Poetry for All

Transcript of Episode 21: Christian Wiman, ÒI DonÕt Want To Be a Spice StoreÓ

[intro music]

Abram:

Hello, IÕm Abram Van Engen.

Joanne:

And IÕm Joanne Diaz.

Abram:

And this is _Poetry for All_.

Joanne:

In this podcast, we read a poem, discuss it, learn from it, and then read it one more time.

Abram:

Today, weÕre so honored to have Christian Wiman as our guest. Christian Wiman is the Clement-Muehl Professor of Communication Arts at Yale Divinity School, the former editor of _Poetry Magazine_, and the author, editor, and translator of multiple books. Today weÕre going to talk about his poem ÒI DonÕt Want To Be a Spice Store,Ó from his latest book of poetry, _Survival is a Style_. Christian Wiman, welcome to the podcast.

Christian:

Thanks so much for having me.

Abram:

Would you be willing to get us started by just reading this poem for us?

Christian:

Sure. This is ÒI DonÕt Want To Be a Spice StoreÓ:Ê

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/01/i-dont-want-to-be-a-spice-store

Abram:

Hm. That is so good. Thank you.

Christian:

Thank you.

Abram:

So normally, we would dive right into this poem and begin to see how itÕs working, but before we do that today, I want to talk just a little bit about the book in which this poem is located, _Survival is a Style_. I think sometimes we forget that poets do, in fact, write books, and not just poems, and many of our listeners might havenÕt counted poems primarily in isolation, maybe in an anthology, or something, or a literary magazine, but poems are not just stand alone things. So I wonder if you could get us started by just thinking through a little bit with us how you structured this book.

Christian:

Yeah, I have a couple of answers to that, before this book was out, I was talking to the poet Tracy K. Smith and I said something like--she was talking about the construction of a book--and I said, ÒYou know, IÕve always just opened a book of poems in the middle, and just read randomly.Ó And she was appalled.

Joanne:

[laughs]

Abram:

[laughs]

Christian:

She constructs her poems so clearly and expects them to be read as a completed thing, and I was much more conscious with this book than I was with some of the others of making it that completed thing because it seemed to have an organic necessity to it, and it does move from a kind of cry at the beginning of lack and destitution and kind of fearfulness, to a kind of fulfillment at the end, which is still fraught but it does move to a kind of fulfillment. So I was aware that the book was...had done that, not until I had written it, but I did become aware of it and so I arranged it in that way. My wife was always a real help to me because she sees these things more clearly than I do, and sheÕs arranged my other books, actually.

Joanne:

Hm.

Abram:

Hm.

Christian:

And sheÕs a big help, was a big help with this one too.

Abram:

How do you think about the various parts of the book? So, you were just thinking of why there was a part one, a part two, part three was interesting because itÕs a very long, single poem, and part four comes back to a series of discrete poems. So when you were thinking about this particular arrangement, what made a part a part?

Christian:

Most of the things in part one and four are fairly personal, particularly part one; in part two, theyÕre more public. And in three is a very extended meditation that fuses those two things, it fuses my own life and my life with my father with theological thinking, reflections.

Abram:

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that struck me about reading the book cover to cover; in which, by the way, IÕd recommend to readers to do, books of poetry can often be read cover to cover in a sitting or in an afternoon, and it changes the way these poems appear, so for example, the father we have in this poem for today reappears in that long extended meditation in part three, and itÕs not necessarily the same father because we know poetic speakers can change from poem to poem, but you get the feeling that these are the same father.

Christian:

ItÕs the same one.

Abram:

Yeah! [laughs] I donÕt think itÕs a mystery here. And so, we actually begin to learn more about the father after having encountered him here at the end, this is the last poem of part one, and there are other ways as well in which themes that go all the way through the book begin to come out in this poem. So one of the themes that struck me was...thereÕs several poems here about being basically reduced to the bare necessities. ThereÕs poems about aging and cancer and other ways in which people are being stripped down to their bare essentials, but then it feels like each poem when it gets to that point is asking Òwell, but what are the bare essentials? What are the bare necessities once everything else is pulled away?Ó and thereÕs a lot of different answers to that question.

Christian:

Yeah, thatÕs definitely the case in a lot of these poems and this one was an attempt to playfully confront that, I thought.

Abram:

Yeah.

Christian:

A poem can really swerve on you. Robert Frost has that famous line, Òno surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.Ó If it doesnÕt somehow open up for you, take you someplace you werenÕt expecting, then itÕs not going to do that for a reader either, and I was writing a playful little poem about being frustrated with the kind of fancy stores that I had encountered and not wanting that. Wanting a different kind of life and the poem swerved from that to take in my father, who I had no thought of whatsoever when I was starting this poem, and in fact, my father did used to never get gifts until the day of an occasion, so if it was Christmas, you were...he was reduced to getting it at the truck stop, and so our gifts from him would be, you know, fuzzy dice and things like that.

Abram:

[laughs]

Joanne:

That is so interesting and such a helpful way to get into the particulars of this poem because that passage that youÕre describing:

		...I want to wait
	brightly lit and with a patience
	I never had as a child
	for my father to find me open
	on Christmas morning in his last-ditch, lone wolf drive
	for gifts. ÒLight of the WorldÓ penlight,
	bobblehead compass, fuzzy dice.

Takes up an interesting space right there toward the end of the poem, and itÕs a poem that starts; and you mentioned the lightness with which it begins, thereÕs definitely a wit to it. The poem begins with what the poetic speaker doesnÕt want to be, and I love that strategy because the poetic speaker doesnÕt want to be luxurious, expensive, unnecessary, right? So I wonder if you could talk about that structure, which I love so much.

Christian:

Yeah I guess it does begin in a kind of a gesture of refusal. ItÕs interesting, It might be a tic or a habit that I tend to come at things by refusing them first. Come in at a side-long way and God is no small part of that.

Abram:

[laughs]

Joanne:

Hm.

Christian:

IÕm sure that was part of it, and my daughter, she was reading it--I have two eleven-year-old daughters--and she read this poem one day and she looked up to me and she says, ÒYou know, Dad, I think I _do_ want to be a spice store.Ó

Abram:

[laughs]

Joanne:

[laughs]

Abram:

ThatÕs awesome!

Christian:

[chuckles]

Joanne:

I mean, letÕs face it, the handcrafted Marseille soap is very appealing! I mean...

Abram:

[laughs]

Christian:

[laughs] Yeah!

Abram:

WhatÕs interesting to me...so in the Epilogue of this book, you say ÒLove, the sacred name for loneliness.Ó And I feel like thereÕs an echo of that in this poem itself because so much of what the poem is about is a kind of love that is a kind of loneliness, or a kind of waiting, or a kind of patience, or just an openness to let in whatever might enter.

Christian:

And I love that connection. Yeah, Òlove is the sacred name for lonelinessÓ because I mean, I do have an anger at my father and the long poem talks about some of the things that he did, and IÕve written about it elsewhere. I mean, he was a rough guy, and he did some things did a lot of damage to our family and beyond. But when you were right in front of him, he could be filled with love. And this poem, part of what surprised me is that I turned something that I was resentful about--that he never really saw his kids at all and that he would just sort of have all these throwaway gifts--and I discovered the love that was in them. Even the details: ÒÔThe Light of the WorldÕ penlight,Ó I mean, thatÕs like a throwaway thing, but itÕs the light of the world.

Abram:

Right.

Christian:

And Òbobblehead compassÓ is ridiculous but itÕs a compass, it gives you directions. ÒFuzzy dice,Ó some element of chance that is, you know, made possible and...fun. And so those, yeah, I think that emptiness does become...come to a kind of fruition or presence.

Abram:

Hm.

Joanne:

And there is a sense--and this is why the point of view of the poem is so wonderful--because itÕs spoken from the point of view of a mature adult. Right? Who can look back on the lack of patience in childhood, and that suggests to me that yes, in the past, the child might not have had patience for the father, scurrying to get these gifts, but perhaps something has shifted in the adult writing the poem.

Christian:

Yeah and I also think that, you know, we get older and youÕre able to perceive love that gets forced into the forms that you couldnÕt perceive in a long time. And I think of that poem by Robert Hayden, ÒThose Winter Sundays,Ó where he wakes up and hears his father driving out the cold and the fireÕs crackling, but he says heÕs fearing the chronic angers of that house, so we know itÕs a rough place, but then at the end, he says:

What did I know, what did I know
of loveÕs austere and lonely offices?

And then heÕs recognizing in the past that there was a kind of love in what seemed merely hard at the time.

Abram:

Yeah. And one of the things that I noticed happening in the poem too, when you come to that line, Òhas nothing but necessities,Ó thereÕs a kind of turn there because on the one hand, that could be the end of the poem, ÒI donÕt want to be a store that has nothing but necessities.Ó But then the poem goes on to describe what those necessities would be. And whatÕs interesting is that first we begin with things that really do seem elemental and fundamental, like fire. Fire going on or fire going out, and things that stay frozen, like really basic needs. But then the next line says, Òand a place where they are sweet.Ó And we begin the turn, like, maybe necessities are not just the hard things, maybe the necessities are the little bells above the door too.

Christian:

Yeah. ThatÕs a good way of putting that, and also I think it...the poem was about a consciousness that--in here I would say a speaker because IÕm not...I wasnÕt conscious of it being me, but you know, it is--needing to have things in their place. You know, resisting the kind of chaos; and I grew up with a lot of chaos, and so I want to be a place where everything is in its place.

Joanne:

Hm.

Abram:

Hm.

Christian:

And yet, to have a door, still, amidst all of that, where chaos can come in in the form of my father, I guess.

Abram:

[laughs]

Joanne:

But also, I wonder if you could say a little bit more about those final three lines, I love them. I love the way the poem ends, because it just is...it rings for me long after I put the poem away:

I want to hum just a little with my own emptiness
at 4 A.M. To have little bells above my door.
To have a door.

I...every time I get to that final sentence, I just...am stunned! ItÕs so amazing. So arresting. Could you just talk about how you landed on those final images?

Christian:

Well, I canÕt explain the last one, because I wrote that and it shocked me to my core. I didnÕt...I had no...I mean I realize the poem was suddenly over, but I feel like I say, I did not have any expectation that that was coming.

Abram:

Hm.

Joanne:

Hm.

Christian:

So the last line was, in fact, a last line and the poem was absolutely done after that. But I think there is some sort of religious dispensation and that line:

	I want to hum just a little with my own emptiness
	At 4 A.M.

ItÕs a kind of negative state thatÕs...itÕs volatile, I guess. ItÕs a volatile emptiness. You know? ItÕs permeable. And itÕs not simply the kind of loneliness that defeats us.

Abram:

You know, I feel like the ÒI wantsÓ in this poem are each related in a way to those dispositions because there are four ÒI want toÕsÓ in the poem and if you think about stacking those up, they become a kind of interesting repetition in their own right, so ÒI want to beÓ is the first, ÒI want to holdÓ is the second, ÒI want to waitÓ is the third, and then ÒI want to hum.Ó And the hum is the surprising one, and I think thatÕs part of the surprise of the ending.

Christian:

ThatÕs really interesting to me. I didnÕt notice that at all. And then if you think about the ending that whatÕs fallen away is the ÒI.Ó The ÒIÓ and the desire. ÒI wantÓ is just to have a door is all thatÕs left.

Abram:

Yeah.

Christian:

Ego has been erased in a way, or transmuted in some way. I mean, youÕre showingÊ _me_ things in this poem that I wasnÕt aware of.

Joanne:

You know, even as I heard Abram observing that about your sentences, for me, I start to wonder, of course, I see the emotional and personal elements of the poem as you describe it, but I wonder if this is almost a kind of ÒArs Poetica,Ó meaning yes the poetic speaker is trying to envision how he could be this extended metaphor or a different kind of store, not a spice store, but something thatÕs necessary, convenient, open, accessible, but I wonder as weÕre talking about it, it could be a way of talking about a kind of...a certain kind of writing. Do you feel that way at all? Is that totally a reach?

Christian:

No, I think thatÕs absolutely true. I donÕt know if I thought about it, but IÕve certainly been aware. I was aware in the writing of this book, wanting to extend my range to write...IÕm so driven by the sound of poems, which I love, I love the sound of poems, but it can become a kind of enclosure. Because it doesnÕt allow other kinds of speech into the poem. And I was really aware in this book of wanting a wide range of tones and not wanting the poems to sound perfect, at all. You know. Wanting to be able to include different things, so I do think thatÕs definitely dead on to read it that way.

Abram:

Well I wonder with everything we have covered already and for our listeners to be able to hear these things as they happen, would you be willing to read the poem again?

Christian:

Sure. ÒI DonÕt Want to Be a Spice StoreÓ:

	I donÕt want to be a spice store.
	I donÕt want to carry handcrafted Marseille soap,
	or tsampa and yak butter,
	or nine thousand varieties of wine.
	Half the shops here donÕt open till noon
	and even the bookstoreÕs brined in charm.
	I want to be the one store thatÕs open all night
	and has nothing but necessities.
	Something to get a fire going
	and something to put one out.
	A place where things stay frozen
	and a place where they are sweet.
	I want to hold within myself the possibility
	of plugging oneÕs ears and easing oneÕs eyes;
	superglue for ruptures that are,
	one would have thought, irreparable,
	a whole bevy of non-toxic solutions
	for everyday disasters. I want to wait
	brightly lit and with the patience
	I never had as a child
	for my father to find me open
	on Christmas morning in his last-ditch, lone-wolf drive
	for gifts. ÒLight of the WorldÓ penlight,
	bobblehead compass, fuzzy dice.
	I want to hum just a little with my own emptiness
	at 4 A.M. To have little bells above my door.
	To have a door.

Joanne:

What a remarkable poem. Thank you so much for reading it one more time.

Abram:

Yes.

Christian:

Thanks so much for having me.

Abram:

Thank you.

[outro music starts playing]

Abram:

For our listeners, we hope youÕll remember to subscribe to the _Poetry for All_ podcast via Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, or any other provider. And please leave us a review and let us know how weÕre doing. You can always follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Joanne:

Thank you so much for listening.

Abram:

And thank you Christian Wiman for being here with us today.

Christian:

Thank you both for having me. It was a pleasure.

[outro music continues to end]