The Daily Privilege: An Interview with Chris Ellery

Interview by John-Nathanael Caesar

Chris Ellery is a poet and author of five collections: Canticles of the Body, Elder Tree; The Big Mosque of Mercy; All This Light We Live In; and Quarry. His works are published in various literary magazines and literature anthologies. From 1999 to 2000, he served as a Fulbright professor at the University of Aleppo, Syria, and co-translated the short story collection, Whatever Happened to Antara, by Walid Ikhlassi. Now retired, Ellery was an English professor at Angelo State University, where he taught creative writing, American literature, and film criticism.

I’ve read your bio and poems on Texas Poetry Assignment, and I’m wondering what else you might want readers to know about you and your background as an Angelo State University professor as it relates to you and your poetry.

CE: This seems like a good opportunity to acknowledge how fortunate I feel and how grateful that I was able to write poetry as part of my job, a job that I loved. I think I would have written poetry even if I hadn’t been able to use my presentations and publications toward promotion, but you never know. So, here’s a big thank you to the taxpayers of the State of Texas, who paid my salary over the years. I’ve always been conscious of this patronage and, honestly, have tried to give my fellow citizens their money’s worth in all my professional endeavors. I’m also grateful to the many administrators, colleagues, and of course, students who supported my career over the years and gave me the freedom and resources to develop professionally. Not everybody gets to combine vocation and avocation. I was really lucky.

Do you think your work as an educator and poet has satisfied you and your passions for the more nuanced side of life? By “nuanced side of life,” I mean the aspects of life that aren’t just the routine “9-to-5,” the aspects that philosophers might discuss in their works or that people need a cultivating of poetic consciousness to recognize.

CE: I found all aspects of my career as a college professor—teaching, writing, service—very satisfying, both extrinsically and intrinsically rewarding. Poetry—what I write and read—expresses and nurtures my interest in metaphysics, helps me grapple with the big meaning of life issues. More importantly though, it has made me alert to the wonders of the everyday. You find poetry in the 9-5 of work, study, relationships, the habits and impulses of biological existence. I like your use of the phrase “poetic consciousness,” which, if I understand you, is as essential to the perception of the “routine” as it is to the understanding of the “nuanced.” No doubt the best poetry—and I suppose the best philosophy—is rooted in common occurrences, ordinary existences, the daily privilege of being human.

How would you describe your origin story as a poet? What are your first memories of reading and writing poetry? Which people, teachers, and poets were most influential to you in the beginning?

CE: It’s like one of those fairy tales in which a boy is out walking in a forest and a deer or maybe a maiden leads him off the path into an adventure he never anticipated. I took drafting classes all through high school intending to become an architect. I was also a Boy Scout and very fond of the outdoors, camping, and hiking. It was maybe in a merit badge pamphlet or more likely a book of campfire songs and stories that I came across the opening lines of Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road:”

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road Healthy, free, the world before me,

The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

The few lines immediately gave me indescribable joy. I had to look up and read the whole poem. I’d grown up reading the King James Bible and singing hymns along with pop music of the Sixties, so I wasn’t totally insensible to the power of language and rhythm. But this was the first time I really felt the transformative and transcendental power of literature: “[f]rom this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines.” It still gives me chills and so much gratitude and joy to read those lines.

This experience made me a reader, but I still wasn’t planning to be a poet. I took a journalism class and worked for the local paper. I went to college to major in radio-television. It was an up-and-coming field and seemed practical. I also had, however, a wonderful senior English teacher and another great literature class in my first year of college. That’s when I decided to major in English. At that time, I was writing more fiction than poetry and wanted to be the next Hemingway. I transferred as a junior to Arkansas Tech and enrolled in their brand-new Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Karl Kopp was the poet-in-residence and quickly became my mentor. William Carlos Williams was his favorite poet. Gary Snyder, W.S. Merwin. That was when I really started writing poetry and thinking of myself as a poet. Karl encouraged me to submit to a little magazine, and I got my first publication. Thanks to a pipeline between Tech and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, I also got to hear readings by a lot of great poets—Merwin, Miller Williams, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg—and discovered the power of poetry as performance.

How would you describe your writing process when it comes to poetry? How do you know when you are ready to write a poem? Is there a feeling that tells you that you’re finished, or is there a more formal process? How does the drafting, revision, and editing process work for you?

CE: It’s thrilling! It’s an adventure, an archeological dig, a journey to Middle Earth. Timeless archetypes keep you company. But it can be scary. You might encounter a monster. Don’t dial it in. It requires all you know and all you are. Skill and discipline. You have to put in the time, commit yourself to the page. I know I’m ready to write a poem when I sit down with blank paper and a pen. Something’s going to happen. It’s all so mysterious, even mystical. I think it’s best to say that I offer myself up to it. I’ve always kept a journal, and that’s usually where the seed of a poem shows itself first. A phrase or a line or an image or memory shows up and I want to see where it leads me, like that deer in the fairy tale. I also find ideas in my reading through a practice similar to lectio divina. In the early drafts, it’s important to let it flow. I usually write a lot of drafts before I type anything on the computer. Then I write a lot more drafts. Sometimes this is a matter of tweaking formal elements—diction, prosody, stanzas, line breaks. Sometimes I find the poem—the crux—in the twentieth draft.

Because of the number of drafts you often write before you call your poem “ready for publishing,” do you ever think that there are more revisions that could be done to it even after it’s been officially published?

I revise some poems for book publication, even after they have been published in a series or anthology.

What topics or issues frequent your poems? Have those changed over time? Did your time as a Fulbright professor at the University of Aleppo affect your topic selection for your poems?

 CE: Writing is a spiritual practice. My subject matter is the human condition, or what a Christian might call “incarnation,” or a Taoist, “flow.” I’m especially interested in that intersection of physics and metaphysics. I’m a nature poet. I’m a very political poet. These days I’m interested in age, though (oddly perhaps) less interested in death than I was as a young man.

The Fulbright in Syria, of course, affected me deeply. I came back a different person. But then we’re all different at the end of another year. My time in Aleppo and travels in the Middle East gave me some of my best poems. The Big Mosque of Mercy is my “Syrian book,” but I’ve written a lot of poems since then that draw from that experience. The Syrian civil war devastated me, and today it’s Gaza. My heart’s breaking. I’m going to write about it, of course, and I can’t worry about who might disagree or be offended by what I have to say. Your perspective on culture changes when you are welcomed into it and when you love and are loved by the people who are colored by it.

What is your goal when writing about Syria or Gaza: conveying feelings of the people there or something even deeper?

CE: Solidarity. Arabs, particularly Muslims, are vilified and objectified by many Americans, who as a rule don’t understand or care about their situation and suffering. I do. Because Syria is the cradle of civilization, there is a saying: “Every man has two countries: his own and Syria.” I feel that.

If writing is a spiritual experience for you, does the way you write it entail a similar experience for the reader? Did that influence the way you wrote The Big Mosque of Mercy?

CE: I can’t really say how readers respond to the book. The book expresses my longing and hope that human beings can someday learn to live together in solidarity and love.

I’ve read your poem “The Pyre of Hector” on Texas Poetry Assignment. What do you recall about the inspiration for this poem? How does it reflect the choices you regularly make in crafting your poetry on the page and the following: shape, in the flickering flame-like waves of the stanzas; line, in its enjambments, making extant the alliterations and rhythmic quality; music, in its repeated words that emphasize the transcendence of purity; comparison, in metaphors that contrast decay, disturbance, and peace and permanence; and balance, in how the chaos and disturbance of remains in the future is balanced by the peace, relief, and freedom given from the fires of cremation?

CE: Honestly, I don’t recall much about writing “Pyre of Hector.” It was prompted, obviously, by the “War Poems” assignment. Laurence always includes a little stylized visual icon when he posts an assignment. As I recall it was that icon of the Mycenean war helmet that sent me back to Homer. I’ve always found the conclusion of the Iliad extremely moving. Achilles kills Hector, the killer of his friend, even though it means his own death is imminent. Priam, Hector’s father, then goes to his mortal enemy to beg for his son’s body for burial. For a moment they are joined in their common mortality, in the shared emotions of love and loss and grief. The form of the poem is an homage to William Carlos Williams and his beautiful long poem, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, with its Grecian sensibilities and allusions.

 Of asphodel, that greeny flower, like a buttercup

upon its branching stem— save that it’s green and wooden—

I come, my sweet,

to sing to you

William’s poetics should be studied and revered by everyone who admires poetry.

Do you think that when Hector says, “They too will know the burning and relief,” that on Priam’s side, he is referring to the destruction of Illion through its sacking and burning? In a way, the city is like Hector: dearly loved by King Priam yet destroyed. Additionally, little from the historical conflict and at-present layer of Troy that inspired Homer’s epic remains, allowing the real combatants and victims to rest peacefully and undisturbed.

CE: “They” refers specifically to Priam and Achilles, but yes, their fate is shared by both Achaeans and Danaans and indeed by all mortals, although the fire may be metaphorical rather than literal.

What advice would you give to young people who are interested in reading and writing poetry, and publishing their work?

CE: Do it! Don’t listen to the voices (internal or external) that tell you that it’s too hard, that no one cares, that it’s all been done, that it’s a waste of time. I think everyone hears these demon voices but creatives probably more than most. You’re putting yourself out there. Self-doubt will always try to pull you back. So don’t listen. Just write. Just do it. But don’t do it with the ego, do it with the heart, the soul. If you’re trying to do something big to call attention to yourself, your little self, it probably is a waste of time.

Gerald Howard notes in Literary Publishing in the Twenty First Century that getting selected for publishing is like and NFL draft (p. 198-99). From your perspective and experience, if young poets are interested in being published, how do you think they should contend and navigate that?

CE: Read a lot of contemporary poetry. Study the markets. Go to poetry readings. Participate in open-mic readings. There’s no better way to get a sense of whether your poetry is connecting. Get feedback from readers and editors whenever possible. Workshops are always valuable. Most importantly, keep at it. The draft analogy suggests that hours and hours of practice go into developing your talent and skill—and indeed there is a lot of skill and craft involved. At most, I would guess I’ve published about 15% of the poems I’ve written over the years.

If you had to recommend one or two Texas Poetry Assignment poets to other readers, who might you suggest, and why?

CE: Jan Seale and Kathryn Jones come to mind because I know them. But there are lots of fine poets publishing on the platform. I like reading the ones I’ve never heard of.

How would you distinguish contemporary poetry from earlier eras, such as Victorian poetry?

CE: It would take more than a dissertation to answer this question. Somehow a favorite quote from William Blake pops into my head: “I do not reason or compare, I only create.” That seems sufficient, but I’ll just add that aesthetic tastes change with the times, but the Poet (I’m borrowing Emerson’s capitalization) is indispensable to every age and every society for the same reasons. Tennyson (since you mentioned the Victorians) was just as interested in sounding “the foul rage and bone shop of the heart” as Yeats was a generation later or as Terrance Hayes and Natalie Diaz are today.

That reminds me, back to the question of advice to poets: read, read, read! Read your contemporaries, read all kinds of poetry, present and past. Really delve into it. There is still a whole lot to learn from Chaucer or The Rubiyat of Oma Kayam, just as there is a lot to learn from Ko Un and Ren Gill.

It seems like the 2nd Industrial Revolution, Romantic Era, and ideas surrounding Modernist philosophy affected poets writing what we know today as Victorian poetry. What do you think are externals that affect contemporary poetry today?

CE: The environment in general and climate change in particular. I don’t know any poets who aren’t somehow concerned about the future of the earth. The internet is changing publishing and indeed media of all kinds; social media is changing the way people relate. I guess you would say this is an aspect of globalization. “The Pyre of Hector,” for example, can be read by people all over the world. Having such a broad audience was unthinkable when I was an undergraduate. Political and social division and dis-ease seems to be generating a lot of poetry. Identity issues, especially gender. A.I. might be a wild card that affects what means to be an author.

If you had a chance to ask a question to a poet you admire (living or dead), who is the poet and what would you ask? Why do you admire them?

CE: I might like to ask Rumi what he thinks about being a best-selling poet today in one of the most materialistic nations in the world. I can imagine how he might answer. I can imagine his inscrutable smile.

Rumi appears to believe love is a means of bridging the gap between God and man (tahwid) and man and each other. Do you think Americans, in their arguably consumeristic and commoditized view of love, may have lost sight of what Rumi was trying to say? Or is this a case of people getting their own meaning and not the author’s original ideas for their work?

CE: Alas, sincerely and single-heartedly following the path of love always has been and still is countercultural.

How does the poet navigate the concept of the Death of the Author?

CE: Personally, I think the intent of the author is pretty much irrelevant. Most of the time we don’t know it anyway. Bob Dylan has steadfastly refused to “explain” his poems or invoke intention, and I once heard Terrance Hayes politely acknowledge and deflect a student’s far-fetched reading of one of his poems without correcting or insulting. Meaning is not absolute. Reading is an art in itself, a collaboration. Some readers are good at it—attentive to the actual language and knowledgeable about the genre. Others are careless or ill-prepared. Either way, readers bring a lot of the meaning with them, and it’s no surprise and no big deal if a reader sees something in the poem the author never intended or thought about. It’s no surprise and no big deal if some readers are moved by “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and others find it obscure, pretentious, and solipsistic. Affective criticism and reader-response theory explain why the Supreme Court sometimes votes 5-4. They are applying the same texts—the Constitution and legal precedence—but interpreting them according to their own values and ideologies. So-called originalists may claim they are merely trying to get to the “original intent” of the framers, but we know there is more to it than that.

Would you then say meaning is the combination of the design and intention of the author (whereby their intention drives specific construction) and the interpretation and experience the reader has of the text?

CE: I think that’s a succinct way of explaining how meaning is created in the act of reading.

John-Nathanael Caesar is a master’s student in the Curriculum and Instruction: Professional Education program at Angelo State University and is a member of Kappa Delta Pi. He works as an Adult Education and Literacy Instructor at Howard College and is a host of the “On the Stoa” philosophy podcast.