Yes.
So I noticed that you had a lot of your poetry memorized.
And, yes, I was wondering if you have, like,
any reasons behind that.
Because I found it really interesting and really
cool to watch.
Yeah, HD-- what?
No, not HD.
What's her name?
Hegnauer.
HR, HR.
Hmm?
HR.
HR!
HR Hegnauer is my inspiration.
She came here for a POG reading a few years ago.
She's a fabulous poet, HR Hegnauer.
And she just got up.
She didn't have a book.
And she just spoke her poetry.
And it just felt so intimate.
And it really, for me, I love poetry
and I've spent my head in books for my life.
But I feel like what I really love
about poetry is, even if you are immersed
in a book, that real sense of connection,
like someone's talking to you, so I was really
inspired by that reading.
And I thought, I want to try that.
Yeah.
Cool, thank you.
Oh, OK.
So I had a question for Johanna.
So you talked about these kind of like life phases
where, like, you were going through a phase
of understanding depths of closing, of, like, endings.
And then that kind of switched into phases
of beginnings and openings at the birth of your daughter.
And I was wondering, while reading your poetry, and not
just your "Ars Poetica," but most
of-- all of your poetry, and especially, like,
"Everything in the World is Open,"
there's a sense of openness throughout your old poetry.
And I was wondering how that openness interacted
with those two phases of endings and openings.
I want to ask this to Cynthia, as well.
Because I'm thinking about endings
and how you might answer that, too.
I mean, I'll give my answer, as well.
But do you mind if I just pitch that to Cynthia afterwards,
as well?
Because I'm curious.
Because I guess that that is my--
my answer is that it seems to me that, in every stage,
and in every sort of contemplation
of either a beginning or an ending,
it's really hard to think about one
without thinking about the other.
And so, yes, that there are these stages in the book,
sort of a focus on endings and then a focus on beginnings.
But, I think I probably just could
have kept writing the book and, like,
added sections and sort of kept going in a pattern like that.
But then I think, you know, thank you for reading my poetry
and for--
think about "Everything in the World is Open."
I mean, that's a really special poem to me.
Because I think that maybe at the root of that,
whether thinking about beginnings
or thinking about endings, that--
and you will have heard it in my poetry, this sort of emphasis
on an openness.
And maybe that's what poetry or really reflective thought
is for me, just a way of, no matter what it
is, finding an opening there.
Cynthia, do you want to answer?
What was this question, again?
[LAUGHTER]
It does apply to your poetry as well because I ended up
reading "The Description of the World"
before reading Revenance.
And as I was reading Revenance, I
kept experiencing moments where I was using Skibsrud's "Ars
Poetica" or "Everything in the World
is Open" to understand and navigate your poetry better.
Because I do feel like your poetry kind of has
all these levels where it almost tangibly makes,
like, a closed sentence, a very formal--
your intention to the reader very clear.
And then it just--
there's a part of that sentence missing,
and so it, like, drops down.
And it makes you feel a little slippery.
And it does open it.
But I was asking how--
That's really, really perceptive.
And I don't know if I'm going to answer your question,
but the whole process of Revenance and In June
the Labyrinth has involved staying open
at the point at which life has ended.
So both books, although they look at different things
about the end of life, that was what was impacting me
personally with Revenance.
While I was traveling across country
to help to take care of my parents, who were failing,
I went through a period of time--
this was over four years-- where people just came up to me
and started telling me ghost stories.
And that finally, maybe after a year and a half,
it got my attention.
And I started to just begin to do something with those.
And it became a process of listening,
of being open to even some supernatural things that
happened as my parents died, inexplicable things.
And then that process kind of got formalized
as a mythopoetic serial poem, In June the Labyrinth that
had a lot to do with vision.
Your "Sybil" poem really spoke to me
because that was absolutely the impulse, those words.
And I don't know if I'm answering your question,
but it is about keeping the work open
and not letting your intention take over, right?
We'll do one last question.
Hi.
Thank you for coming.
So, I thought it was really interesting
how a lot of the pieces that you both read
overlapped with each other.
And it made me think, for both of you,
you live in multiple places, traveling
a much shorter distance between Phoenix
and Tucson versus Canada.
But both of your pieces also dealt with life and death,
and in each of your pieces, there
was a milestone that was reached and entertained, some of them
more happy or less happy.
But after you write a piece like this,
do you want to revisit those milestones?
And this is to both of you.
Or after that moment of writing, do
you think it's cathartic and final?
Do you want to revisit those moments or are
you kind of finished with them after writing it?
Go ahead.
I think the nature of my books would not encourage revisiting.
One of the people who first read In June the Labyrinth wrote
to me and said, I was in a fugue when I read this book,
and it seemed to me that you must have been in a fugue
to write this book.
And honestly, it was a kind of altered consciousness
that lasted for quite a while.
I don't think I could revisit it.
I don't think I would want to go through what I went through
to get there.
So I guess that's correct, yeah.
But you have to stay open, so who knows?
My poetry, except for really the last poems,
I think is a lot less personal in terms
of the details of my own life.
But I think, in answer to that question,
that there is, no matter what you're writing or I'm writing,
it seems like there's a transformative process
in the writing, so that maybe you come back to it again,
but it's different.
It's changed.
And I do think I would say, sort of picking up
on where I think your question is leading,
that there is that process that does change the experience.
And I think that's why it can be so powerful,
both to write and to read.
You can share in that transformative process
with others as well.
Thanks David.
And thank everyone here.
Yeah, thank you.
And thanks to you two.
So Johanna, Cynthia, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]