ChicagoPostmodernPoetry.Com
Poetic Profile
Arielle Greenberg
General Questions
1) Where did you grow up? Was poetry and
writing part of that mix?
I was born in Columbus, Ohio and lived there until I was seven. My dad is
an experimental psychologist (meaning that he conducts scientific experiments
and does not analyze people's behavior) and one of his specialties is reading:
how people learn to read. So as part of an experiment, I was taught to read at
age four, and I was taught to read words as units, instead of by sounding things
out phonetically. So I could read very well, very quickly, and very young,
though I was a terrible speller because I didn't pay attention to the insides of
words, just the whole word as a unit of meaning, like a hieroglyph. Anyway,
this happened in Ohio, but I don't think Ohio per se was a huge influence. I
was more obsessed/preoccupied with my individual family unit, with people, to
pay much attention to landscape. This is still true, a bit. I often don't
notice landscape unless I really make an effort.
Most of my growing-up was done in Schenectady, in upstate New York. My dad got
a job teaching at Union College, so we moved there. I don't think the landscape
(which was small-townish, pretty, a little bleak, and often cold) had a big
influence, but my feeling of being an outsider certainly did. First I was one
of the least affluent, most religious and most bookish kids in my class at a
private Jewish day school, then I was one of the only Orthodox Jews and one of
few liberals at a big, WASPy high school. I almost always felt weird--other
kids often TOLD me I was weird--and I think this went a long way in making me a
writer. The other biggest factor was that I read constantly: children's books,
comics, magazines, my father's Playboys, my mother's novels, the backs of
shampoo bottles--anything with text.
2) Who are your poetic influences, favorite poets, writers, artwork, other
things that inform your work?
Favorite poets: Heather McHugh, James Tate, Mary Ruefle, Jean Valentine,
Michael Burkard, C.D. Wright, Alice Notley, Bernadette Mayer, Sylvia Plath,
Frank O'Hara, Christopher Smart. Recently I've figured out how to love Gerard
Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickinson. I read lots of young poets my own age,
poets who, like me, straddle the line between narrative and non-linear and
non-. But James Joyce's Ulysses is probably the single biggest influence.
And then lots of other art: the work of some of the Surrealists and their posse:
Cornell, Duchamp, Ernst, Tanning. Photography by Francesca Woodman and Julia
Margaret Cameron and anonymous stuff. I'm hugely into film--Maya Deren, the
French New Wave, American films of the 70s like Badlands, indie films like
Rushmore. I saw a lot of contemporary avant-garde film when I lived in NYC
because I was dating a film curator who knew those folks, so that made a big
impact. Music: my parents brought me up on doo-wop and then Janis Joplin and
the Beatles and Donovan, and I was in the indie rock scene in the early 90s, was
a dj, had a zine, and now am into American roots music and other stuff. And
comix: I try to keep up with the autobiographical/Surrealist adult stuff put out
by Fantagraphix and Drawn & Quarterly and other presses like those.
My biggest other influences are my friends and family and animals.
3) When did you 'become' a poet? When did poetry become part of your everyday
life?
I always read and wrote creatively--as a tiny kid, I wrote books and made up
plays for me and my sister to perform. I wrote a simile in fourth grade as an
assignment--"lonely as celery in fruit salad"--and my teacher made a big deal
out of it. By seventh grade I was known as "the writer" in my classes, in my
family, and was having occasional poetry lessons from Lyn Lifshin, who lived in
my town and who was wonderful. So it all happened when I was quite young.
I published my first poem in a real literary magazine when I was in high
school. My mother saved my report cards--I often did miserably in gym, average
in other classes, but my English teachers always sang my praises.
4) Where were you educated? Was this important?
I went to Hebrew parochial school from 1st to 8th grade, and certainly the
bilingual and religious education had a big impact on how I understand
language, the power of story and faith, myth, cadence and strangeness. My
public high school had wonderful, exciting, challenging English teachers and
they really made a huge difference: they pushed me hard and took me seriously.
They were well-educated, strong women and every one of them changed me somewhat,
especially my 12th grade teacher, Karen Ludwig, who told me about semiotics and
encouraged me to go into teaching.
5) You are an Easterner by birth and education. How do you find living in
Chicago? Do you miss the edge of the East Coast?
I'm actually not an Easterner by birth--I was born in Ohio. But it's true
that I come from a family of decidedly New York Jews. Even though I didn't live
in NYC until I was an adult, I always sort of felt like I was "from" there,
because it's where my family ethos was from--the accents, the Yiddish, the
general sensibility--and we went there for holidays every year.
Anyway, while I love NYC and feel very much at home there, I am thrilled to be
in Chicago and feel like this is home now. NYC was wonderful but exhausting,
and I hated the sense of always having to do more, go higher. When I lived
there I wasn't part of the poetry scene--I had a few poet friends but mostly
hung out with filmmakers, and I think this helped make it pleasant. But in the
end NYC never felt very healthy.
Most recently, I lived in Boston, and although I was part of a nice poetry scene
there, I never warmed to the city--it felt too conservative, too segregated, too
boring, and seemed to have all the disadvantages of big city living (expense,
dirt, etc.) with few of the advantages. When I moved to Chicago, I felt in some
ways like I was back in NYC, only a friendlier, less pretentious version.
Chicago is perfect for me right now--it's a wonderfully livable city, big and
beautiful and full of stuff to do, with a supportive, lively poetry scene. And
we instantly made fantastic friends here--people really ARE nicer. I can't
imagine being happier anywhere else. I'm always trying to convince other East
Coasters to move here. I only wish there were better Thai spring rolls.
5.1) You are a prolific writer and reader--you seem to read everywhere. Do
you get tired? What gives you the energy to do all you do?
I chalk up reading everywhere to the friendliness of Chicago--within months
of moving here, I was asked to read at a slew of places. I didn't have to
request those readings--people offered them to me, which was incredibly kind and
welcoming. I'm a pretty outgoing person, and I try to be a fun reader of my
work, so people ask me to read, and I like to give readings, so I'm happy to do
them. But I rarely set up readings for myself.
In general, I have a lot of energy, and I like to work hard...I'm the eldest
daughter of two eldest children, and the product of an immigrant family that
values hard work. But I'm not a workaholic--I really cherish time alone, time
off, and I love being lazy every once in awhile (although lazy in my book is
reading a book, baking cookies, organizing my closets). I'm also not a
perfectionist--I'm glad to let a project go when I run out of steam for it, even
if it's a little sloppy. I move quickly and intensely and then get bored and
move on. So I always have a new project in the works.
But yes, I get tired, and then I stay home and rent movies and read magazines.
And I try to keep my priorities straight--friends and family come before work,
my students come before my paperwork, poems come before doing dishes, etc. My
husband and I are expecting a baby, and so I haven't been attending as many
readings lately, because I don't want to be anyplace where people are smoking.
I like pulling back when pulling back is smart.
6) What is your favorite food?
Salt bagels (which are hard to find here).
I'm a pretty big fan of plain cheese deep dish pizza. Any bread and cheese
combo works well for me.
7) Sports Team?
I'm not particularly loyal, but I have Cubs
affection: I love going to Wrigley and I like to follow baseball more than any
other sport (except the Olympics--I love the Olympics).
8) Vacation Spot?
Belfast, Maine, which is also where I was married. We like to stay in
Belfast and then day-trip to Blue Hill, Wiscasset, Portland, etc.
9) Curse Word?
I say "shit" and "fuck" too often, but am not particularly *fond* of them.
10) You have been called many things, a Feminist Writer, a Jewish Writer, an
in your face sexy Writer and much more. Do these things inform and enable
your work or do they get in the way of the writing?
I've been called an "in your face sexy writer"? Are you kidding?! That's
news to me--I would NEVER think of myself that way. In my own mind I'm
hopelessly wholesome and such a goody-goody. Yes, I'm a feminist and yes, I'm
Jewish, but those are parts of my larger identity; I don't feel like they
modify the word "writer" for me. But I would never claim that my writing is
uninformed by my ethnicity or my gender--it certainly is, and I feel I write
from my body and from my history, that these inform my worldview.
Craft Questions
1) How do you form a poem?
Rather quickly, from a starting point of language that interests me, in
something of a trance state.
2) Do you always use images from pop culture, music and other outside
stimuli?
No, I don't think so. Some of my writing is very internal.
3) Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?
Organic. And pleasurable.
4) Where do you write? Is Ambiance
important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write?
While I find the whole issue of "writing rituals" pretty silly, I actually
do have them: if I'm home, it needs to be relatively quiet (no music or
chatter),
and I prefer to lie across a bed. But I also write sitting up, on noisy trains
or at movies or during concerts or other people's readings. The one
consistent thing is I always write longhand first--never straight into a
computer.
5) In the balance between found language and created language, where does
your work fall? Do you use many sources?
Mostly created language, I think, although I sometimes use borrowed or found
language as a trigger or impetus, so found language has a big part in the
process. And yes, I use a lot of sources, although many are non-language
sources.
