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This interview will be the beginning of a new feature I’m calling “Imaginative Interviews.” These interviews will be with a variety of artists––visual artists, poets, musicians, dancers, people who perform amazing feats with their bodies. What these interviews will not discuss, however, is the actual art itself. They will focus instead on the imaginative life of the artist, a peek into the brain. It is my pleasure to “kick off” this endeavour with author Bhanu Kapil.

Kelsey Street Press, 2009

Bhanu Kapil is the author of The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, Incubation: a space for monsters, and––most recently–– Humanimal, a project for future children. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Bombay Gin, Chain, Denver Quarterly, Mandorla, and Trickhouse. She currently teaches at Naropa University and in the low-residency MFA in writing at Goddard College.

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Drew Krewer: You are only allowed to “utter” one sentence about poetry in this entire interview. Tell us that sentence.

Bhanu Kapil: Poetry is for the “the mingling of centuries and jungles” (Glissant.)

D: List things you find inspiring that are “unpoetic.”

B: Listening to my friend Sara’s stories of hitchhiking in Ireland until she reached the sea. That casual arrival, and missing the last bus back. This makes me think of a bus-ride I once took from Ajanta to Ellora; how I made the bus stop, and got off. I hiked through the jungle to reach the cliff above the cave where a granite Buddha throbbed lightly in a millennial trance; on the way, I came to a small waterfall, a tiny pool, and – - to summarize, swam. I opened my body to the possibility of cobras. Why not? Bus-rides are technically unpoetic, but, interrupted, they make you: you.

D: If you had the chance to permanently change Disney World into an amusement park world of your own, what would the park be like, and what would be its name?

B: Well, obviously, Snow White et al would be out, to be replaced with Hanuman, Shiva, Lord Ram, Durga and so on. There would be a Shiva ride that involved sliding down the side of a polystyrene Mount Kailash, holding on to the middle prong of a trident: your legs poking through. It’s name would be AYODHYA. Krishna’s gopis would distribute garlands of marigolds to every visitor, and there would be a golden lotus to meditate in. Obviously, we’d have to bring in the cash so there would also be re-invented hot dog stands selling samosas and chai. No, I’ve changed my mind. Nobody would have to pay. There would be a row of boxes for small donations to charities of many kinds.

D: Are there any childhood fascinations/fantasies that have remained with you into adulthood?

B: To hit myself with a book so hard I was no longer me. Also, I longed to live in Paris, and write on a balcony and drink milky coffee in my pajamas.

D: Do you own a television, and if so, what do you watch on it?

B: A television but without the digital encoder. I watch British TV when under duress, most recently a DVD called Posh Nosh starring Richard. E. Grant, the star of Withnail and I, whose autobiography I own.

D: What does “atmosphere” mean to you, and what is its importance in your life?

B: I read your question and immediately see the balcony of a temple in Mussoorie, in the Himalayas, where I stayed with my uncle for a few days when I was twenty. I was traveling with him from temple to temple, training or witnessing, really, the ancestral practice in my family of “healing with light and color.” My uncle would give a dharma talk, give healings, then the temple would put us up for the night, or as long as we could stay. I remember sitting on the balcony looking down at the mist in the valley below, the sun rising through the clouds, which turned rose and gold in turns — perhaps twenty variations of these colors — wrapped in a quilt, drinking chai from a little glass, and — from this time on, I never lost hope, no matter what happened to me or to others. I was recalibrated by atmosphere to the light in my own body, and lately, as I engage questions of aggression and community, what I do is go to the river near my house in Colorado, with my dog, and sit until the river comes out of itself and into me. It is the same thing. It is SHAKTI, which comes to us through the earth, its ethers and its bodies of water.

D: If you were handed loads of money and were forced to buy yourself an “item of extreme luxury,” what would you purchase and why?

B: I would buy England. I cannot tell you why. It is obvious.

D: Beyond the obvious, such as stress, exhaustion, minor persistent distractions, etc., etc., what can really stifle your creativity?

B: Even a year ago, I would have said: aggression. But, lately, even difficult things, even the things that break my heart, feel exactly “what is.” And as a writer I want to taste life on this planet, cross-cultural life, and violence will always be a part of that. Am no longer scared. I write every day like the dog that I am.

D: Finally, in the spirit of the digital museum, what are some online treasures you’d like to share with the world and why?

B: 1) Frances Farmer Is My Sister, Kate Zambreno’s blog.

Here’s a little taste, that doubles as an explanation:

“and lo and behind right on my desk! is Reines’ translation of The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal (subtitled “days and nights of an anarchist whore”) and I love, I love anarchist whores, I imagine myself an anarchist whore, and sometimes when I go about in my black knee boots and red beret I could be an anarchist whore, a recovered anarchist whore, I am not a recovered anarchist I am a recovered whore, but she was an anarchist whore, like Julia in 1984.”

2) INTERVIEW with Elizabeth Grosz by Robert Ausch, Randal Doane and Laura Perez: through CUNY. For more information about the “border between the living and non-living.” I want to write a dead book, because this is prebiotic. It’s the place where something stirs. At the same time when I show my work to friends, they suggest: “more details.” Or: “It’s a bit flat.” I am learning to retrain the automata of lyric events in my work, and this interview helps. It helps me with the part of species/sentence transformation that depends upon imperceptible events held in an early field. Writing books that deflect reading, that don’t attract it as a sexual relation (between the reader and the writer) is, perhaps, disgusting, boring and stupid. I want that stupid.

3) POETICS of HEALING: SFSU/Poetry Center series:

Upcoming lecture/panel/performances by Alphonso Lingis. Is this media? It is a set of directions on how to get there, and what to do when you arrive. I bought my tickets today. More notes towards the body and what the body could be.