Carol Ann Davis on The Social Distance Reading Series
Carol Ann Davis is a poet, essayist, and author of Psalm (2007) and Atlas Hour (2011), both poetry collections, and The Nail in the Tree: Essays on Art, Violence, and Childhood, all from Tupelo Press. The daughter of one of the NASA engineers who returned the Apollo 13 crew from the moon, she grew up on the east coast of Florida the youngest of seven children, then studied poetry at Vassar College and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A former longtime editor of the literary journal Crazyhorse, she is Professor of English at Fairfield University, where she directs the Low-Residency MFA Program. She lives in Newtown, CT, with her husband and two sons.
Brought to you by The Vermont School and Green Mountains Review
In the wake of book event cancellations due to COVID-19, this pop-up series is designed to offer poets a platform for launching new collections of poems. Stay tuned for a new reading each Wednesday and Sunday.
Here’s Carol Ann reading from her new book THE NAIL IN THE TREE: ESSAYS ON ART, VIOLENCE, AND CHILDHOOD, just out from Tupelo Press.
“A poignant and poetic essay about terror; specifically, the terror that occurs when you have two children who very well could have been witness to a school shooting. It speaks to the way that life barges in on what should be the idyllic innocence of childhood.”
– Elisabeth Donnelly, Flavorwire.com, for included essay which was a finalist for the 2015 National Magazine Award
“A true poet”
– Hélène Cixous
How do you begin a new piece of writing? What conditions help your writing process?
I began writing these essays in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. A poet by training and inclination, I turned to essays because the experience of the shooting was so immersive and beyond understanding. Though I continued to write poems, I turned to the essays, and to some of my earlier writings about artists, to guide these explorations.
Conditions that help my writing: good light, a quiet hour, and the books of others to bring on a trance state, a state of being-in-language.
What was an early experience that taught you language has power?
The sermons of my first preacher Sayer Canova. I mean, what could be more powerful than a preacher named Sayer? And early readings of the King James Version of the Bible—all those thous. All that beautiful repetition. The other early experience with language was family singing—stretching toward those family-voice harmonies. What’s more beautiful, or powerful?
What poets or writers do you continually go back to?
Elizabeth Bishop, Paul Celan, John Berryman, James Tate, Marianne Boruch, Patti Smith, Héléne Cixous (rinse and repeat)
What is your favorite childhood or adolescent book?
This is going to seem grim, but The Diary of Anne Frank. I mean the sheer spirit of that girl, and her voice. It’s everything.
What are your thoughts/experiences on social distancing?
Social distance is love right now, it’s taking care of others, it’s loving strangers you will never meet but to whose health you contributed. It’s lonely, yes, and it’s strange, but at its root is love.
Where can we find you? Link to your blog or website:
My website: www.carolanndavis.org
My books (and buy from small presses, please!): www.tupelopress.org
The Social Distance Reading Series
Brought to you by The Vermont School and Green Mountains Review
We’re thrilled to host The Social Distance Reading Series, a collaboration between Green Mountains Review and The Vermont School poets. In the wake of book event cancellations due to COVID-19, this pop-up series is designed to offer poets a platform for launching new collections of poems. At this point, we are focusing on collections by poets whose book events have been cancelled between January through May 2020.
Stay tuned for a new reading each Wednesday and Sunday.
Thanks,
–Didi Jackson, Major Jackson, Kerrin McCadden, and Elizabeth Powell, series curators.
–Kylie Gellatly, editorial assistant, interviewer.