{"id":36116,"date":"2006-04-25T12:46:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-25T19:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=36116"},"modified":"2025-02-18T10:32:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T18:32:33","slug":"issue-58-a-conversation-with-beckian-fritz-goldberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/issue-58-a-conversation-with-beckian-fritz-goldberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 58: A Conversation with Beckian Fritz Goldberg"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Willow<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Interview in Willow Springs 58<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works in Willow Springs 68<\/em><\/a> and 50<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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April 25, 2006<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Grace Danborn, Sarah Hudgens, and Zachary Zineyard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A CONVERSATION WITH BECKIAN FRITZ GOLDBERG<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n
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\"Beckian<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: blackbird.vcu.edu<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Jean Valentine has characterized\u00a0Beckian Fritz Goldberg\u2019s work as a \u201c\ufb01erce homage to the body and to the spirit.\u201d Landscape may have in\ufb02uenced the intensity of this homage; Goldberg grew up in the harsh Arizona desert, where she currently resides.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeath is the eternal problem,\u201d Goldberg says. \u201cI can\u2019t write without that awareness\u2014to me it\u2019s constant\u2026. How can you love something and not mourn the fact that it\u2019s going to disappear?\u201d Even when not overtly dealing with death, Goldberg\u2019s work concerns itself with the mortality of humans and the natural environments that shape them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goldberg is the author of\u00a0<\/em>The Book of Accident\u00a0(2006) and\u00a0<\/em>Lie Awake Lake\u00a0(2005). Her collection of prose poems,\u00a0<\/em>Egypt from Space, is forthcoming. Other titles include\u00a0<\/em>Body Betrayer\u00a0(1991),\u00a0<\/em>In the Badlands of Desire\u00a0(1993),\u00a0<\/em>Never Be the Horse\u00a0(1999), and\u00a0<\/em>Twentieth Century Children\u00a0(1999), a limited edition chapbook. She has been awarded the Theodore Roethke Poetry Prize, <\/em>The\u00a0Gettysburg Review\u00a0Annual Poetry Award, The University of Akron Press Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and her work has also been anthologized in\u00a0<\/em>The Best American Poetry series.\u00a0Goldberg holds an MFA from Vermont College and an MA from Arizona State University, where she was mentored by Norman Dubie. Presently, she directs the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State University.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goldberg was interviewed over lunch at Europa Restaurant in Spokane.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZACHARY VINEYARD<\/strong>: What kind of progression do you see from your earlier work to your later?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BECKIAN FRITZ GOLDBERG<\/strong>: I think that\u2019s always a hard question for a writer, because you don\u2019t think about your past work that much; at least I don\u2019t. Once it\u2019s out there, it\u2019s out there, and some things hold up for you. Some things, you can only see what\u2019s wrong with them\u2014like, Why did I write that line? What was I thinking? Or sometimes you look back and go, Wow, how did I do that? It looks like I have a brain!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I try to take more risks, push it, because I have a low boredom threshold. And so I always like to try things I haven\u2019t tried before, try to get away with things I haven\u2019t gotten away with before. I trained very early to use narrative in my work because it didn\u2019t come naturally. So I think my earlier work\u2014I could be wrong\u2014has a little more narrative in it, because I worked so hard at doing that. But my natural bent is lyric, and I\u2019ve felt more freedom, I suppose, as I\u2019ve gone along, to go with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SARAH HUDGENS<\/strong>: Can you identify certain risks in the new volumes,\u00a0The Book of Accident\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Lie Awake Lake?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: The Book of Accident<\/em>\u00a0had been kind of bounced around, because it had a contract with another publisher, and that didn\u2019t work. So I went back to Akron because they published\u00a0Never Be the Horse.<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s just now coming out, but it\u2019s been there for probably three or four years. I feel lucky because I suppose if I still had it, I\u2019d just\u2014I get sick of things real quick. So\u00a0The Book of Accident<\/em>\u00a0is very di\ufb00erent. I remember being pissed o\ufb00 I couldn\u2019t write short poems. Or I didn\u2019t think I could write short poems. I\u2019d look at people who could write a twelve-line poem and it was a complete thing\u2014it wasn\u2019t a fragment\u2014and I was thinking, Why can\u2019t I do that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lie Awake Lake<\/em> was written shortly after my father\u2019s death. I was staying in Jean Valentine\u2019s apartment in New York. It was winter and I was sick as a dog. But she had an old typewriter and I was so tired that I would just write these short things, and I didn\u2019t have the heart to edit them so I put them away. Then I took them out later and decided to keep them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the language and things\u2014there is a \u201cpurple scrotum\u201d in The Book of Accident<\/em> that I\u2019m very proud of. I get some \ufb02ack for that, but, you know, it had to be. I don\u2019t know exactly if it\u2019s purple\u2014I don\u2019t know, there\u2019s some image in there. I like to surprise myself. You write and stu\ufb00 comes out and the \ufb01rst thing your little editor head says is, You can\u2019t say that, and as soon as my editor says that, I go, Oh, yeah, I\u2019m ready. Yeah, it\u2019s on!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GRACE DANBORN<\/strong>: Your work can be characterized by those surprising images. Not just the scrotum but other uncommon comparisons, like in\u00a0Never Be the Horse<\/em>\u00a0when you compare a nebula to the steam of a rabbit\u2019s breath on a cracked cellar window. How do you allow yourself such free imagistic range of the imagination, but still maintain a tone of intimacy with the reader?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: The imagery itself is probably something I\u2019ve always been able to do, because it\u2019s the way I think. Anywhere but poetry it would probably get me into trouble. But that\u2019s the \ufb01rst natural poetic impulse I had. It took me a while to learn how to control images and not just throw them at the reader, but pace them and have the image come at the right time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS: And the voice and tone are still so intimate.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Poetry should be intimate. I have to believe I\u2019m talking to someone who\u2019s listening, and who\u2019s like me. It is partly historical. When I read poems and feel like they\u2019re talking to me\u2014that\u2019s what I want to do. I get bored with over-intellectualized stu\ufb00. Yeah, sure, we all have a mind. Big deal. Wow, so you\u2019re brilliant. I don\u2019t have a lot of patience for that. Not that stu\ufb00 like that isn\u2019t any good, or isn\u2019t valid. I\u2019m just not interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS<\/strong>: In an online interview, you said that writers have to know the audience doesn\u2019t care about their feelings. Do you still hold that to be true? How does that work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG:<\/strong> You have to make them care. I don\u2019t know how you do that. I think you have to give them enough of your sensibility, touch some sort of common ground \ufb01rst. Part of that is voice. If you read Nazim Hikmet, the Turkish poet, his voice\u2014of course I\u2019ve only read him in translation because I can\u2019t read Turkish, but who the hell can? Turks can\u2014his voice is very immediate. I think you have to surrender to what you\u2019re writing. It really has to\u2014I hate to use this phrase because it makes me want to retch\u2014come from the heart. But it really does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DANBORN: Are you risking sentimentality, then? If it \u201ccomes from the heart,\u201d are you afraid of being characterized that way by readers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG:<\/strong> No, I\u2019m too weird. [Laughs.] Sentimentality is usually bad because it\u2019s unearned emotion. You know, people writing about how bummed they are that they broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend. So what? If you tell them about the relationship to the point where you share the history a little, then they start to care. That\u2019s the balance you have to strike to make that intimate connection with the reader. And sometimes you just don\u2019t know; you have to try to be as true to the poem as you can and hope it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS<\/strong>: Do you, then, equate the writer with the speaker? Or do you see your speakers as separated one degree?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: It\u2019s one degree removed, because it\u2019s arti\ufb01ce. It\u2019s not like me talking to you now. It\u2019s art, sculpted and formed and thought about. It\u2019s not spontaneous. Even though an occasional verse will be. But you always have the option to go back and tweak it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VINEYARD<\/strong>: You\u2019re starting to work in the prose poem, and you\u2019ve previously published other formal poetry, such as the crown of sonnets in\u00a0Never Be the Horse<\/em>. Has form in your poetry changed as you further trust your poetic instincts?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: I always trust what I\u2019m trying to do. Form is nothing I think about in advance. I work a lot on the basis of sound. Sound will tell me its form. The crown of sonnets was sort of an exception. I didn\u2019t plan it. I had serious writer\u2019s block and was trying to write my way out of it. I\u2019d had this idea that connected the devil and the sonnet form for a long time. I was writing it down and I was thinking, That\u2019s kind of iambic, okay. And it turned out to be a sonnet and a half, and I thought, I can\u2019t have a sonnet and a half. So I said, Okay, I\u2019ll go for two. Well, then I had a line left over. I remembered my old forms class, from way back, and thought, Yeah, there\u2019s something where you just keep going with it. So I did, and it was miserable. I would be up nights working on two lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t consciously approach something thinking it\u2019s going to be in a certain form. I do go through phases, though. I had a desire to write short poems for a while, which usually means I end up writing long ones, since that\u2019s the way things work. When I wrote Never Be the Horse<\/em>, I went for longer, more raggedy-ass lines, because I was like, Why do lines have to be all tight? So I thought I\u2019d just let it roll, and wherever the line breaks, screw it. The two books that followed that are shorter-lined, more lyric, with more space in the poems. I didn\u2019t want to keep doing the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS: So if sound dictates form for you, would you also say that sound dictates meaning or content?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: A lot of the time, yes. When I\u2019m looking for the rest of the line that\u2019s not there yet, I know exactly how it\u2019s supposed to sound. I know, DUM da da DUM dum dum. So I have to \ufb01nd the words to \ufb01t that. Obviously, it has to make some kind of sense. But I will actually hear vowel sounds and things that need to be there. That has every bit as much to do with it as\u00a0what<\/em>\u00a0I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think sound is the hypnotic force in a poem. If that\u2019s broken, things \ufb02y apart. I\u2019m much more aware of it now. My poems usually start with hearing the line. Or I hear a certain tone, or something I can\u2019t even articulate until the poem acquires its body. If I can\u2019t hear it, I can\u2019t write it. I can\u2019t think it. And that\u2019s frustrating. Because I will, when I\u2019m writing, try to think it. You want to \ufb01nish the goddamn poem, so you can go have your co\ufb00ee and your cigarette, you know? And I\u2019m not allowed to smoke in the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS<\/strong>: When you\u2019re reading poetry in which the main thrust isn\u2019t sound, do you value it less?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Probably. I suppose that if I look at the poets I\u2019m most attracted to, that I return to, probably they have that quality. It\u2019s not that I can\u2019t appreciate the craft of something that\u2019s not quite as musical, but it doesn\u2019t hold my interest. I think sound is an important quality in poems, and I think all great poems have it. It\u2019s an issue with language poetry: some of it\u2019s just\u2014you know, I\u2019ve got TV to watch. Hey,\u00a0Law and Order<\/em>\u2019s on, man, don\u2019t waste my fucking time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DANBORN: You said that trusting sound allows you to play with more surreal images. But are the images themselves ever the genesis of a poem, before being shaped by sound? Do you ever see a rabbit or an olive and say, \u201cI want to write that image\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Usually one thing\u2019s there \ufb01rst, like maybe the rabbit. And then my mind goes o\ufb00 to, what was it? An olive. I like that. Martinis, yeah. My mind will leap to that association. If I\u2019m really on, I\u2019ll hear it and do the association at the same time. Those are the good poet days, where you\u2019re just on, just rocking. Sometimes it\u2019s just a little scribble o\ufb00 to the side of the margin: \u201cGet to the olive.\u201d But if I can\u2019t \ufb01nd the sound for it, I probably won\u2019t do it. The challenge is to make the image make sense to the reader. An associative sense, not a logical one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My thought process is in image. So the sound will determine how the image is played out. Or sometimes, I\u2019ll go with the sound and that\u2019s where the surprises come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DANBORN: Like a horse suddenly starts talking\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Yeah, that was kind of a shock. That was one of those moments: A talking horse? Man, you can\u2019t do that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VINEYARD: In your work there\u2019s so much repetition and recurring image\u2014I think of the last poem in\u00a0Lie Awake Lake<\/em>. How does repetition function for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: I suppose the honest answer is I don\u2019t know. Part of it is, again, sound, because the right amount of repetition is musical and gives weight to certain moments. I think it\u2019s a natural impulse of language, too\u2014kids repeat things all the time, obsessively, until you want to slap them. And I like it when I read things that have repetition. I guess it\u2019s one way of keeping the reader in the poem, keeping me in the poem, but it can be overdone. Somebody pointed out to me once that in one book I tended to repeat things in threes, so I was like, I\u2019m not going to do that anymore. You don\u2019t want to fall into a mannerism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DANBORN<\/strong>: Gertrude Stein suggests that repetition without change is death, but repetition with modulation is insistency, is life. Does your repetition work in a similar way?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: I am conscious of what Stein said. I don\u2019t want to repeat just to repeat. And even throughout the course of a book, it\u2019s not entirely conscious. Like this last book, there\u2019s a lot of water in it. I didn\u2019t start out thinking, I\u2019m going to do water stu\ufb00. When I became conscious of it, I didn\u2019t want to do it every other line or anything, but I became aware there was a lot of water in the book. It seemed right. But that was unique to that book.\u00a0Never Be the Horse<\/em>\u00a0was drier, more desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VINEYARD: The desert \ufb01gures prominently in your work, often as an adversarial character infused with intention\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Well, it is. I mean, the desert hates you. It doesn\u2019t want you to live there. It is not a hospitable environment, and you feel that. Especially in Arizona. The summers there, which are six months long, are like living in an oven. And you get used to it in a way, but you\u2019re aware of how much it hurts to go outside. Though I do have moments of tenderness toward the desert. It\u2019s like when you have a worthy enemy\u2014there\u2019s a close relationship even though it\u2019s not a friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think a lot of people in Arizona feel that adversity. What bothers me is the people who\u2014it\u2019s all becoming gated communities and cement, so the desert is disappearing\u2014get pissed o\ufb00 when javelina, which aren\u2019t really pigs but more like big rats, eat their \ufb02owers. They were there \ufb01rst. I have coyotes running all over my property. They run across the driveway and look at me like, What the fuck are you doing? And I\u2019m \ufb01ne with that as long as they don\u2019t eat my cats. We had a bobcat for a while, that liked to sun on our roof. And that was kind of freaky. I called him Bobby because I am so original with names. And you know, if you leave them alone they\u2019ll leave you alone. Javelina, too. They\u2019re blind as bats but they can smell you. They like cigarettes, too. I was out on the balcony smoking one night\u2014two in the morning, whatever\u2014and a big one came up. I really think he was attracted to the smoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have also noticed that there is some sort of geographical thing happening in Egypt from Space<\/em>. I don\u2019t know exactly why yet. Well, the book is titled that because I saw a satellite photo. You know how they can take photos now of the earth, and there\u2019s some picture that\u2019s supposedly Egypt, but it looks like shadow and scar? And I suppose that got me thinking about view of places and how only in recent generations have we had that ability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I saw an art program where they talked about the Ei\ufb00el Tower being built, how people were able to go up high and look at stu\ufb00 for the \ufb01rst time. You know, people weren\u2019t \ufb02ying in airplanes and they didn\u2019t have skyscrapers, and that changed their perspective in more ways than one\u2014in art and also in their ways of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS: You\u2019ve characterized\u00a0The Book of Accident<\/em>\u00a0as a meta-narrative. How does meta-narrative work in that book, and how has your approach to narrative changed throughout your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: I don\u2019t think about narrative much anymore. I just had fun in that book. It\u2019s not really narrative, and my editor told me it should maybe have more narrative. It\u2019s a series of lyrics and recurrent characters that form a narrative arc. But there\u2019s not a story, no action that leads to an event and then drops o\ufb00. It\u2019s little glimpses into characters in a particular time and place, which is not quite real\u2014\ufb01ctional. I like that because I guess I got tired of ending with a pile of shit that I knew was connected. But trying to \ufb01gure out how to order a manuscript is so awful. It was nice to work with something that took care of that for me, at least to a degree. Not that I didn\u2019t shu\ufb04e and change, but at least there was some impetus there. In\u00a0Lie Awake Lake<\/em>\u00a0there is obviously a central event that generated the meditations and the lyrics but there is no narrative as far as I can tell. There are glimpses of things that happened to my father, but it is almost all interior space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS<\/strong>: And you said earlier that in your \ufb01rst couple of volumes, you forced the narrative because you thought you should be writing in a narrative form\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Well, I knew it was a weak point with me. You start with your strengths\u2014I could give you an image every line, but that doesn\u2019t make a poem. So, I had to \ufb01nd some other stu\ufb00 to put in there. It was a good grounding. Now, I use narrative tools all the time. I don\u2019t like poems that have no time, no place, nothing. Narrative also freed me up to take the lyric further; and ultimately, given my bent, that\u2019s where I wanted to go. I was not going to become the narrative poet. I think there is great power in a really good story, but I don\u2019t think in stories. I think that\u2019s the di\ufb00erence between poets and \ufb01ction writers. We look at something and think, That would be a great poem. They look at it and think, Great story. I don\u2019t see the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS: I don\u2019t know that all poets think only in images\u2014some of us also think in stories\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Yes, there are great narrative poets. A lot of Larry Levis is narrative. Things happen, he goes places. He screws her, she screws him. And that\u2019s terri\ufb01c. It\u2019s just a matter of how you see and what you\u2019re comfortable with. I tend to think in images and that\u2019s probably why I\u2019m a lyric poet. But I wanted to be able to tell a story if I needed to. It just didn\u2019t come naturally to me, though it\u2019s easier now. I\u2019m more comfortable with what constitutes a story. I think I was inhibited by my initial idea of what narrative was. And I had to learn that it\u2019s more \ufb02exible than I thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of times when you \ufb01rst write, I think you\u2019re afraid to have a line that\u2019s not beautiful. And that was me. I had to do \ufb01reworks every line or it wasn\u2019t working. People had to slap me around and say, \u201cThat\u2019s not going to work, that\u2019s just masturbation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS: Who are some of your favorite contemporary poets?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Jean Valentine. I just adore her work. I love Michael Burkard. Those are the people who, as soon as I \ufb01nd a new poem by them, I\u2019m on it. It\u2019s like I want to suck their brains out. I love Charles Wright. I\u2019d like to have his children. Actually, I want to have Marvin Gaye\u2019s children, but it\u2019s too late. I love a lot of poets. I\u2019m a big Gerald Stern fan, a Philip Levine fan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS: Are there speci\ufb01c poets you look to for inspiration to start writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: Sometimes I have to read my way into writing again because my brain just \ufb02at-lines. I read a lot of European poets. I love Rilke but he doesn\u2019t help me write because he\u2019s just too fucking good. After I read him I want to o\ufb00 myself. I like Marina Tsvetayeva and Boris Pasternak. A translation of his poems called,\u00a0My Sister-Life<\/em>, is just a knock-out book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think Michael Burkard is getting any props. They\u2019re all writing about Jorie Graham, Louise Gl\u00fcck, or John Ashbery\u2014which is \ufb01ne. Larry Levis\u2014goddamn, I think he is phenomenal. I\u2019m in the pits that he died, but so is he: damn man, all that cocaine fucked me up<\/em>. I think he was the great poet of this generation. Poets won\u2019t forget him. I have yet to see a critic write anything, which is an odd dichotomy in this culture. The poets who become well known are the critically acclaimed but not necessarily the ones who inspire poets. Ultimately, both types of poets will survive and their work will survive, because the critics decide who gets into the Norton Anthology,<\/em> and because the rest of us keep reading really cool poems. I think Levis\u2019 work will continue to be read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DANBORN: Has your treatment of death changed as your books have changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s changed. I mean, death is the eternal problem. I don\u2019t want to do it, I don\u2019t want other people to do it, I don\u2019t like it. So I suppose I\u2019m trying to \ufb01nd a way out or an answer to why it happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve come to any conclusions, but I can\u2019t write without that awareness\u2014to me it\u2019s constant. Poems that don\u2019t acknowledge that seem dishonest to me. How can you love something and not mourn the fact that it\u2019s going to disappear? To me that\u2019s the essential question of the human condition, and if you avoid it, I don\u2019t think you can write an honest poem. I think that\u2019s the reason that essay\u2014I think by Donald Hall\u2014says, \u201cThere\u2019s no great poem that is simply happy.\u201d It doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t joy or celebration in poems, but it\u2019s always in the face of the fact of loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HUDGENS<\/strong>: But there seems to be a tension between that sentiment and a desire to transcend the body\u2014there are instances where you refer to the body as the \u201chell of form\u201d or write \u201csomebody has to stay behind and be the body.\u201d So there seems also to be a yearning for death.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDBERG<\/strong>: No, it\u2019s a yearning for the opposite. I\u2019d like to wipe out death altogether. I\u2019m not buying it. And I can\u2019t arrive at a theological belief that allows me to be okay with it. I wish I could\u2014it\u2019d be nice to believe we die and go to heaven and \ufb02oat around happy all the time, but I suspect not. So I \ufb01ght it and it informs just about everything I do. I don\u2019t think it would be that way if I didn\u2019t love so many things. There\u2019s so much beauty and wonderful stu\ufb00. As Woody Allen would say, Death just spoils the whole party.<\/p>\n\n

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Jean Valentine has characterized\u00a0Beckian Fritz Goldberg\u2019s work as a \u201c\ufb01erce homage to the body and to the spirit.\u201d Landscape may have in\ufb02uenced the intensity of this homage; Goldberg grew up in the harsh Arizona desert, where she currently resides. \u201cDeath is the eternal problem,\u201d Goldberg says. \u201cI can\u2019t write without that awareness\u2014to me it\u2019s constant\u2026. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9086,"featured_media":2492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36116"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36716,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36116\/revisions\/36716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}