An Interview with Allison Benis White
Posted on 27. Nov, 2009 by New Forum in Interviews, New Forum
An Interview with Allison Benis White
By Ashley Holm
Allison Benis White is the author of Self-Portrait with Crayon, winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize. Her poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, and Pleiades, among other journals. Her honors include the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Bernice Slote Award from Prairie Schooner, and a Writers Exchange Award from Poets & Writers. She is currently at work on a second manuscript, “Small Porcelain Head,” which received the 2008 James D. Phelan Award for a work-in-progress from The San Francisco Foundation. She teaches at the University of California, Irvine.
In your book Self-Portrait with Crayon many poems connect the absence of your mother with the visual aspects of a series of Degas paintings. When writing the poems, how did the presence of the paintings alter or enhance your memories of being a child?
The difficulty with writing about being abandoned as a child is that, in my case, there was no tangible story, no traditional memory. After my mother disappeared, it was just years of silence and ignorance, both externally and internally, to a certain extent. I had no words or images to enter or engage with her absence, so the paintings offered me scenes and bodies with which to animate my early life.
The backdrop of the paintings is a nice way to contrast elements that appear to be biographical with elements meant to relate to the universal “you.” Do you recommend that aspiring writers try and find a concrete subject to inspire their ideas?
I would recommend that aspiring writers read and write and experiment in order to find a way to speak that is authentic and particular to their circumstance and vision. This might lead them to a concrete source, or a point of view, or a poetic form, but the main thing for any writer or artist is to just keep trying in order to find a way in and make something genuine.
Your book is a collection of prose poems. How did you decide to write in this form?
Initially, I fell in love with the prose poems in Killarney Clary’s Who Whispered Near Me. I was taken by the intimacy she was able to achieve, as well as her ability to write in a way that was both plain and profound. I was bored with the poems I was writing at the time, so I tried the prose form, just to see how it felt. Ultimately, using the sentence instead of the line changed my sense of syntax, and rhythm, which changed my voice. I was no longer rushing or stuck. I felt like I had room to make something more textured, more suited to what I need to say and learn at the time.
When writing this book, did your theme come from a single poem that you decided to develop into a series of poems, or did you write the collection one poem at a time, with no intention of them being linked together in a book?
Well, both really. I had suspicions that these Degas poems might be a section of a book or even an entire book, but I wrote them one at a time without any real knowledge of how far they could go. The first poem I wrote in the series was the result of an exercise I had given myself in response to a postcard of Degas’ “Combing the Hair.” Then I tried the exercise again with “Dancers in Blue” and it worked again—meaning I was able to write about my mother’s absence in a way I never could before. So I decided to continue with this process until it was exhausted, and after a few years I had a manuscript length number of these poems.
Edgar Degas, "Woman Combing Her Hair," c. 1886. Pastel on cardboard.
Have painting and dance been a large part of your life or did these art forms just inspire you to write these poems? If so, do you believe that a background in what you are writing about is important to have? Or if not, how do you believe the research process can enhance the quality of a poem?
I danced for a few years when I was young, and actually, when I first met my mother (when she came back), I had just returned from a ballet class, and one of the first things I did was dance for her. And I’ve always been an admirer of the visual arts. But in terms of inspiration, my response to Degas’ work was completely accidental and strange. I recognized something in his paintings that unhinged something in me. So I don’t know if having a background in what one is writing about is important, or if doing research is enhancing. It depends of the project or the particular poem. I’m sure sometimes it’s vital, sometimes it gets in the way, and sometimes it’s inconsequential. I wish there were definitive answers to these questions, but so far, in my experience, there aren’t. All we can do is try, fail, and try again until something unlocks.
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For more info about Allison Benis White, visit http://www.allisonbeniswhite.com/
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