In Gustav Parker Hibbett's poems,we are let loose into a world of
transformation and flight, thoughParker is always aware of the
forces of gravity, pressure and theties that bind us. With a daring
gymnastic ability to adapt theforms of their poetry and a
glittering intelligence just as athome in the world of Greek
mythology as in critical theory,music and athletics, Parker's is a
(01:23):
poetry that lifts up the self, thebody and the world in which we
exist for brilliant and powerfulexamination. Stylish, tender,
playful and rigorous, Parker is apoet whose poems have the ability
to remake themselves and to remakeus along the way. Parker, welcome
to The Glimpse. Thank you so muchfor being here.
Parker Hibbett (01:44):
Thanks for having me, and thanks for such a lovely
intro.
Seán Hewitt (01:47):
You're very welcome. I want to start by congratulating
you. Your debut collection, HighJump as Icarus Story, which came
out this year, was just recentlyshortlisted for the T.S. Eliot
Prize, which is the biggest prizefor poetry in the U.K. and Ireland,
so well done. It's such a brilliantbook, and it's threaded through
with a sort of coming of agenarrative. I think it's such a
(02:09):
beautiful exploration of the way inwhich we are kind of pressurized
and molded into, into people, andwhat we can do about that, how we
might kind of explore our ownmetamorphosis and how we might
change ourselves.
I wanted to start by asking you,you know...one of the things that
really struck me when I was readingyour book was the way you pull in
(02:31):
mythology and athletics and musicand critical theory and so many
other things to talk abouttransformation and the way we exist
in the world. I wonder what it isabout poetry and metamorphosis
that, that seem to go so hand inhand for you.
Parker Hibbett (02:48):
Yeah, I've actually done a lot of thinking about this
recently, because I think I feel somuch more at home in poetry than I
do in many different types ofprose. I don't know, and there's
something about poetry where... Ithink part of it's the lyric "I," I
think the lyric "I" is a little bitmore, I think, flexible in holding
(03:08):
a self in a way that maybe borders,like, fiction and non-fiction. But
then I also think that poetry, morethan any other form, is like open
to formal and linguisticexperimentation.
Seán Hewitt (03:22):
Yeah, yeah,
Parker Hibbett (03:23):
Which means that it's just like, it's open to, I
think, evidencing or makingmanifest, like, transformations.
Seán Hewitt (03:32):
Yeah. I think there's something about the way poetry,
particularly your poetry, moves.That seems to —you know, I keep on
wanting to make kind of circulargestures with my hands, but I'm
thinking of kind of unfoldingthings and unraveling them and
re-raveling them and remaking them.It seems to go hand-in-hand with,
with transformation. I wasn't goingto ask you about the lyric "I", but
(03:54):
now I want to. What is yourrelationship to that "I," that
speaking voice in the poem, and hasit changed over time?
Parker Hibbett (04:03):
Yeah, I think it maybe changes every time I sit down
to write, and I think that's why Ifeel really at home in poetry is...
I think there's that, the "I" frompoem to poem can be a different
angle of yourself, and you get tosort of exist fully in that angle,
(04:25):
and think through that angle.
Yeah, I think, with the poems inthis book, there was this, I think
gathering of mass, if that makessense, where it slowly had to sort
of build itself as making mecomfortable, I think, writing in a
way that I was able to have thatrelationship to the lyric "I." And
(04:47):
then I think once I accumulatedenough mass there, enough poems
that I had sort of written thatway, that relationship felt really
natural. And I think still feelsquite natural.
Seán Hewitt (04:58):
Yeah, I love that idea of an accumulation, particularly
because it could be the case thatan "I" speaks for us in a totality.
You know, it's expected to perhapsrepresent us at all times, which
is, of course, kind of impossible.And I like the idea that when you
(05:19):
start a new poem, you start again.You kind of essay your way forward.
You try another angle. You come ata different direction. And there's
a freedom in that, because youdon't have to sum everything up,
but also a freedom in that you canbe a different part of yourself.
And I wonder if, you know, lookingback over over the collection that
(05:42):
you have now, do you feel that youhave got a more pluralistic sense
of the "I"—that is the speaker ofall of these poems? Is there
something kind of choral about thebook?
Parker Hibbett (05:56):
Yeah, I think I would definitely say that, because
I think a lot of the poems werewritten not necessarily with the
intention of being put together inthis way. Like, that all sort of
came together as it came together.So it's been interesting to, like
read the book since it's been likea physical, completely together
book because, yeah, there is this,I think, chorus of selves that I'm
(06:21):
quite proud of. I think.
Seán Hewitt (06:23):
I think you should be; it's such a great book. And I mean,
you know, writers, I think, areoften asked about other writers who
inspire them. But for the subjectof your poem this week —and also a
lot of the poems in High Jump asIcarus Story—I wanted to talk to
you about music. Do you feel thatyou take inspiration in any way
(06:46):
from music, whether that's themusicality or the emotion of a song
or a singer's voice? And do youlisten to music as you write?
Parker Hibbett (06:55):
I do. I think, I'm trying to maybe cool it with this,
but I'm one of those people who,like, has to be listening to music
almost every idle [moment]. So ifI'm like, in the office, working,
I'm listening to music. If I'mwriting, I'm listening to music. If
I'm making dinner, I'm listening tomusic. I think I've had this
relationship with a lot of songs, alot of artists where I'm really
(07:17):
interested in rhythm and, like, thesound of how things work. I think
I've developed this very personalsense of how, how I think my
writing should sound. Yeah, itfeels really good to trust that
sense and then have that bevalidated the way that it's been.
Seán (07:34):
Yeah, yeah. But I think that that is, you know, so evident
in your poems that they come with abeat, and you feel them pushing
towards the place that they'regoing to; you know, there's a
momentum to them. You know, I don'twant to stretch the metaphor too
much, but I think there's somethingin the body that is rhythmic, and
(07:59):
as the title of your book, and anumber of the poems in the book
refer to "high jumping," I can'thelp but think that you must be
someone who was attuned to rhythm.You know, you need rhythm and
momentum for both of these jobs.
Parker Hibbett (08:16):
Yeah. I also think finding it through poetry has been
a healing process. As a black body,as a queer body, I've been taught
not to trust, trust my body or liketrusts its instincts, its feelings
and High Jump was so important tome when I did it, partially because
it was all about me trusting thissense of my body and its own sort
(08:37):
of rhythm that it knew better thanI could.
Seán Hewitt (08:39):
Yeah.
Parker Hibbett (08:39):
Yeah.
Seán Hewitt (08:40):
There's something kind of primal about it, perhaps, which
I love for you, that you found thatkind of freedom in the voice and,
and the rhythm, and it comesthrough in the poem so, so
strongly. You know, that there'ssomething instinctive and primal
about needing to find that rhythmin a voice, in a way of speaking,
(09:03):
that is definitely yours anddefinitely free of the sort of
doubt that is trying to ground it.
Parker Hibbett (09:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Seán (09:15):
So one of the poems that you're going to read today, your
own poem, is about one of myfavorite singers,—she's having a
renaissance again. But JoniMitchell, I feel, half-raised me.
(laughter) And, you know, when Iwas listening to Joni Mitchell as a
(09:38):
as a teenager, I kind of stopped bythe time I got to this album. I
don't think I was ready for thesort of experimentalism of Don
Juan's Reckless Daughter. Ipreferred the acoustic-y...Hejira
was kind of as far as I got. Butthe poem that you're going to read
refers to the album artwork forthat album [Don Juan's Reckless
(10:00):
Daughter] right?
Parker Hibbett (10:00):
Yeah, and it was something she did, like for a
series of years. Like, the firstinstance was at, like, a Halloween
party, then on the album of DonJuan’s Restless Daughter and then
kind of just continuously, likeshe'd sort of trotted out as this
thing that she was really, I think,artistically, proud of.
Seán (10:23):
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's very strange. So give us the
context for what we're talkingabout here.
Parker Hibbett (10:29):
Yeah. So I similarly was obsessed with Joni
Mitchell's music. I think the firstrecord that I bought was Blue,
like... I was in there. It was justmy soundtrack for so much, I think,
in the way that— I don't know—youcan come to a book and you could
think, like "The whole world iscontained in this book." I really
(10:51):
would come to, like, Blue or Hejiraand be like, "The whole world is
contained in how she's talking inthis, this album."
And then in grad school, a blackfriend of mine was like, "Hey,
like, I don't know if you knowthis, but the whole, like,
blackface thing," and then— I don'tknow— it, I was really, I think,
(11:12):
hit really hard by that in thisweird way, because it felt like
someone who had been so close to mehad hurt me in this really weird
way. Someone who I thought had seenme so clearly had, like, costumed
as me.
Seán (11:29):
I think, you know, that there is something that you can't
doubt about the immediacy of thatsort of pain and disappointment,
because, as you say, we connectwith singers and poets and writers
on such a deep level, because theybecome part of who we are, you
(11:51):
know, and we feel that they're kindof echoing inside us. And then to
see that they're not quite that,that person, and that they're
actually taking a, sort of, whatfeels like a direct aim at you, and
to let you down and hurt you musthave been a really, actually
discombobulating experience.
Parker Hibbett (12:12):
Yeah, I think the weirdest thing for me about it was
that people have sort of brought itup to her in interviews. I think as
recently as, like, 2015, peoplehave sort of asked her about it,
and she's really stood by it, like,refused to apologize, refused to
believe that there was anythingwrong.
I was reading the Anne powersbiography of her. She wrote: "She
(12:35):
didn't just cross a line. Sherefused to acknowledge its
existence."
Seán Hewitt (12:38):
Right?
Parker Hibbett (12:39):
I thought that kind of encapsulates it. I was like,
whatever about maybe not knowing ornot realizing when someone brings
it up to you as that you've donethis thing that has hurt people
potentially, and you sort of refuseto acknowledge that hurt, like,
what?
Seán Hewitt (12:55):
Yeah, kind of baffling. And especially, you know,
when we connect so closely to thevoice in those songs, which is
vulnerable and empathetic and hurtand expansive, and all of these
things that feel like the sort ofperson we want to be beside. To
(13:19):
have that, you know, really sterndismissal is crazy.
I was looking at the album DonJuan's Reckless Daughter, and I see
the album artwork on Spotify. It'schanged now, which... it's just
like a wolf now, strangely enough.But Parker, you know, you've
(13:42):
transformed that experience, whichis so full of disappointments and
pain— but also much wider culturaland historical questions— into the
most brilliant poem. I wonder ifyou would read "Joni Mitchell
dresses up as me" for us.
Parker Hibbett (14:01):
Yeah. “Joni Mitchell dresses up as me.” Dark-felt fedora
and sunglasses; little black-hairedmoustache; afro wig; skin the hue
of walnut wood painted over face,neck, hands; gold chains; earrings;
jewel-toned blazer— I am the sortof man an artist wears to sing in,
dons to shed herself (14:24):
puffed-up, pimpin', perfectly impermanent. I
am beautiful, she says (14:30):
the wisp of something Negro in the twilight
timbre of her mezzo, piano riff ofblack bird wings, noble sorrow
turned arpeggio. My brass bravadogrand enough to make her troubles
soulful jewellery, leave herfeeling freer, deeper, natural. She
(14:50):
loves that I am the friend she'snever had to worry for, the man who
jives and jukes so centrifugal thatmy noose is dew drops slipping from
a crocus stem, who grooves so fastthe cops can't catch my saxophone.
Seductive, tragic, lovely Joni saysshe loves my self- possession, how
it feels to possess me.
(15:12):
That's part one, and then part twois: When she leaves me in a pile at
the end of her bed, turns back intoherself for sleep, I up and walk
the streets, the jagged jazz clubs,alleys of the white imagination,
trail smoky grace notes in my wake.Dance with other bodies, muses,
curios on break from metaphor: Saartjie Baartman back from endless (15:36):
undefined
exhibition; the Zealy seven cut,emancipated,from daguerreotype:
Alfred Renty, Drana, Fassena, Jack,Jem, Delia; Caliban, Othello. We
end most nights with candles,whiskey tumblers, playing cards at
(16:00):
bars with little tables where welaugh off all that makes our
eyelids heavy, stay for hours andthe minutes before morning dawns.
Part with kisses on both cheeks,reminders of the kind of love that
stains us lipstick-red, until wesee ourselves again.
Seán (16:18):
That's so strong, and this poem is kind of riffing off
dress-up and these "costumings ofthe self." You know, lines like,
"I'm the sort of man / an artistwears to sing in" which is such a
brilliant line, and the idea ofbeing free from metaphor and seeing
(16:41):
ourselves again, it made me think,you know, that this is a poem about
the gaze, in some ways, and variousgazes being seen from without and
being seen from, from within. And Ijust wondered if you could speak a
little bit about how you'renavigating those, those gazes in
this poem.
Parker Hibbett (17:02):
Yeah, I think I initially sort of had the two parts
of the poem together, and I thinkwas very interested, maybe
principally, in that, that gazeelement. What it all came down to,
sort of, for me, was this idea ofthe way that I think people might
see me, or that I think manydifferent types of marginalized
(17:26):
people have to be sort ofhyper-aware of the way that people
might see us in these bad ways, andhow that, I think, just, like,
dominates our thoughts. And I thinkI was interested in the idea of,
like, when she goes to sleep, andArt Nouveau is just off to his own
(17:48):
devices, as an opportunity to be inthis space where he and all of
these other sort of historicallymetaphorized and exhibited and
violated black bodies are able to,I don't know, exist, seeing only
themselves.
Seán (18:07):
Yeah, yeah. "Art Nouveau" is the, what she calls the alter
ego, right? This black-face alterego on the album artwork. You know,
one of the things that this poemdoes and many of the poems in your
book do, is, you know, they'rereally concerned with the interplay
between the self and history, or asingular and a collective
(18:32):
imagination. And, you know, theseare really big things to get inside
a poem. And I just can't help, insome ways, marvel at how you get
them in. How do you approach such abig subject within a poem, without
it collapsing the poem? Because itnever does with your poems.
Parker Hibbett (18:55):
I don't know. I think weirdly with this one,
especially, I think, almostfocusing on something else, like,
knowing that that was what I was inthere writing about. But I really,
especially in the first part of thepoem— in ways that at the time I
was maybe like, "am I enjoying thistoo, too much?"— I got really,
(19:15):
really into the sound and liketrying to set up these line breaks.
I think thinking of the poetic lineas this, like fabric that I was, or
the sentence as the fabric I wasstretching over the poetic line
and, like, making that as tight andas smooth as possible, and making
(19:37):
all the, all those little moments. Ithink having that to focus on meant
that, I think I was able to holdthe sort of bigger ideas, because
there was, there was anotherengine, also sort of driving,
driving the way that the poemmoved.
Seán (19:54):
Yeah, it feels like an engine. It feels like there's so
much surprise and energy availablein those line breaks, you know,
even the one where you split, "sheloves my self-," break,
"possession." And there's somethingso jugular about that that line
(20:16):
break that feels that it pulls thepoem. "With an engine," is a lovely
way of putting it. Parker, we'regoing to take a quick break now,
but when you come back, you'regoing to tell us a bit about
another sort of mythical creature,which is a goat's head, the lion's
body and a snake for a tail.
Cathy & Peter Halstead (20:46):
We hope you're enjoying this second season
of The Glimpse. It's just one smallpart of the Adrian Brinkerhoff
Poetry Foundation. We're thefounders Peter and Cathy Halstead.
Our goal is to make great poetrymore accessible to everyone, and we
do that in a variety of ways,through partnerships, our film
(21:08):
series, this podcast and ourwebsite, brinkerhoffpoetry.org. We
hope these works will lure you intoa parallel universe, the way a
Möbius strip brings you intoanother dimension without leaving
the page you're on. Thank you somuch for listening.
Seán (21:29):
Welcome back to The Glimpse. So, Parker, you've chosen
a poem by Donika Kelly as yourinspiration. Will you tell us a
little bit about what drew you tothis poem first?
Parker Hibbett (21:40):
Yeah, I think there's just this, this charge,
like, I think she's doing somethingreally exciting here. And it's
something that I think that hasreally inspired me in my own
writing. This sort of mythologymade personal, yeah? And mythology
made not just personal, but, like,intimate and moving and shifting.
Seán (22:01):
Yeah, and we were talking before about that the kind of
energy of form in your poems. Andthis poem feels to me like it has
such energy in its form. Would youread it for us? It's called
"Chimera," right?
Parker Hibbett (22:13):
Yeah, "Love Poem: Chimera" I thought myself lion and
serpent. Thought myself body enoughfor two, for we. Found comfort in
never being lonely. What burst frommy back, from my bones, what lived
along the ridge from crown tocrown, from mane to forked tongue
(22:34):
beneath the skin. What clamor wemade in the birthing. What hiss and
rumble at the splitting, at thehorns and beard, at the glottal
bleat. What bridges our back. Whatstrong neck, what bright eye. What
menagerie are we. What we've madeof ourselves.
Seán (22:58):
I feel like you need to take a breath after reading that
poem. You know, when I first readit, it really took me by surprise,
because it was almost as if therewas this kind of creature emerging
out of it, breaking out of thispoem, and it took me a while to
recognize what was happening in thepoem, and then I was getting bowled
over by the end of it.
Parker Hibbett (23:17):
I have like exclamation points written in the
book next to "What bridges ourback," and then "what menagerie,"
line break, "are we?" Just,[exhales]
Seán (23:24):
Yeah, I was staring at that line, "what menagerie / are
we?" And I was trying to figure itout, you know, why is it so good?
And I, I kind of came to this ideathat there was... "bright eye,"
"menagerie," is a kind of rhyme,and then "menagerie/are we" is a
kind of rhyme, but it's, it's kindof a changed rhyme. You know, "are
(23:46):
we" doesn't rhyme with "brighteye," but with "menagerie" in the
middle, they both rhyme. Do youknow what I mean? There's some
trickery going on in this poem,which is...
Parker Hibbett (23:55):
Yeah, it works so well on a sonic level.
Seán (23:57):
Amazing, and I think it just has a soundscape that, that
just keeps fizzing and kind ofdetonating in places. And, you
know, it feels like it's almostgymnastic, like dancing and moving
on, on the page. Was it somethingabout that movement and the kind of
soundscape of it that drew you tothis poem?
Parker Hibbett (24:18):
I think so. And I think it's those lines, like, that
hit really well. But as mentioned,I love, I think, all of the poems,
all the, the love poems that kindof sequence throughout the
collection. But there's somethingabout this one, and it was, it was
almost intangible, like, I couldn'texactly describe why this one, but
it was just, I think, that sort ofdouble valence of the, the "what,"
(24:42):
like, how it sits somewhere betweenquestion and statement, which means
that as you're reading forwardyou're kind of, it's kind of taking
shape as it moves through each ofthose sentences.
Seán (24:52):
It is. It's kind of, it's kind of shifting the poem, and it's
just kind of inching its wayforward in such a surprising
grammatical way. "What bridges ourback. / What strong neck, what
bright eye"— something of itreminded me of "The Tyger," the
William Blake poem, you know. Ihad, "What the hammer? what the
chain, / In what furnace was thybrain?" You know, I wondered if
(25:14):
there was something of themonstrous vision of "The Tyger" in
the back of the monstrous vision ofthe chimera in this poem as well.
Parker Hibbett (25:23):
Yeah, I'm sure that before and in the process of
writing this book, she must havesort of read just a lot of, like,
animal or monster poems.
Seán Hewitt (25:34):
Yeah.,The book is called Bestiary, right?
Parker Hibbett (25:36):
Yeah,
Yeah. It also seemed to me, youknow, to be a poem about hybridity.
It's about community orinterdependence. I'm gonna butcher
the line if I don't look at it, but"Thought / myself body enough for
two, for we. / Found comfort innever being lonely," You know, and
(25:57):
the whole poem kind of breaks openthat certainty or the or the
stubbornness of the idea ofself-sufficiency, you know—it has
to break out of itself. I think inthat way the, the poem kind of
becomes a metamorphosis poem, youknow, in the same way that, that
(26:17):
yours, so it fits so so wellalongside the poems in High Jump.
What is it that kind of drew youoriginally to the mythology and
these myth-making poems? Has thatalways been a kind of obsession for
you, or has it come later?
I think I always, as manyadolescents did, that, had that
(26:39):
sort of Icarus obsession, just... Ithink I was really interested in
the idea of this transcendence andthen like, failure, which in turn,
sort of evidenced, like, not afailure of him, but a failure of
the world that he was in to holdhim or something. Which I think
speaks to a lot of sort ofadolescent growing pains,
(27:02):
especially for any sort ofmarginalized kid. There's this,
like, fierce desire to, like,become...I don't know. So I think
Icarus was my sort of entryway intoa lot of stuff. But then it became,
like... the labyrinth was sort of aheavy focus.
Seán (27:19):
Right? Because the Minotaur kind of shows up in your
book as well.
Parker Hibbett (27:22):
Yeah, I feel like Minotaur was another big one from
that kind of set of mythologicalfigures. And then I read H.D.'s
Helen in Egypt, and that made, Idon't know, this like, enormous
impact on just what you could dowith myth. H.D. does this thing
(27:42):
where she frees Helen from her mythwithout really confining her to a
new one. She gets to exist in thislike plurality of the lyric "I",
like... she is poetic, opaque inlike a Glissant way, like, thing
and she is free. Like, the detailsare fuzzy, it stays, like, hazy,
(28:03):
and it's...oh my god. So I thinkthat sort of helped ignite a lot of
stuff.
Seán (28:10):
Yeah, I think, you know, there's a way in which the myths
are always there as a sort ofopportunity to transform our own
experience through this kind offund of, of stories and ideas that
are common language between us, youknow. And and it seems that you
know, in this poem "Chimera," it'stransforming what might have been
(28:36):
a, you know, a poem of ordinaryexperience into a poem of quite
extraordinary power. Because thechimera gets at the heart of, of
contradiction or hybridity inourselves and in our emotions as
well, and it... you know, ifanything, this poem feels like it's
(28:58):
in a in a locked battle betweentwo, two forms of the self. I
wonder you know, did you say thisone comes from a sequence? Are they
all love poems?
Parker Hibbett (29:09):
They're all, there's a sequence—it's kind of
spaced throughout the book—butthere are two "Love Poem:
Centaur"s (29:12):
there's a "Love Poem: Centaur" with a capital "C," "Love
Poem (29:16):
centaur" with lowercase "c." I think this one is in this
interesting space of, again, thatsort of contradiction, where it's
like somewhere in between talkingabout self-love and, like, I think
you can also read it in some ways,about sort of the space that opens
up between two people in arelationship.
Seán Hewitt (29:38):
Yeah.
Parker Hibbett (29:38):
I think that has that double valence. Some of them
are sort of more explicitly, likelove poems to someone. "Love Poem:
Centaur" starts, "Nothingapproaches the field like me."
They're all sort of like thiselectric movement. She kind of,
like, I think comes at all ofthese, from these different, I
(30:02):
guess, like kaleidoscopic, maybe,parts of sides of a prism or
something,
Seán (30:06):
Yeah, I think kaleidoscopic or, or kind of
crystalline, you know, in the wayit's bouncing the light around this
poem, or refracting things. Youknow, it just seems to be, the more
you look at it, the more it means,but also that it can mean
contradictory things. You know,it's both a love poem and, and
(30:30):
perhaps a regretful poem aboutwhat... "What we've made of
ourselves" can be read two verydifferent ways, I think, according
to how you want to read this poem.You know that it can be a kind of
sign of strength for what we'vemade, you know, the strength in the
making, but also a kind of "lookwhat we've done," in a regretful
(30:55):
way.
Parker Hibbett (30:55):
Yeah.
Seán Hewitt (30:57):
I've been reading this poem over the past week kind of
repeatedly, and I still not quitedecided the definitive reading. And
I think that's what I love aboutit.
Parker Hibbett (31:07):
Yeah. I think in preparing for talking about it
here, I was like, "oh my god, Iactually don't know how to talk
about it." Like "if I, if I presentthis reading of it, that's not the
only reading, like, I can't," Idon't know, it...
Seán Hewitt (31:20):
Yeah, there's something. But I think that's what
the best poems do, right? They kindof confound the other language that
you might, might try to summarizethem with. You know that this poem
exists in its own kind ofirreducible space, and part of it
is that kind of sparking nature of,of the words, "What bridges our
(31:42):
back. // What strong neck, whatbright eye. What menagerie / are
we." So good, so good. I loved it.So Parker, it's been a big year for
you with the publication of yourdebut book. What's next?
Parker Hibbett (31:58):
I I'm in the final year of my, my literary practice
PhD, where I'm working on, like, anauto ethnographic series of essays,
kind of memoir-esque. But yeah,working, towards, like a non
fiction book, which has beenmaddening and impossible, and I
(32:21):
think I'm starting to feel like Idon't ever want to touch prose
again after this. But by the end ofthis, I will ideally have a, like,
a nonfiction book of essays.
Seán Hewitt (32:31):
That is something really to look forward to. I can't
wait to read it. Parker, thank youso much for taking the time to
speak to us today, and for readingyour, your poems, it's been a real
pleasure.
Parker Hibbett (32:43):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been great.
Seán (32:52):
Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host. Seán Hewitt.
Seán Hewitt (32:56):
Parker’s poem "Joni Mitchell dresses up as me (parts I
and II)" is from High Jump asIcarus Story, now available from
Banshee Press.
"Love Poem (33:04):
Chimera" by Donika Kelly is from Bestiary, published
in 2016. It was used withpermission from Graywolf Press.
Coming up next week, poet JaneClarke talks about her journey from
psychoanalysis to poetry, buildinga wall, and how her visits with
farmers, ecologists and naturalistsinform her work.
(33:29):
Make sure to subscribe to TheGlimpse wherever you get your
podcasts. You can also findepisodes on our website
brinkerhoffpoetry.org/podcast, We'dalso love to hear from you. Drop us
an email attheglimpsepoetrypodcast@gmail.com
The Glimpse is a production of theAdrian Brinkerhoff Poetry
Foundation. I'm your host, SeánHewitt, our Senior Producer is
(33:51):
Jennifer Wolfe, Kat Yore is ourTechnical Director and mixing
engineer. Editorial Director AmandaGlassman is our curator and
production coordinator. Amy Holmesis the foundation's Executive
Director, and our co-founders areCathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks
for listening.
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