Poet David Duchovny (He Does Other Stuff, Too)

Actor-novelist-musician-poet David Duchovny called Bret to talk about his new book, ABOUT TIME. Will he read us a poem? What are his thoughts on David Lynch?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are back. I'm Brett Sanders. This time around, it's
David d'covney. You know Fox Molder from The X Files
and Hank from Californication. He's also a novelist, a recording artist,
and a poet. His new book of poetry is About Time.
It's David d'covney on the Brett Sonders Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Him, Brett, I'm fine. Thanks, it's really.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Nice to meet you. I've admired your work on a
lot of different fronts for years. So thanks for giving
us the time today.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh, thank you for giving me the time.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
You're a novelist, you're an actor, you're a musician, you're
David d'covney. You are an icon in American culture. Now
you have this new book of poems. It's called About Time.
This is such a great quote from you. Poetry is
not useful, and that's why we need it. Please explain, David.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Oh, I wish I could explain it.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Kind of.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
It kind of goes back to that passage in the
Bible that behold the Lilies of the fields. You know
that one they all now that do they spend? They
just they just exist, you know. And poetry doesn't really
have a place in the marketplace. You know that nobody's
getting rich writing poems, nobody's clamoring for another book of
poems from anybody. It's a very rarefied kind of experience.

(01:16):
And I think we're living in a culture where everything
is being a commodity, where everything is being monetized, where
we live in a world of influencers. Well, I'm not
trying to influence anybody. I'm just trying to write a poem.
I guess that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
But you are kind of an influencer, and it occurred
to me that maybe this book will get more people
into the art of poetry.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
David Sure. I mean that's I think. I think poems
are useful because they can teach us how to think,
and they can teach us how to feel, and they
can impart wisdom. You know, they're slow, they're not fast.
They're an old technology. They're the original technology. Going back
to Homer, there before song, even before song, there was poetry.

(02:03):
Poetry was song. So there's a lot to be found there.
There's a lot of ancient wisdom. There's a lot of
that slow feeling, that slow, intense feeling of I've got
to work to try to understand this thing and works.
I think that's a great thing. I'm not trying to
be wilfully obscure in my poems, but the poems are

(02:24):
attacking subjects and thoughts that are hard to express. So
there is a difficulty. There is going to be a
difficulty in reading it. There is going to be some rereading.
It's not going to just do all the work for you.
You're going to have to do some work. So I
think all those things are good things in kind of
the give and take between a reader and a writer,

(02:45):
or a viewer and a maker.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
And the way that you put it is very interesting
because the notion of slowness that's just basically gone from
America right now, like a lot of other things, it
seem to be abandoning us. But also, when you read
a poem, it makes you use your brain a certain
way that we're really not accustomed to anymore.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I think so, I think, so that's my sense of it.
That's why I'm always kind of struck out a time
when I read a good poem, even you know, like
I think of Emily Dickinson in short poems, I'll read
one and It'll just kind of reset my mind into
a place of it's a kind of a vibrating, you know,

(03:30):
sense of almost knowing. I guess is how I would
put it, And that's kind of what I'm going for.
It's like, what do I almost know that's what a
poem is. It's not what do I know that's politics
or you know, opinion? What do I almost know that's
a poem?

Speaker 1 (03:44):
You mentioned Emily Dickinson, one of the great American poets
and just the best at abstract imagery. You can spend
weeks just looking at a few of her lines. What
other poets have influenced your.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Work, David, Oh, I love Walt Whitman. I think he's
quite essential American poet. Wallas Stevens. Yeah, those are like
my touchstones a lot. John Berryman, an American poet, was
one of my first favorite poems when I was in

(04:16):
high school. So I have a soft spot for him,
like I have soft spot for the Beatles.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
You know, do you have the book in front of you?
Could you read a poem to our listeners right now?

Speaker 2 (04:25):
I don't. I'm sitting in my daughter's apartment. I'm in
New York. I'm not at home, and I'm sorry. I
wish that I could read you something. It's a great
offer and I'm sad not to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Maybe we could just improvise something about the day, what's
transpiring in front of you right now.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Well, I did, I did write something that I've been
working on a new poem this morning, but I'm talking
to you on my iPad and it's on my iPad,
so I won't be able to get to it. But
it's called this very Place, and it's kind of about
what we were talking about, because I think I'm thinking about
these things because I'm talking about the poems. But that

(05:07):
poem is actually, like many poems are about trying to
write a poem. That's the weird thing about poetry. It's
a lot of poems about what it's like to try
to write a poem. This poem and this very Place
is again, to get back to what I just said,
it's a place of almost understanding what I'm trying to say.
But also, oh, I've got a plan to catch and
I'll wait for myself. I'll wait for myself here and

(05:29):
I'm always and that's what a poem does. A poem
can really wait for you and talk about slowness. The
poem is patient too.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
The book is about time from David to Kovney. I
still miss even though I only met him a couple
of times. I still miss David Lynch. And you worked
with David on the Twin Peaks project, including that fourth season,
which is just one of the most Speaking of poetry,
some of that's some of the most brutal poetry I've
ever seen. What was it like working with David Lynch?

Speaker 2 (05:58):
It was unique because he was a unique creator. The
thing about David that was so obvious when you got
to work with him, and so obviously when you look
at his work, it was completely instinctually of a piece,
like you never got the sense that he was being

(06:21):
influenced by any other outside thought except for what was
in his gut, you know, and what was in his imagination.
And there was no hesitation with how is it's going
to appear or people going to understand this? It was
really it was direct. It was like watching like something
go from inspiration to execution directly without any interference. And

(06:44):
I don't know, aside from working with the young Juliet
Lewis on a movie called California, that's the one time
I've worked with an actor who was able to channel
that kind of inspiration and execution. So when you come
across it, it's super powerful, something I'll never forget and

(07:06):
something that I aspire to, but very difficult at least
for me to achieve.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
David Dukovney About Time is the book, and it's a
pleasure talking with you today.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Thank you, my pleasure. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Hey, I have one thank you left to you for listening.
I'm Brett. See you next time.