Ian Randall Wilson's work has appeared in Forklift, Spinning Jenny, The Alaska Quarterly Review and Puerto del Sol. A chapbook, Theme of the Parabola, was published by Hollyridge Press.
His poem, “Nights Below,” appeared in Issue Eighty-Five of The Rupture.
Here, he speaks with interviewer Victoria DiMartino about engagement with the world, getting political with your work, and how eliminating part of the view always requires effort.
Nature is abundant is this piece, both in the imagery and the subject. Did your inspiration for this piece come from the current treatment of the environment by you or by others, or from an experience that you may have had in nature?
This piece is a kind of continuation of a movement in my work that tries to move from the inside to the outside. While there are still concerns with the "I" of the piece, there is at least an attempt at engagement with the world. At the same time, I'm preoccupied with my own mortality. I recently got the memo that gets distributed to all writers when they hit my age, the one that says: You're going to die soon. Start writing about it. I would say that in more recent work—the poem we're talking of is over 3 years old—I have begun to engage with more political concerns, be it the idiot that purports to be running our country or the accelerating degradation of our environment. This poem is an early start in that direction. I have to say also, that the end of the poem is an acknowledgment of something that has run through my work. In the past, I have derided certain lyric poets who wrote about "dead grandmothers and trees." But you know something, sometimes you have to look for a spot of beauty in the world and the majesty of trees might just provide it.
Colors feature very prominently in the imagery; we start the piece with the image of bones and the color white comes to mind, we move to blue and amber, the sea, lights not being lights, and we end on the image of trees, which call to the mind the color green. Color adds so much to this piece, each one plays into a different part and meaning. Could you talk about what colors represent in the message of your piece?
I hadn't really thought about the whiteness of bones as part of the color scheme of the poem, but as I tell my students in my UCLA Extension classes, if someone says, Did you mean to do that? Always say, Yes, certainly. The blue and the amber come out of practical experiences. I have read that the blue lights of computer screens interferes with sleep and that if you wear blue-blocker glasses for a sufficient period before bed, you will sleep more easily and better. But eliminating part of the visible spectrum is not without effect. Everything does turn amber and it is disconcerting to try to watch television or to go outside briefly and all the lights are no longer as you remember them. The world is changed—yes, I imposed the change on what I see because of the light-blocking glasses—but changed, nonetheless.
I was really captured by the lines “I spend the hours before bed wearing / glasses that chop the blue— / a better machine for dreaming, / the doctor tells me.” I immediately was drawn to the image of the sea and of blue light glasses with technology. I also looked at each line as its own statement: there seemed to be so much that could be related to in each line. Could you talk more about how you moved through the linework of the piece?
Big idea. Back to the personal. A turn to what can become maudlin if not careful. A movement outward back into the world to rescue the piece from its own darkness. That's how I think of the movement. More than that—and this is already answering the next question that's coming—I've been particularly influenced by Transtromer. I've tried to study the movement in his poems and borrow it for my own.
Are you reading anything right now that is inspiring anything you’re currently working on?
I recently worked with Joseph Massey on a new chapbook of his called Present Conditions. He is characterized as a nature writer who produces these spare elliptical lyric gems that cover tremendous ground in four lines. I admire his work so much.
Is there anything you’re currently writing that you are really excited to share with others?
In these perilous times—and my comment above clearly reveals my politics—my poetry in particular has become very political. The dance is always to bring forth something that isn't so didactic as to be off-putting. I have regular arguments about this with the poet Rick Bursky who, except for his poems about soldiers, never writes anything with a hint of politics in it. There has to be a way to come to terms with present conditions. The political poetry is my way. I can't say that it changes anything, but it makes me feel a little better.