October 1, 2024 • 31 mins
After reading a poem out loud, we hope you've had the experience of inexplicably welling with emotion. Be it joy, grief, adoration for beauty or those emotions harder to describe, we've found these literary experiences can dramatically alter our points of view. But why? What in tightly written pieces of prose causes us to shiver with goosebumps, weep or smile ear-to-ear? Julie Carr is an award-winning poet and activist who has authored seventeen books of poetry, prose and translation, and on today's episode she delves into the way poetry and written words can transform their readers. Julie also explores the manner dance has influenced her writing, continues to show up in her art and influenced her most recent collection titled Underscore.
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Buy Julie's newest collection, Underscore.
Learn more about Counterpath.
Read more about Julie and her work.
Original music composed by Nelson Walker.
Recorded at Interplay Recording and Multimedia.
Written and produced by Erika Randall and Tim Grassley.
The Ampersand is a production of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[Erika Randall, host of The Ampersand, firmly presses typewriter keys]
(00:02):
[It's hard to fathom that typing used to be this hard. Ah, the bliss of mechanical effort.]
ERIKA RANDALL (00:03):
A and S. [The typewriter platen (you're welcome) zooms and dings.]
JULIE CARR [rustles and fidgets] (00:09):
Well, if I have to read something,
we might have toslow it down a little
just because I don't think--
ERIKA RANDALL (00:16):
I imagine poet Julie Carr reading Underscore,
a book of poems dedicated toNancy Stark Smith and Jean
Valentine, both ofwhom passed in 2020.
[Julie Carr continues to chat in the background, settling into the interview]
Julie's mastery of language seamlessly
fuses with herrivered intonation,
so that when she reads, a hushfolds over everyone in the room.
You, dear listeners,have to experience it.
(00:38):
And I can't imagine a betterway to begin our episode
than Julie Carr readingher poetry for you.
JULIE CARR (00:44):
Yeah Yeah.
This one's called NewYear, and this is for Jean.
So for Jean Valentine,1934 to 2020.
The basement, green andcold, behind three doors.
Here was the middleone, which you know.
(01:06):
In whitewashed walls, yourhand had curved around its pen.
It was your kitchen,where you draw your brows.
And the phone rang,your daughter.
She wanted you to go to anappointment to check your head.
You laughed.
I remember things, you said.
(01:28):
I'm sitting here with--
said my name, butit was a question.
It was the night webecame, again, human,
Though tired, though old,
Though you did not call backthrough the whole night,
Though I had to bein a different room
(01:49):
chewing up the mirror.
In the morning, youhad a gift for us,
A compass on a longchain which you
wore when you skipped ahead ofme, descending into the station.
[The Ampersand's theme music—like a sparkling stream of mandolin and cello—builds]
ERIKA RANDALL (02:07):
On The Ampersand, we call this bringing together
the impossible, thealchemy of "anding."
Together, we'll hear stories ofhumans who imagine and create
by colliding their interests.
Rather than thinking of "and"as a simple conjunction and that
Conjunction Junctionkind of way,
we will hear stories ofpeople who see and as a verb,
a way to speak the beautifulwhen you intentionally let
(02:28):
the soft animal of yourbody love what it loves.
As St. Mary Oliverasks, what is it you
plan to do with your onewild and precious life?
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating, and collaborating,
it reminds me toreplace a singular
idea of what I think I shouldbecome with a full sensory verb
about experiencing.
(02:49):
I'm Erika Randall.
And this is JulieCarr on The Ampersand.
[Music that feels like the sensation of having just run your hand across an unpainted canvas]
[The music, like that canvas feeling slowly fades]
JULIE CARR (03:02):
I was a child and I had a difficult emotional
life and in very young ages.
And my mom, who wasthe reason I had
the difficult emotional life,was also an amazing reader.
And she had beenan English major.
So we had a lot ofbooks in the house.
(03:22):
And at some point,really young, I
started reading poetry,like, super, super young.
And then one of the poetsthat I read in some collection
was Emily Dickinson.
And then, I--
ERIKA RANDALL [laughing] (03:33):
That'll rock an eight-year-old world.
JULIE CARR (03:34):
Yeah, and I kept reading Emily Dickinson.
And you know, you just readthe ones that speak to you.
But at the time, it was like,I am nobody. You know. Who are you?
ERIKA RANDALL [laughs at the prospect of a child reading this poem] (03:42):
I heard a fly buzz when I died.
JULIE CARR [with a smile] (03:44):
Well, that one-- no, that one came later.
But, like, yeah,the idea of being
sort of nobody or writing--
this is my letter to theworld that never wrote to me.
And, like, those lines, theyspoke to this child who felt,
you know, isolated,lonely, a little bit
outside of, somehow, something.
(04:07):
But they didn'tjust speak to it.
It wasn't like, oh,here, I'm describing
an experience for you.
It's rather, I'm helpingyou create an experience.
So having read that, thenI was like, oh, that's me,
I'm lonely, oh, that's me, I'mwriting a letter to the world.
And then, that becomes me.
So it doesn't describe who youare, it transforms who you are.
(04:30):
And I think in thattransformation,
feeling that there was thiswriter, Emily Dickinson,
knew nothing about her,who had, like, sort of,
helped me make a me, then Ihad this intimate relationship
with whoever she was,who I thought she was.
ERIKA RANDALL (04:47):
But you kept dancing.
JULIE CARR (04:48):
Yeah, no, I was young and wanted to be a dancer.
I had to work through a lot ofthings I think a lot of dancers
have to work through,around self-image and body
image and stuff andself-worth to get to a point
where dancing was a pleasureinstead of a punishment.
ERIKA RANDALL: Does the poet work (05:04):
undefined
through those sameexercises of self-worth?
JULIE CARR (05:09):
It's really different.
When I decided it's time to putdancing in a different category
and writing in a new category,so really shifting that,
the hugest relief I felt wasthe escape from the body.
And I don't mean that I don'thave a body when I write,
but that I realized, OK, I don'thave to have a particular body.
(05:31):
I don't have to train thebody or punish the body
or be mad at the body or sufferbecause the body had a problem.
Now it's just the body getsto do what the body does.
And whatever it is, isperfectly OK to work with.
But maybe because I wasn't soyoung when I started becoming
a poet, I was alreadyin my late 20s--
(05:54):
I don't know.
That's very young.
But I was young 18.
I don't know.
I was always writingpoetry, but I
wasn't trying to be a poetuntil after I was moving away
from dance.
ERIKA RANDALL (06:05):
But the two sit side by side for you now.
JULIE CARR (06:07):
Yeah, so what is the relationship between them now?
ERIKA RANDALL (06:10):
Yeah.
JULIE CARR (06:11):
So for me, now I get to be a lover of dance
without having tobe a performer.
And that was something I thinkI always wanted on some level,
to just be able to enjoy it--
ERIKA RANDALL (06:24):
To be a dancer.
JULIE CARR (06:24):
--and not watch it, wondering
if I was also able todo what they were doing.
All those thoughts, like,I'm not good enough,
all that it's not there anymorebecause I'm not trying to do it.
I can do it if Iwant, a little bit.
But I'm not on stage.
And so I thinkthat allowed dance
to be a part of my life ina totally different way.
(06:45):
And then, also, the newestbook that I just wrote,
which is called Underscore,is a tribute to two people.
And one of them isNancy Stark Smith.
ERIKA RANDALL (06:55):
Yeah.
JULIE CARR (06:55):
Yeah, so Nancy was my teacher for a long time.
She was so manypeople's teacher.
When she died-- so this wasin the middle of the beginning
of COVID, so I think itwas maybe June of 2020
or something like that.
ERIKA RANDALL (07:07):
That's what I remember, spring-summer.
JULIE CARR (07:08):
And Edwin Torres, who has also been in my life
for a really, really long time,a poet and performer, a mover,
an "everything-er," he createdone of the first Zoom reading
events.
And he asked me to do adurational performance.
And Nancy had just died.
So I said I woulddo a tribute to her.
(07:31):
And then I made an hour-longdance of Nancy's being evoked.
Having done that--
ERIKA RANDALL (07:40):
Mhm, yeah.
JULIE CARR (07:42):
I think, without immediately thinking it,
I think I knew that Ineeded to pay tribute--
that it was a wayof paying tribute
and I needed tocontinue to pay tribute.
And then when JeanValentine died,
who had been my mostimportant poetry teacher,
they both died within afew months of each other.
And I was like, well,this is that moment
(08:04):
in life, the age thatI am, which is 57,
when the elders are passing.
So I have three other parents.
They're in their80s or late 70s.
And then, of course, teachers,teachers, teachers, teachers,
and also peers are dying.
And so having lost two teachers,I just felt like this was--
(08:24):
I mean, I knewthis to be a moment
of real transition for me.
ERIKA RANDALL (08:30):
I would love to hear you read.
I would love to hear--
JULIE CARR (08:35):
I would love to read a couple of those.
The title Underscoreis a direct tribute
to Nancy's The Underscore,which was her score
that she invented overa long period of time
and taught all over the world.
And people still practiceit all over the world.
So I have actuallya little essay
at the end of thebook that explains
that and talks about whatshe and also Jean gave me.
(08:56):
So maybe I'll read the poemthat's called The Underscore.
ERIKA RANDALL (08:59):
I would love it.
JULIE CARR (09:02):
The Underscore, for Nancy Stark Smith, 1952 to 2020.
Those birds, white-headed,black-winged, unafraid,
Slow, comical song,they call to me.
I call to them tryingthis key, then another.
(09:22):
In the padlock, how itis, always was, July.
Scarred sidewalks,mouthless choirs,
Ghost companions in the thicket.
How the soil and the trowelfolds inward like a jacket,
And daughters without mothersfall backwards into bushes.
(09:44):
Raspberry fingertips,tensed tongues,
They test the brokenedges of cups.
How they work with people,
How they get youready to be touched,
How the sun pourstranslucence into leaves,
How the orange bead ona string around my neck
Was an orange bead ona string around yours,
(10:07):
How the throat beatswith blood and voice,
Coursing, coarse, sore,
In this way, weserve one another.
With air-droppedflowers in our phones,
Who is missing you today?
Who turned your camera off?
Whose plane grazed the low cloud
(10:30):
To release the rain that floodsthe back of my mirror again.
ERIKA RANDALL (10:36):
Who is missing you today?
JULIE CARR (10:38):
Mm-hmm, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (10:40):
And I love the way you talk about the teachers
and to say that you putthem in the past tense,
and you said, no.
In that sense of the hauntingthat you talk about in so much
of your work, it feels like thisbeing haunted with good ghosts.
JULIE CARR (10:55):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
ERIKA RANDALL (10:57):
Do you have another [INAUDIBLE]?
JULIE CARR (10:59):
I just want to read this one right now
for my friend Peter Giesy.
He's still with us.
But this speaks alot to that thing
we were talking aboutbefore about how
somebody's writing entersyou and becomes you
and transforms you.
Because this poem I wroteto him is, in a way,
borrowing his voice to write it.
(11:21):
Or I feel very much himin me as I'm writing it.
And Peter's work-- hejust has a new book out
that I was readingthis last few days.
And his work is justvery central to how
I understand the concept ofthe lyric, in particular.
And there's lots ofdifferent kinds of writing,
but that's one that-- yeah.
So it's called GoodMorning for Peter.
(11:45):
Good morning smudged glasson the medicine chest.
Good morning sea ofeyes, sea of shadows.
It's to you and to everybit of summer's must
That I've got my mindwith my breathing.
It was to find you todaythat I started this,
This breath in a line of sound
(12:06):
Was always to findthe sound of you
Or the shuffle of yourstance like an apology.
Good morning to the dogwith his nose in the air,
To the park on my rightside with its memory,
The shade of youand the shade of me
Slipping on ice withour hands linked,
How a party for youwas a party for me,
(12:28):
How I thought of yourvoice in some daisies,
Your voice that hangs outon the basement stair.
Sometimes I go sit beside it.
That's when the worldgets all swirly,
When I've got you with asmoke on a fire escape,
Got you at picnics ofcrackers and oranges.
(12:50):
Since you are tome what this is.
What might seem minimalis really maximal.
I position myself towardyou for all of it.
So yeah, that thing about voice.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:05):
And the shuffle of stance.
JULIE CARR (13:07):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:07):
It's right there, the floating of your walk,
the shuffle of his stance.
JULIE CARR (13:11):
Yeah, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:12):
All coming in.
JULIE CARR (13:12):
Right.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:13):
[SIGHS]
JULIE CARR (13:13):
Yeah, and then that sense of presence and absence,
I think the feeling--
the feeling of Peter,for me, has something
to do with his childhood grief.
And so him sitting on thebasement stair as if--
ERIKA RANDALL (13:27):
Like you're in trouble.
JULIE CARR (13:28):
--he's a child and he's there and I go find him.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:32):
And then it shifts to the fire escape,
and then I'm with you in your20s watching a sunrise after
being up all night, beingway too wise for your years.
When you're recreating thesehumans and these beloveds,
how aligned is thatto recreating folks
(13:55):
you didn't know, who werepart of your ancestral past?
Because when I think aboutthis book, The Mud, Blood,
and Ghosts, you're really goingback in time to reform, reshape,
reknow, recurate thestory of your ancestry,
of other bodies thatyou may or may not love.
JULIE CARR (14:15):
Right.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:15):
And that's a hard one.
Maybe we want to bringthe person forward
when we love them.
But do we want to bringthe person forward when
we don't totally love them?
And in this book, there's a lotof complexity around the humans
you're bringing to the table.
JULIE CARR (14:33):
Right.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:33):
Can you talk about this idea
of how time and love changethe way you might write
or think or see about a person?
JULIE CARR (14:43):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, so there's afew central characters
in Mud, Blood, and Ghosts.
And the main one, ofcourse, is Omer Madison Kem,
who was my great grandfather.
And maybe I don't love him.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:55):
Maybe we don't love him.
JULIE CARR (14:57):
Maybe we don't love him.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:58):
And that's OK.
JULIE CARR (14:59):
Yeah, and maybe he was an aggressive person
and he was passionate and he hadsome good ideas and some really,
really, really bad ones.
And so I guess whatI'll say is I never
felt that I was conjuring Omerfor who he might have really
been.
I felt like Omer hadgiven me an entry point
(15:23):
into a bunch of history that Ineeded, because of him, to know.
I needed to know it because ofhim, because he was my ancestor.
And he was callingme in that sense.
But he wasn't ghosting me inthat I didn't feel his presence
as much as I took theopportunity of his stories
to find thesecomplicated stories.
ERIKA RANDALL (15:47):
The things that they
talked about, though, Imean, I'm thinking with you,
also, I'm thinking withyou as a dancer, as a poet,
as an activist, as a teacher,as a really potent voice
in the communities that I knowyou in when you are advocating
for students.
And I think of you as also,now, in getting to research you,
(16:09):
as a gardener andas a person of land.
Can you point to your gardening?
Can you point to theland, the love of land
and the love ofgiving food away?
And does that pointback to the parts
that you want to keepmaybe from these ghosts?
Does that feel connected?
Or does it feel totally new?
JULIE CARR (16:27):
No, I think it does.
And, yeah, I'm gladyou brought that up
because somebody asked me thatand I didn't really answer it.
And I've been regrettingnot really answering it.
ERIKA RANDALL (16:36):
I'm so glad you get
a chance to stop that regret.
JULIE CARR (16:38):
That wasn't really fair what I said.
I didn't really say everything.
And I think there is a legacy.
Maybe I didn't want tosound proud or something.
But I feel like there is alegacy in the family that does
have roots in Omer's populism.
And maybe we should say a fewwords about what populism meant
(16:58):
in the 1890s.
I mean, he was a farmer.
And populism was a movementto resist corporatization,
monopolies, themonopolies, to resist
the economic inequalities.
And it's the Gilded Age.
So there was a lot ofeconomic inequality
and was it lined witha labor movement,
and in fact, was even a biracialmovement for a little while.
(17:22):
So there was alot of good things
about that early populism.
And there's probably a lot ofgood things about our versions
of populism in some quarters.
And so coming out of thatis an idea of outrage
and speaking out andbelieving in some way in which
(17:45):
economic inequality anyway, ifnot other forms of inequality,
should be addressed,and should be addressed
by the whole fabric ofsociety, not just by,
like, oh, well, let'stry to be nice to people
and give things away.
I mean, that's good.
One should.
But really, through the laws ofthe country and the government.
ERIKA RANDALL (18:06):
And you operate that way systemically,
in my experience.
[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]
JULIE CARR (18:10):
Yeah, I think I do.
I mean, I think I carrythat feeling of things
should be different andthey can be different.
And we shouldn't be complacent.
And also, we shouldn'tbelieve the lies.
[LAUGHS]
And there's no reasonone shouldn't speak out,
like that being quiet isn'tgoing to serve anyone.
ERIKA RANDALL (18:32):
Did Counterpath help you build your voice?
Or was your voice already--
JULIE CARR (18:36):
No.
ERIKA RANDALL (18:37):
--megaphoned and Counterpath was
a natural evolution for you.
And can you talk aboutwhat Counterpath is?
JULIE CARR (18:42):
Sure, so Counterpath is the community art space, food
bank, community garden, freebookstore, and performance space
that Tim Robertsand I run together.
And I think--
OK, I mean, I grew upas an activist child.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:06):
You did.
You made signs.
JULIE CARR (19:08):
I made signs.
I painted peacesigns on my face.
My mother was ananti-war activist.
I mean, my dad probably, too.
But really, they divorcedwhen I was very, very young.
And so most of thisexperience was with her.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:20):
You marched with your mom.
JULIE CARR (19:21):
I marched with my mom.
She was super active in theanti-war movement in Cambridge
in Boston.
She was very central andorganized a lot of things.
And I was there.
And so that was justwhat I understood,
like, that's how you be in theworld is you go to these things.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:38):
You activate.
JULIE CARR (19:39):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: Yeah, and show up. (19:39):
undefined
JULIE CARR (19:40):
That's just part of life.
So I did thatthroughout my childhood,
throughout being a teenager.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:45):
You didn't rebel and sit back
as a way to rebelagainst your mom
and go Michael P. Keaton on her.
JULIE CARR (19:50):
No.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:51):
No.
JULIE CARR (19:52):
Nope.
And so protest movements,we could talk about this
forever, whether today,whether marches are--
I don't know.
There's a lot to say about whatworks and what doesn't work
and ways things are co-opted.
But anyway, that wasdefinitely how I was raised.
(20:14):
And so when Tim and I met,which was in 1997 or 1996,
I was a person who would belike, we got to go to the March.
And he was kind of like,oh, we'll find another way.
ERIKA RANDALL (20:33):
A counterpath.
JULIE CARR (20:34):
A counterpath, exactly, precisely.
So really, both ofour idea, but his idea
was that we would startsomething literary.
And it would be maybe a press,maybe a bookstore, or maybe--
ERIKA RANDALL (20:46):
Or all the things.
JULIE CARR (20:47):
It turned out to be all the things.
So when he and Istarted Counterpath,
I don't think we had theidea that it was somehow
an activist project at all.
It was a literary project.
But there was-- I think he hada really deep understanding
and always has had avery deep understanding
of the relationshipbetween the two,
and that to make art and supportartists is a form of activism
(21:09):
and it is a counterpath.
And it does speak back.
And it does offer acrucial other world.
And I think I was notso clear on that then.
But I was excited to go along.
And so we started Counterpath.
And at first, we werereally just doing
poetry, really, and fiction.
And that was great.
(21:30):
And then, it wascoming to Denver,
we ended up buying this garage.
And we were like,oh, look at us.
Now we're thegentrifiers because we
know that an art space ina not wealthy neighborhood
is usually the first step.
After the art spacecomes the cafe.
And then it all follows that.
(21:50):
And again, to holdcomplexities, you
can't just condemn that move,because at the same time,
the neighborhood is excitedand happy to have us.
So, I'm not saying everyone,but a lot of people.
So we immediately--really, I'll just
credit Tim in this thinking,but was immediately like,
(22:13):
we got to do it different.
If we're going to be here and wedon't live in this neighborhood,
we have to do things thatare neighborhood-centric.
We can't just bring ouravant garde, blah-di-blah
into this neighborhood.
ERIKA RANDALL (22:25):
So did the gardens start?
JULIE CARR (22:27):
So the gardens started in response to that.
ERIKA RANDALL (22:29):
Oh, I love that.
JULIE CARR (22:31):
Loved gardening, but that was part of it
was, like, we'll makea community garden,
we'll invite people.
Also, we had our first openingwas called the Open Opening,
where anybody couldbring anything
that they thought of asart, and actually was
one of our favoriteevents we've ever had.
And we've done--
I mean, the list goes on.
There's a ton of--
I don't know--neighborhood-centric events
(22:53):
and projects that have happenedand that keep happening there.
ERIKA RANDALL (22:57):
And that build community.
JULIE CARR (22:59):
Yeah, oh, definitely.
We don't really havecommunity where we live,
which is in a much moreaffluent neighborhood.
So everyone knows that story.
That neighborhood, there's notreally that kind of community.
ERIKA RANDALL (23:10):
Yes, it's complicated.
JULIE CARR (23:12):
Absolutely, it's all very complicated.
And community gardensare complicated.
And urban gardening, it'san interesting project
because it doesn't reallyproduce food at the level
that it's needed.
So we run a food bank.
And the food that wegive away, we thought,
oh, we'll grow all this foodand we'll give it all away.
Sure, we do do that.
(23:32):
But it's a tiny fractionof the food we give away.
ERIKA RANDALL (23:36):
And more of it comes from the donations.
JULIE CARR (23:38):
No, it comes from We Don't Waste, mostly.
It comes from donations, butalso from We Don't Waste.
We Don't Waste is amazing.
And it's like crates andcrates and crates of zucchini.
So what the garden ends up beingis like an experience for me
and everyone--
[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]
ERIKA RANDALL (23:54):
--to know where zucchini really comes from.
JULIE CARR (23:56):
And people who love gardening show up.
And they participate.
And different years, there'sdifferent numbers of people
and different groups of people.
But it's a way to betogether, and to do something
that everybody loves doing.
And then, yeah, sure, you takehome some vegetables, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: There is something (24:12):
undefined
about every aspect of you thatcould take an hour, at least,
for us to stay with.
And so I hate to evenhave to wrap us up.
But I'm going to have to.
But I have to tell--
I'm going to do a truth.
And then we're going togo to the quick and dirty.
My truth is that I have alwaysbeen so intimidated by you.
JULIE CARR (24:31):
Oh, my god.
ERIKA RANDALL (24:32):
I have been so afraid to be in conversation
with you becauseI thought, there's
no way I'm as coolas Julie Carr.
JULIE CARR (24:36):
Oh, that's crazy.
ERIKA RANDALL (24:38):
And then, the way to get over
intimidation ofsomeone, which is just
to read what they send youand what matters to them,
and to fall in love.
And I have, this week, sofallen in love with Julie Carr
that I can now say, Ihave no intimidation,
I have no weird,misplaced, not cool kid.
(25:01):
I have-- really.
And then getting to sitwith you in that love
and to get to just see you beand talk about and your voice,
and I feel so super lucky.
JULIE CARR (25:10):
Oh, thank you.
ERIKA RANDALL: Yeah, thanks, Julie. (25:12):
undefined
JULIE CARR (25:13):
I had no idea you were--
that's silly.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:15):
Well, now I know it's silly.
Now I just think you're--
I always thoughtyou were cool, but I
thought you were, like, cool.
And now I love how cool you are.
Because I'm, like, metabolizingthat as part of me.
And I'm learningabout myself through.
So I just want to say thanks.
JULIE CARR (25:31):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:31):
Yeah, it's really a gift.
JULIE CARR (25:33):
Thank you.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:33):
OK, are you ready to go quick and dirty?
JULIE CARR (25:35):
Sure.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:36):
OK, so as fast as you can.
JULIE CARR (25:38):
OK.
ERIKA RANDALL: Whatever comes forward. (25:39):
undefined
OK, two people you wouldlike to read letters between.
JULIE CARR (25:46):
OK, I'm sorry.
I'm not very fast.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:48):
I know, no one is.
JULIE CARR (25:50):
OK, Gerard Manley Hopkins,
whose letters I haveread, and Emily Dickinson.
Why not?
ERIKA RANDALL (25:57):
I love that.
OK, if you started a band, whatkind of music would you play?
And what would the name ofthe band be, with "and" in it?
JULIE CARR (26:05):
With "and" in it?
ERIKA RANDALL (26:06):
Yeah, it could be like blank "and" blank or it
could be "B-and" of Horses.
JULIE CARR (26:11):
All right, OK, let's call it Mint Leaves "and" Frog
Legs, OK?
ERIKA RANDALL (26:18):
Great.
And what kind of music is this.
JULIE CARR (26:20):
Because of that name,
I think it has to be someweird folk hybrid band.
I'm not a musician at all.
ERIKA RANDALL (26:27):
I love how quickly mint leaves came up.
It's definitely mint leaves.
JULIE CARR (26:30):
Mint leaves is fine.
But how are you going todeal with mint leaves, which
is so bucolic?
You have to giveit something else.
ERIKA RANDALL (26:36):
You got to give it something with a--
CREW (26:37):
OK.
ERIKA RANDALL (26:38):
OK, great.
Your activist bumpersticker with "and" in it.
JULIE CARR (26:42):
Oh, god, read and--
all right, we'lljust go with it.
"Read and dance."
ERIKA RANDALL (26:48):
Read and dance, I love it.
Right there with you.
A food that is much bettermade, not necessarily by you,
but it be by you becauseyou cook, made better
in your kitchen thanin a restaurant.
JULIE CARR (26:59):
Oh, god, I'm sorry.
Everything.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:01):
Everything.
So, and, and, and, and, and.
But a favorite thatright now you're
in the throes of late summer.
JULIE CARR (27:09):
Yeah, tomato, corn, basil, red onion
salad with a lot of olive oiland roasted or broiled eggplant,
really, really wellcooked so it's sweet.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:29):
Mm-hmm.
JULIE CARR (27:30):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: You're hitting my-- (27:31):
undefined
[INAUDIBLE] squeezingmy salivory glands.
JULIE CARR (27:33):
Yeah, with a yogurt sauce that has some salt in it
and some olive oil and lemon in.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:39):
Can it be yogurt sauce without cucumber?
JULIE CARR (27:41):
Sure.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:42):
If I'm coming over?
JULIE CARR (27:42):
I don't need the cucumber.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:43):
OK, great.
Great, perfect.
I'm coming over.
All right, thecombination of things
need to get into writing mode.
JULIE CARR (27:51):
Books, I have to be reading for sure, solitude,
and coffee, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:01):
Anything in the coffee or just--
JULIE CARR (28:03):
Yeah, milk.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:04):
Milk, OK.
And "ander" you admire.
JULIE CARR (28:07):
Oh, somebody who does multiple things
that I admire?
Ralph Lemon, adore.
J'adore.
ERIKA RANDALL: J'adore Ralph Lemon. (28:14):
undefined
Yes, yeah, I was so lucky tobe at University of Illinois
when Ralph was inresidency for three years.
And Giselle came back into mylife, who you've worked with.
But Ralph Lemon,yeah, over and over.
JULIE CARR (28:27):
His films, his visual work is everything.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:29):
His talking.
JULIE CARR (28:30):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: Just as "humaning." (28:30):
undefined
JULIE CARR (28:31):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:31):
Yeah.
OK, because I didn't getto ask this question,
I'm going to ask it inthe quick and dirty.
I know two ways thatyou've described pink,
but can I have four ways todescribe pink, to be specific?
JULIE CARR (28:43):
OK, so there's under the--
behind-the-ear pink,for some of us.
There's the pinkof a cow's tongue.
There's-- I'm justin the body, I guess.
(29:04):
Yeah, there'sdefinitely nipple pink.
And then, I guess there's also--
let me think.
There's the pink of--
well I'll steal one for myself.
That bedspread pink.
I was really happy with that.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:17):
I love that bedspread pink.
JULIE CARR (29:18):
Because there could be any kind of bedspread pink,
but we all know what we meanwhen we say bedspread pink.
ERIKA RANDALL: Oh, yeah, we know. (29:26):
undefined
Even if we're not thinkingof the same [? ring. ?]
JULIE CARR (29:30):
It's still the same.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:31):
It's the same.
JULIE CARR (29:31):
It's the feeling of it.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:32):
It's the feeling of the bedspread pink.
Yeah, that and rollerrink pink is my other.
JULIE CARR (29:36):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:36):
I love it.
OK, if you were giving ablessing to a graduating class,
to someone going offinto a new adventure,
and you were tobegin it with "and."
JULIE CARR (29:46):
Mhm.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:47):
Yeah, what would it be?
JULIE CARR (29:50):
And I start it with the word "and"?
ERIKA RANDALL (29:52):
Mm-hmm.
JULIE CARR (29:53):
OK, and rest.
I mean, there's something aboutso many of those blessings
are about, go forth andconquer, now change the world.
And it's like, maybe you justfinished something, so rest,
and then we'll see.
ERIKA RANDALL (30:13):
And that was Julie Carr, poet, writer,
Professor of Creative Writing,and Chair of Women and Gender
Studies at the Universityof Colorado, Boulder.
The Ampersand is aproduction of the College
of Arts and Sciences at theUniversity of Colorado, Boulder.
It is written and producedby me, Erika Randall,
and Tim Grassley.
If there are peopleyou'd like us
to interview on TheAmpersand, do please email
(30:35):
us at asinfo@colorado.edu.
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker.
And the episodes are recordedat Interplay Recording
in Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erika Randall.
And this is The Ampersand.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[Erika Randall, host of The Ampersand, firmly presses typewriter keys]
(00:02):
[It's hard to fathom that typing used to be this hard. Ah, the bliss of mechanical effort.]
ERIKA RANDALL (00:03):
A and S. [The typewriter platen (you're welcome) zooms and dings.]
JULIE CARR [rustles and fidgets] (00:09):
Well, if I have to read something,
we might have toslow it down a little
just because I don't think--
ERIKA RANDALL (00:16):
I imagine poet Julie Carr reading Underscore,
a book of poems dedicated toNancy Stark Smith and Jean
Valentine, both ofwhom passed in 2020.
[Julie Carr continues to chat in the background, settling into the interview]
Julie's mastery of language seamlessly
fuses with herrivered intonation,
so that when she reads, a hushfolds over everyone in the room.
You, dear listeners,have to experience it.
(00:38):
And I can't imagine a betterway to begin our episode
than Julie Carr readingher poetry for you.
JULIE CARR (00:44):
Yeah Yeah.
This one's called NewYear, and this is for Jean.
So for Jean Valentine,1934 to 2020.
The basement, green andcold, behind three doors.
Here was the middleone, which you know.
(01:06):
In whitewashed walls, yourhand had curved around its pen.
It was your kitchen,where you draw your brows.
And the phone rang,your daughter.
She wanted you to go to anappointment to check your head.
You laughed.
I remember things, you said.
(01:28):
I'm sitting here with--
said my name, butit was a question.
It was the night webecame, again, human,
Though tired, though old,
Though you did not call backthrough the whole night,
Though I had to bein a different room
(01:49):
chewing up the mirror.
In the morning, youhad a gift for us,
A compass on a longchain which you
wore when you skipped ahead ofme, descending into the station.
[The Ampersand's theme music—like a sparkling stream of mandolin and cello—builds]
ERIKA RANDALL (02:07):
On The Ampersand, we call this bringing together
the impossible, thealchemy of "anding."
Together, we'll hear stories ofhumans who imagine and create
by colliding their interests.
Rather than thinking of "and"as a simple conjunction and that
Conjunction Junctionkind of way,
we will hear stories ofpeople who see and as a verb,
a way to speak the beautifulwhen you intentionally let
(02:28):
the soft animal of yourbody love what it loves.
As St. Mary Oliverasks, what is it you
plan to do with your onewild and precious life?
Oh, I love this question.
When I'm mothering,creating, and collaborating,
it reminds me toreplace a singular
idea of what I think I shouldbecome with a full sensory verb
about experiencing.
(02:49):
I'm Erika Randall.
And this is JulieCarr on The Ampersand.
[Music that feels like the sensation of having just run your hand across an unpainted canvas]
[The music, like that canvas feeling slowly fades]
JULIE CARR (03:02):
I was a child and I had a difficult emotional
life and in very young ages.
And my mom, who wasthe reason I had
the difficult emotional life,was also an amazing reader.
And she had beenan English major.
So we had a lot ofbooks in the house.
(03:22):
And at some point,really young, I
started reading poetry,like, super, super young.
And then one of the poetsthat I read in some collection
was Emily Dickinson.
And then, I--
ERIKA RANDALL [laughing] (03:33):
That'll rock an eight-year-old world.
JULIE CARR (03:34):
Yeah, and I kept reading Emily Dickinson.
And you know, you just readthe ones that speak to you.
But at the time, it was like,I am nobody. You know. Who are you?
ERIKA RANDALL [laughs at the prospect of a child reading this poem] (03:42):
I heard a fly buzz when I died.
JULIE CARR [with a smile] (03:44):
Well, that one-- no, that one came later.
But, like, yeah,the idea of being
sort of nobody or writing--
this is my letter to theworld that never wrote to me.
And, like, those lines, theyspoke to this child who felt,
you know, isolated,lonely, a little bit
outside of, somehow, something.
(04:07):
But they didn'tjust speak to it.
It wasn't like, oh,here, I'm describing
an experience for you.
It's rather, I'm helpingyou create an experience.
So having read that, thenI was like, oh, that's me,
I'm lonely, oh, that's me, I'mwriting a letter to the world.
And then, that becomes me.
So it doesn't describe who youare, it transforms who you are.
(04:30):
And I think in thattransformation,
feeling that there was thiswriter, Emily Dickinson,
knew nothing about her,who had, like, sort of,
helped me make a me, then Ihad this intimate relationship
with whoever she was,who I thought she was.
ERIKA RANDALL (04:47):
But you kept dancing.
JULIE CARR (04:48):
Yeah, no, I was young and wanted to be a dancer.
I had to work through a lot ofthings I think a lot of dancers
have to work through,around self-image and body
image and stuff andself-worth to get to a point
where dancing was a pleasureinstead of a punishment.
ERIKA RANDALL: Does the poet work (05:04):
undefined
through those sameexercises of self-worth?
JULIE CARR (05:09):
It's really different.
When I decided it's time to putdancing in a different category
and writing in a new category,so really shifting that,
the hugest relief I felt wasthe escape from the body.
And I don't mean that I don'thave a body when I write,
but that I realized, OK, I don'thave to have a particular body.
(05:31):
I don't have to train thebody or punish the body
or be mad at the body or sufferbecause the body had a problem.
Now it's just the body getsto do what the body does.
And whatever it is, isperfectly OK to work with.
But maybe because I wasn't soyoung when I started becoming
a poet, I was alreadyin my late 20s--
(05:54):
I don't know.
That's very young.
But I was young 18.
I don't know.
I was always writingpoetry, but I
wasn't trying to be a poetuntil after I was moving away
from dance.
ERIKA RANDALL (06:05):
But the two sit side by side for you now.
JULIE CARR (06:07):
Yeah, so what is the relationship between them now?
ERIKA RANDALL (06:10):
Yeah.
JULIE CARR (06:11):
So for me, now I get to be a lover of dance
without having tobe a performer.
And that was something I thinkI always wanted on some level,
to just be able to enjoy it--
ERIKA RANDALL (06:24):
To be a dancer.
JULIE CARR (06:24):
--and not watch it, wondering
if I was also able todo what they were doing.
All those thoughts, like,I'm not good enough,
all that it's not there anymorebecause I'm not trying to do it.
I can do it if Iwant, a little bit.
But I'm not on stage.
And so I thinkthat allowed dance
to be a part of my life ina totally different way.
(06:45):
And then, also, the newestbook that I just wrote,
which is called Underscore,is a tribute to two people.
And one of them isNancy Stark Smith.
ERIKA RANDALL (06:55):
Yeah.
JULIE CARR (06:55):
Yeah, so Nancy was my teacher for a long time.
She was so manypeople's teacher.
When she died-- so this wasin the middle of the beginning
of COVID, so I think itwas maybe June of 2020
or something like that.
ERIKA RANDALL (07:07):
That's what I remember, spring-summer.
JULIE CARR (07:08):
And Edwin Torres, who has also been in my life
for a really, really long time,a poet and performer, a mover,
an "everything-er," he createdone of the first Zoom reading
events.
And he asked me to do adurational performance.
And Nancy had just died.
So I said I woulddo a tribute to her.
(07:31):
And then I made an hour-longdance of Nancy's being evoked.
Having done that--
ERIKA RANDALL (07:40):
Mhm, yeah.
JULIE CARR (07:42):
I think, without immediately thinking it,
I think I knew that Ineeded to pay tribute--
that it was a wayof paying tribute
and I needed tocontinue to pay tribute.
And then when JeanValentine died,
who had been my mostimportant poetry teacher,
they both died within afew months of each other.
And I was like, well,this is that moment
(08:04):
in life, the age thatI am, which is 57,
when the elders are passing.
So I have three other parents.
They're in their80s or late 70s.
And then, of course, teachers,teachers, teachers, teachers,
and also peers are dying.
And so having lost two teachers,I just felt like this was--
(08:24):
I mean, I knewthis to be a moment
of real transition for me.
ERIKA RANDALL (08:30):
I would love to hear you read.
I would love to hear--
JULIE CARR (08:35):
I would love to read a couple of those.
The title Underscoreis a direct tribute
to Nancy's The Underscore,which was her score
that she invented overa long period of time
and taught all over the world.
And people still practiceit all over the world.
So I have actuallya little essay
at the end of thebook that explains
that and talks about whatshe and also Jean gave me.
(08:56):
So maybe I'll read the poemthat's called The Underscore.
ERIKA RANDALL (08:59):
I would love it.
JULIE CARR (09:02):
The Underscore, for Nancy Stark Smith, 1952 to 2020.
Those birds, white-headed,black-winged, unafraid,
Slow, comical song,they call to me.
I call to them tryingthis key, then another.
(09:22):
In the padlock, how itis, always was, July.
Scarred sidewalks,mouthless choirs,
Ghost companions in the thicket.
How the soil and the trowelfolds inward like a jacket,
And daughters without mothersfall backwards into bushes.
(09:44):
Raspberry fingertips,tensed tongues,
They test the brokenedges of cups.
How they work with people,
How they get youready to be touched,
How the sun pourstranslucence into leaves,
How the orange bead ona string around my neck
Was an orange bead ona string around yours,
(10:07):
How the throat beatswith blood and voice,
Coursing, coarse, sore,
In this way, weserve one another.
With air-droppedflowers in our phones,
Who is missing you today?
Who turned your camera off?
Whose plane grazed the low cloud
(10:30):
To release the rain that floodsthe back of my mirror again.
ERIKA RANDALL (10:36):
Who is missing you today?
JULIE CARR (10:38):
Mm-hmm, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (10:40):
And I love the way you talk about the teachers
and to say that you putthem in the past tense,
and you said, no.
In that sense of the hauntingthat you talk about in so much
of your work, it feels like thisbeing haunted with good ghosts.
JULIE CARR (10:55):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
ERIKA RANDALL (10:57):
Do you have another [INAUDIBLE]?
JULIE CARR (10:59):
I just want to read this one right now
for my friend Peter Giesy.
He's still with us.
But this speaks alot to that thing
we were talking aboutbefore about how
somebody's writing entersyou and becomes you
and transforms you.
Because this poem I wroteto him is, in a way,
borrowing his voice to write it.
(11:21):
Or I feel very much himin me as I'm writing it.
And Peter's work-- hejust has a new book out
that I was readingthis last few days.
And his work is justvery central to how
I understand the concept ofthe lyric, in particular.
And there's lots ofdifferent kinds of writing,
but that's one that-- yeah.
So it's called GoodMorning for Peter.
(11:45):
Good morning smudged glasson the medicine chest.
Good morning sea ofeyes, sea of shadows.
It's to you and to everybit of summer's must
That I've got my mindwith my breathing.
It was to find you todaythat I started this,
This breath in a line of sound
(12:06):
Was always to findthe sound of you
Or the shuffle of yourstance like an apology.
Good morning to the dogwith his nose in the air,
To the park on my rightside with its memory,
The shade of youand the shade of me
Slipping on ice withour hands linked,
How a party for youwas a party for me,
(12:28):
How I thought of yourvoice in some daisies,
Your voice that hangs outon the basement stair.
Sometimes I go sit beside it.
That's when the worldgets all swirly,
When I've got you with asmoke on a fire escape,
Got you at picnics ofcrackers and oranges.
(12:50):
Since you are tome what this is.
What might seem minimalis really maximal.
I position myself towardyou for all of it.
So yeah, that thing about voice.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:05):
And the shuffle of stance.
JULIE CARR (13:07):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:07):
It's right there, the floating of your walk,
the shuffle of his stance.
JULIE CARR (13:11):
Yeah, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:12):
All coming in.
JULIE CARR (13:12):
Right.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:13):
[SIGHS]
JULIE CARR (13:13):
Yeah, and then that sense of presence and absence,
I think the feeling--
the feeling of Peter,for me, has something
to do with his childhood grief.
And so him sitting on thebasement stair as if--
ERIKA RANDALL (13:27):
Like you're in trouble.
JULIE CARR (13:28):
--he's a child and he's there and I go find him.
ERIKA RANDALL (13:32):
And then it shifts to the fire escape,
and then I'm with you in your20s watching a sunrise after
being up all night, beingway too wise for your years.
When you're recreating thesehumans and these beloveds,
how aligned is thatto recreating folks
(13:55):
you didn't know, who werepart of your ancestral past?
Because when I think aboutthis book, The Mud, Blood,
and Ghosts, you're really goingback in time to reform, reshape,
reknow, recurate thestory of your ancestry,
of other bodies thatyou may or may not love.
JULIE CARR (14:15):
Right.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:15):
And that's a hard one.
Maybe we want to bringthe person forward
when we love them.
But do we want to bringthe person forward when
we don't totally love them?
And in this book, there's a lotof complexity around the humans
you're bringing to the table.
JULIE CARR (14:33):
Right.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:33):
Can you talk about this idea
of how time and love changethe way you might write
or think or see about a person?
JULIE CARR (14:43):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, so there's afew central characters
in Mud, Blood, and Ghosts.
And the main one, ofcourse, is Omer Madison Kem,
who was my great grandfather.
And maybe I don't love him.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:55):
Maybe we don't love him.
JULIE CARR (14:57):
Maybe we don't love him.
ERIKA RANDALL (14:58):
And that's OK.
JULIE CARR (14:59):
Yeah, and maybe he was an aggressive person
and he was passionate and he hadsome good ideas and some really,
really, really bad ones.
And so I guess whatI'll say is I never
felt that I was conjuring Omerfor who he might have really
been.
I felt like Omer hadgiven me an entry point
(15:23):
into a bunch of history that Ineeded, because of him, to know.
I needed to know it because ofhim, because he was my ancestor.
And he was callingme in that sense.
But he wasn't ghosting me inthat I didn't feel his presence
as much as I took theopportunity of his stories
to find thesecomplicated stories.
ERIKA RANDALL (15:47):
The things that they
talked about, though, Imean, I'm thinking with you,
also, I'm thinking withyou as a dancer, as a poet,
as an activist, as a teacher,as a really potent voice
in the communities that I knowyou in when you are advocating
for students.
And I think of you as also,now, in getting to research you,
(16:09):
as a gardener andas a person of land.
Can you point to your gardening?
Can you point to theland, the love of land
and the love ofgiving food away?
And does that pointback to the parts
that you want to keepmaybe from these ghosts?
Does that feel connected?
Or does it feel totally new?
JULIE CARR (16:27):
No, I think it does.
And, yeah, I'm gladyou brought that up
because somebody asked me thatand I didn't really answer it.
And I've been regrettingnot really answering it.
ERIKA RANDALL (16:36):
I'm so glad you get
a chance to stop that regret.
JULIE CARR (16:38):
That wasn't really fair what I said.
I didn't really say everything.
And I think there is a legacy.
Maybe I didn't want tosound proud or something.
But I feel like there is alegacy in the family that does
have roots in Omer's populism.
And maybe we should say a fewwords about what populism meant
(16:58):
in the 1890s.
I mean, he was a farmer.
And populism was a movementto resist corporatization,
monopolies, themonopolies, to resist
the economic inequalities.
And it's the Gilded Age.
So there was a lot ofeconomic inequality
and was it lined witha labor movement,
and in fact, was even a biracialmovement for a little while.
(17:22):
So there was alot of good things
about that early populism.
And there's probably a lot ofgood things about our versions
of populism in some quarters.
And so coming out of thatis an idea of outrage
and speaking out andbelieving in some way in which
(17:45):
economic inequality anyway, ifnot other forms of inequality,
should be addressed,and should be addressed
by the whole fabric ofsociety, not just by,
like, oh, well, let'stry to be nice to people
and give things away.
I mean, that's good.
One should.
But really, through the laws ofthe country and the government.
ERIKA RANDALL (18:06):
And you operate that way systemically,
in my experience.
[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]
JULIE CARR (18:10):
Yeah, I think I do.
I mean, I think I carrythat feeling of things
should be different andthey can be different.
And we shouldn't be complacent.
And also, we shouldn'tbelieve the lies.
[LAUGHS]
And there's no reasonone shouldn't speak out,
like that being quiet isn'tgoing to serve anyone.
ERIKA RANDALL (18:32):
Did Counterpath help you build your voice?
Or was your voice already--
JULIE CARR (18:36):
No.
ERIKA RANDALL (18:37):
--megaphoned and Counterpath was
a natural evolution for you.
And can you talk aboutwhat Counterpath is?
JULIE CARR (18:42):
Sure, so Counterpath is the community art space, food
bank, community garden, freebookstore, and performance space
that Tim Robertsand I run together.
And I think--
OK, I mean, I grew upas an activist child.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:06):
You did.
You made signs.
JULIE CARR (19:08):
I made signs.
I painted peacesigns on my face.
My mother was ananti-war activist.
I mean, my dad probably, too.
But really, they divorcedwhen I was very, very young.
And so most of thisexperience was with her.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:20):
You marched with your mom.
JULIE CARR (19:21):
I marched with my mom.
She was super active in theanti-war movement in Cambridge
in Boston.
She was very central andorganized a lot of things.
And I was there.
And so that was justwhat I understood,
like, that's how you be in theworld is you go to these things.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:38):
You activate.
JULIE CARR (19:39):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: Yeah, and show up. (19:39):
undefined
JULIE CARR (19:40):
That's just part of life.
So I did thatthroughout my childhood,
throughout being a teenager.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:45):
You didn't rebel and sit back
as a way to rebelagainst your mom
and go Michael P. Keaton on her.
JULIE CARR (19:50):
No.
ERIKA RANDALL (19:51):
No.
JULIE CARR (19:52):
Nope.
And so protest movements,we could talk about this
forever, whether today,whether marches are--
I don't know.
There's a lot to say about whatworks and what doesn't work
and ways things are co-opted.
But anyway, that wasdefinitely how I was raised.
(20:14):
And so when Tim and I met,which was in 1997 or 1996,
I was a person who would belike, we got to go to the March.
And he was kind of like,oh, we'll find another way.
ERIKA RANDALL (20:33):
A counterpath.
JULIE CARR (20:34):
A counterpath, exactly, precisely.
So really, both ofour idea, but his idea
was that we would startsomething literary.
And it would be maybe a press,maybe a bookstore, or maybe--
ERIKA RANDALL (20:46):
Or all the things.
JULIE CARR (20:47):
It turned out to be all the things.
So when he and Istarted Counterpath,
I don't think we had theidea that it was somehow
an activist project at all.
It was a literary project.
But there was-- I think he hada really deep understanding
and always has had avery deep understanding
of the relationshipbetween the two,
and that to make art and supportartists is a form of activism
(21:09):
and it is a counterpath.
And it does speak back.
And it does offer acrucial other world.
And I think I was notso clear on that then.
But I was excited to go along.
And so we started Counterpath.
And at first, we werereally just doing
poetry, really, and fiction.
And that was great.
(21:30):
And then, it wascoming to Denver,
we ended up buying this garage.
And we were like,oh, look at us.
Now we're thegentrifiers because we
know that an art space ina not wealthy neighborhood
is usually the first step.
After the art spacecomes the cafe.
And then it all follows that.
(21:50):
And again, to holdcomplexities, you
can't just condemn that move,because at the same time,
the neighborhood is excitedand happy to have us.
So, I'm not saying everyone,but a lot of people.
So we immediately--really, I'll just
credit Tim in this thinking,but was immediately like,
(22:13):
we got to do it different.
If we're going to be here and wedon't live in this neighborhood,
we have to do things thatare neighborhood-centric.
We can't just bring ouravant garde, blah-di-blah
into this neighborhood.
ERIKA RANDALL (22:25):
So did the gardens start?
JULIE CARR (22:27):
So the gardens started in response to that.
ERIKA RANDALL (22:29):
Oh, I love that.
JULIE CARR (22:31):
Loved gardening, but that was part of it
was, like, we'll makea community garden,
we'll invite people.
Also, we had our first openingwas called the Open Opening,
where anybody couldbring anything
that they thought of asart, and actually was
one of our favoriteevents we've ever had.
And we've done--
I mean, the list goes on.
There's a ton of--
I don't know--neighborhood-centric events
(22:53):
and projects that have happenedand that keep happening there.
ERIKA RANDALL (22:57):
And that build community.
JULIE CARR (22:59):
Yeah, oh, definitely.
We don't really havecommunity where we live,
which is in a much moreaffluent neighborhood.
So everyone knows that story.
That neighborhood, there's notreally that kind of community.
ERIKA RANDALL (23:10):
Yes, it's complicated.
JULIE CARR (23:12):
Absolutely, it's all very complicated.
And community gardensare complicated.
And urban gardening, it'san interesting project
because it doesn't reallyproduce food at the level
that it's needed.
So we run a food bank.
And the food that wegive away, we thought,
oh, we'll grow all this foodand we'll give it all away.
Sure, we do do that.
(23:32):
But it's a tiny fractionof the food we give away.
ERIKA RANDALL (23:36):
And more of it comes from the donations.
JULIE CARR (23:38):
No, it comes from We Don't Waste, mostly.
It comes from donations, butalso from We Don't Waste.
We Don't Waste is amazing.
And it's like crates andcrates and crates of zucchini.
So what the garden ends up beingis like an experience for me
and everyone--
[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]
ERIKA RANDALL (23:54):
--to know where zucchini really comes from.
JULIE CARR (23:56):
And people who love gardening show up.
And they participate.
And different years, there'sdifferent numbers of people
and different groups of people.
But it's a way to betogether, and to do something
that everybody loves doing.
And then, yeah, sure, you takehome some vegetables, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: There is something (24:12):
undefined
about every aspect of you thatcould take an hour, at least,
for us to stay with.
And so I hate to evenhave to wrap us up.
But I'm going to have to.
But I have to tell--
I'm going to do a truth.
And then we're going togo to the quick and dirty.
My truth is that I have alwaysbeen so intimidated by you.
JULIE CARR (24:31):
Oh, my god.
ERIKA RANDALL (24:32):
I have been so afraid to be in conversation
with you becauseI thought, there's
no way I'm as coolas Julie Carr.
JULIE CARR (24:36):
Oh, that's crazy.
ERIKA RANDALL (24:38):
And then, the way to get over
intimidation ofsomeone, which is just
to read what they send youand what matters to them,
and to fall in love.
And I have, this week, sofallen in love with Julie Carr
that I can now say, Ihave no intimidation,
I have no weird,misplaced, not cool kid.
(25:01):
I have-- really.
And then getting to sitwith you in that love
and to get to just see you beand talk about and your voice,
and I feel so super lucky.
JULIE CARR (25:10):
Oh, thank you.
ERIKA RANDALL: Yeah, thanks, Julie. (25:12):
undefined
JULIE CARR (25:13):
I had no idea you were--
that's silly.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:15):
Well, now I know it's silly.
Now I just think you're--
I always thoughtyou were cool, but I
thought you were, like, cool.
And now I love how cool you are.
Because I'm, like, metabolizingthat as part of me.
And I'm learningabout myself through.
So I just want to say thanks.
JULIE CARR (25:31):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:31):
Yeah, it's really a gift.
JULIE CARR (25:33):
Thank you.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:33):
OK, are you ready to go quick and dirty?
JULIE CARR (25:35):
Sure.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:36):
OK, so as fast as you can.
JULIE CARR (25:38):
OK.
ERIKA RANDALL: Whatever comes forward. (25:39):
undefined
OK, two people you wouldlike to read letters between.
JULIE CARR (25:46):
OK, I'm sorry.
I'm not very fast.
ERIKA RANDALL (25:48):
I know, no one is.
JULIE CARR (25:50):
OK, Gerard Manley Hopkins,
whose letters I haveread, and Emily Dickinson.
Why not?
ERIKA RANDALL (25:57):
I love that.
OK, if you started a band, whatkind of music would you play?
And what would the name ofthe band be, with "and" in it?
JULIE CARR (26:05):
With "and" in it?
ERIKA RANDALL (26:06):
Yeah, it could be like blank "and" blank or it
could be "B-and" of Horses.
JULIE CARR (26:11):
All right, OK, let's call it Mint Leaves "and" Frog
Legs, OK?
ERIKA RANDALL (26:18):
Great.
And what kind of music is this.
JULIE CARR (26:20):
Because of that name,
I think it has to be someweird folk hybrid band.
I'm not a musician at all.
ERIKA RANDALL (26:27):
I love how quickly mint leaves came up.
It's definitely mint leaves.
JULIE CARR (26:30):
Mint leaves is fine.
But how are you going todeal with mint leaves, which
is so bucolic?
You have to giveit something else.
ERIKA RANDALL (26:36):
You got to give it something with a--
CREW (26:37):
OK.
ERIKA RANDALL (26:38):
OK, great.
Your activist bumpersticker with "and" in it.
JULIE CARR (26:42):
Oh, god, read and--
all right, we'lljust go with it.
"Read and dance."
ERIKA RANDALL (26:48):
Read and dance, I love it.
Right there with you.
A food that is much bettermade, not necessarily by you,
but it be by you becauseyou cook, made better
in your kitchen thanin a restaurant.
JULIE CARR (26:59):
Oh, god, I'm sorry.
Everything.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:01):
Everything.
So, and, and, and, and, and.
But a favorite thatright now you're
in the throes of late summer.
JULIE CARR (27:09):
Yeah, tomato, corn, basil, red onion
salad with a lot of olive oiland roasted or broiled eggplant,
really, really wellcooked so it's sweet.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:29):
Mm-hmm.
JULIE CARR (27:30):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: You're hitting my-- (27:31):
undefined
[INAUDIBLE] squeezingmy salivory glands.
JULIE CARR (27:33):
Yeah, with a yogurt sauce that has some salt in it
and some olive oil and lemon in.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:39):
Can it be yogurt sauce without cucumber?
JULIE CARR (27:41):
Sure.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:42):
If I'm coming over?
JULIE CARR (27:42):
I don't need the cucumber.
ERIKA RANDALL (27:43):
OK, great.
Great, perfect.
I'm coming over.
All right, thecombination of things
need to get into writing mode.
JULIE CARR (27:51):
Books, I have to be reading for sure, solitude,
and coffee, yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:01):
Anything in the coffee or just--
JULIE CARR (28:03):
Yeah, milk.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:04):
Milk, OK.
And "ander" you admire.
JULIE CARR (28:07):
Oh, somebody who does multiple things
that I admire?
Ralph Lemon, adore.
J'adore.
ERIKA RANDALL: J'adore Ralph Lemon. (28:14):
undefined
Yes, yeah, I was so lucky tobe at University of Illinois
when Ralph was inresidency for three years.
And Giselle came back into mylife, who you've worked with.
But Ralph Lemon,yeah, over and over.
JULIE CARR (28:27):
His films, his visual work is everything.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:29):
His talking.
JULIE CARR (28:30):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL: Just as "humaning." (28:30):
undefined
JULIE CARR (28:31):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (28:31):
Yeah.
OK, because I didn't getto ask this question,
I'm going to ask it inthe quick and dirty.
I know two ways thatyou've described pink,
but can I have four ways todescribe pink, to be specific?
JULIE CARR (28:43):
OK, so there's under the--
behind-the-ear pink,for some of us.
There's the pinkof a cow's tongue.
There's-- I'm justin the body, I guess.
(29:04):
Yeah, there'sdefinitely nipple pink.
And then, I guess there's also--
let me think.
There's the pink of--
well I'll steal one for myself.
That bedspread pink.
I was really happy with that.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:17):
I love that bedspread pink.
JULIE CARR (29:18):
Because there could be any kind of bedspread pink,
but we all know what we meanwhen we say bedspread pink.
ERIKA RANDALL: Oh, yeah, we know. (29:26):
undefined
Even if we're not thinkingof the same [? ring. ?]
JULIE CARR (29:30):
It's still the same.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:31):
It's the same.
JULIE CARR (29:31):
It's the feeling of it.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:32):
It's the feeling of the bedspread pink.
Yeah, that and rollerrink pink is my other.
JULIE CARR (29:36):
Yeah.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:36):
I love it.
OK, if you were giving ablessing to a graduating class,
to someone going offinto a new adventure,
and you were tobegin it with "and."
JULIE CARR (29:46):
Mhm.
ERIKA RANDALL (29:47):
Yeah, what would it be?
JULIE CARR (29:50):
And I start it with the word "and"?
ERIKA RANDALL (29:52):
Mm-hmm.
JULIE CARR (29:53):
OK, and rest.
I mean, there's something aboutso many of those blessings
are about, go forth andconquer, now change the world.
And it's like, maybe you justfinished something, so rest,
and then we'll see.
ERIKA RANDALL (30:13):
And that was Julie Carr, poet, writer,
Professor of Creative Writing,and Chair of Women and Gender
Studies at the Universityof Colorado, Boulder.
The Ampersand is aproduction of the College
of Arts and Sciences at theUniversity of Colorado, Boulder.
It is written and producedby me, Erika Randall,
and Tim Grassley.
If there are peopleyou'd like us
to interview on TheAmpersand, do please email
(30:35):
us at asinfo@colorado.edu.
Our theme music was composedand performed by Nelson Walker.
And the episodes are recordedat Interplay Recording
in Boulder, Colorado.
I'm Erika Randall.
And this is The Ampersand.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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