Brian Henry is the author of nine books of poetry, including Quarantine, Lessness, and Doppelgänger. Three of his books have appeared in separate UK editions. His work has been translated into Croatian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian, and Spanish. Henry has co-edited Verse since 1995, and his criticism has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times Book Review, Times Literary Supplement, Jacket, and Boston Review. His translation of Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices appeared from Harcourt in 2008, and his translation of Aleš Šteger’s The Book of Things appeared as a Lannan Foundation selection from BOA Editions in 2010 and won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award. Henry’s poetry and translations have received numerous honors, including an NEA fellowship, a Howard Foundation grant, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, the Cecil B. Hemley Memorial Award, the George Bogin Memorial Award, and a Slovenian Academy of Arts and Sciences grant.
His essay "Ammonia" appears in Issue Forty of The Collagist.
Here, Brian Henry talks to interviewer Elizabeth Deanna Morris about poetry vs. nonfiction and the scent of memory.
1. Could you talk about the process of writing “Ammonia”?
It’s safe to say that I would not have written “Ammonia” if I had not been translating Aleš Šteger’s prose book Berlin, which consists of similarly single-paragraph lyric prose. Aleš mentioned that his book had been influenced by Walter Benjamin’s Berlin Childhood Around 1900, so I also read that (several times, having fallen in love with it). Aleš’s Berlin is one experienced by a cosmopolitan poet who is also a flaneur, while Benjamin’s Berlin is a child’s as filtered through the perspective of an adult. I had been wanting to write about a handful of childhood experiences for a while, in prose, but had not found a suitable approach until I realized that I could use Richmond, Virginia (where I grew up in the late 1970s and 1980s) as a pressure point. I wanted to write about both my Richmond childhood and the process of memory.
2. As someone who is familiar with your poetry, I can see a lot of your poetry in your non-fiction: your diction, the tone, the density of your language. What makes this piece distinct, to you, as non-fiction? Did you make a conscious decision to write this piece as non-fiction, or did that decision come through drafting and revising?
I definitely approached it as non-fiction, since it’s entirely true (to the best of my knowledge/recollection). And the piece seems too long (for my sensibility) to be a prose poem. I see the prose as a blend of my own instincts and my deep involvement with Šteger’s Berlin, which is full of astonishing prose.
3. The sense of smell is highlighted in your piece. When you question other moments, such as your memory of finding the finger, you are always sure of the scent involved. Why do you think this sense, above the others, became the most important to your memory?
I have an intense olfactory memory. My memory’s connection to smell often seems stronger than its connection to the other senses, so I let it govern the piece.
4. Have you read (or do you plan on reading) anything interesting this winter break?
I did. I read Jennifer Moxley’s book of essays There Are Things We Live Among, published by Flood Editions in 2012, and J.M. Coetzee’s 2009 novel Summertime. The Moxley book, in particular, was an absolute joy.
5. What else have you been working on, writing-wise?
I have been other writing essays like “Ammonia,” mostly. Blackbird will publish my next two, and I have another three or four in various stages of completion. Having written so many poems, and having translated such a substantial book of prose, I feel like it’s time to pay attention to the sentence for a while. If a poem sneaks up on me, I won’t resist it, but I’m not beating the bushes for poems right now.