This interview has been slightly edited for your reading pleasure.
Elena Macdonald: I first fell in love with your writing when I was reading for Phoebe Journal, and you submitted the packet with “Missouri Pastoral 01.” I adore the whole Missouri Pastoral series. I’d love to hear about them, and how they came about.
Brooke Spalding: Yeah, the “Missouri pastoral 01,” it’s funny because that one I wrote when my husband was having band practice downstairs, and whenever he has band practice, I can’t do anything except write, so I just put on my noise-canceling headphones, and I came up here, and….what happened is true this minivan just like rolled up and [said] that house used to be filled with godly women, and I was like, cool, nice to meet you! But yeah, I think I was annoyed because my husband and I had been thinking about moving to New York. And I was like, why do I like this place? People just come up to me and tell me stuff about God, I’m so frustrated. And I think it was really me being so annoyed and irritated, but being like why do I choose to stay here? And wanting to explore that. I had also been reading My Antonia because that’s one of my favorite novels of all time. And I was really interested in pastoral writing and romanticizing places that people think not a lot of stuff is happening, but there’s….there’s this….aliveness and momentum here that I adore, and I think that was kind of the start of….I’m being stubborn, I’m being ornery, I want to be here, why do I want to be here? kind of a thing.
EM: And I do think that love is coming through in the works. It felt like a love letter to Missouri in a way. There was just so much fondness. One moment that stuck out to me in particular was in “DESIRE ITSELF IS MOVEMENT,” where we get:
She wants to love Missouri slowly,
give herself over to
the disappearing prairie *
vanish; * vanish
The asterisks, I presume they’re the places of luster….the places to breathe in mentioned in the first instance in DEBAUCH where we get them. I just loved that moment so much, but I’d love to hear how Missouri exists within the chapbook and within your poetics.
BS: Okay, cool, yeah. Yeah, I have this going joke that I’m in a monogamous relationship with Missouri. Because I have lived a lot of places, but they’ve all been in Missouri. I lived in Middle Missouri and South Missouri, all over. But I think what interests me about Missouri is everyone growing up here is like, I’m leaving. I will not be here for my whole life, like screw this place. There are greater pastures for me, basically. And I was so much a part of that voice. And as I’ve gotten older, and as I’ve accepted I want to be here. There are elements that are lovely, and worth loving. I’ve realized that there is no Missouri identity whatsoever from a greater cultural standpoint, but also individually, like I’ll ask my students every semester, what is a truly Missourian attitude? Or what is an element of our state that you see, what is Missourian, basically? And every year, it’s literally, I don’t know like going outside during storms? Or like casseroles? There’s not a Missouri identity, and not that I really want there to be, but I do….I am interested in the elements of what makes this place beat, like what is this undercurrent that is here? Because even the people that live here don’t really know. There is, like, no Missouri identity at all, which I think makes it really interesting and fun to dig into.
EM: I love that. I’d love to hear about the Prairie Madness poems. I love the repetition, I again, I love the places to breathe in luster, and it was like this sparkling moment, I was like this is good. I’d love to hear about the sound work in those poems, specifically, and the series in general.
BS: Yeah. Those were really fun, because at the same time of writing this chapbook, I was also helping a few friends out with screenwriting, and I’d never done screenwriting before and I just love how screenwriting….I love the format of it because it’s almost….it’s so wasteful with space. A screenplay is like 130 pages, it could be 30 pages. The amount of space, dialogue has to breathe, instructions have to breathe, that’s what I was really interested in, is bringing that to a few poems, my Prairie Madness poems, bringing that space and then including stage directions like breathwork. I want you to take your time, I want this to be a setting, I want this to be cinematic, I want this to be….a picture window into life, in this place is what I was wanting. And because learning about Prairie Madness and its place in literature. It’s so interesting that it was people….women, mostly, were like mesmerized by this darkness of the prairie, and like pulled into it, and were willing to abandon their domestic life because of the vastness of the scene, and that’s what I was trying to communicate in a lot of the Prairie Madness scenes, was that feeling of overwhelmingly vast, breathy space.
EM: The overwhelming vast….I got that, especially with the repetition, too, of the
BS: The mead.
EM: Mead, mead, mead….I am also so curious about the scenes, and the fact that you’ve dabbled in screenwriting, too. How do you think that screenwriting has impacted your poetry?
BS: Honestly….It has impacted my writing a lot, because it’s thinking about how to communicate a feeling and a point in a really different way, like using sets and using dialogue. And so I just wanted to play with that in poetry, because I find that really compelling, I find stage directions really compelling, and one of my favorite parts of reading screenplays is the stage directions which can be funny, and sometimes I’m sad that they don’t get read out loud. This is a beautiful part of the form that is only for, you know, the people in the production, so I wanted to bring that fun over to a few of those poems, yeah.
EM: And fun they are! I really had fun reading this, and I can’t say that about a lot of things. What can I say? There was a particular whimsy to DEBAUCH.
BS: Thanks so much. That means so much. I hope the fun comes through because I think so much of poetry is play. I don’t know, that’s what I feel and try to capture, so I’m really, really happy. Thank you for saying that it comes through.
EM: Speaking of play, I thought that the way that food was mentioned was very playful as well, especially in “Missouri Pastoral 12, Aixios.” I’d love to hear about how food comes into these poems and the ways that it’s used in that poem specifically. But then we also get like the best sandwich of the speaker’s life in “DESIRE ITSELF IS MOVEMENT,” so I’d love to hear about food in DEBAUCH as a whole.
BS: Yes, I’m so happy you asked about food, because I’ve found that food is, for me, if I can’t get started writing, if I can’t get the tone or the theme, I start with what I was eating. Because I think that a meal in itself carries so much attitude and so much context around it. Because eating clams in the middle of Missouri is communicating a point, getting Taco Bell after like 12 beers is also communicating this vibe, this point, it’s just an irresistible image. It’s the food of the night. It really feels like a cheat code of this is how I set the tone, this is how I get the reader to understand what I was feeling. Like I was high off of clams and white wine sauce. I was….yeah. I was eating the best sandwich of my life. Whenever I get bored in a poem, I literally just list out ingredients. Of a food, and it comes back to life for me.
EM: I think that’s such a good point, too, because it’s a touchstone for so many people, and I think that it’s a fantastic way to connect with others and their understanding of food, and also their senses, too, because the sensory details go crazy, I think. And I love that there was the focaccia dough for your launch party? That was a fantastic background. Very apt. I wanted to hear “Missouri Pastoral 5: Minibar” because I believe it’s the longest of the poems in the chapbook. I was curious about how that one came to be as well.
BS: That one, I was reading Wrong Norma by Anne Carson, and I really wanted to do a long-form, prose poem situation. It came out immediately after that night. I had a weird writing practice, which I don’t do this anymore, where I would only write if I was hungover, which….crazy. I think I was like, I feel so neurotic, like I could write anything. I could….be honest about anything because I’m so tired and I hurt so much that I don’t care. But it was one of those hungover poems where I was I was intrigued by my sensitivity and my emotions of a night that we had, specifically not being allowed to ride in the truck bed, and so truly, it was just me trying to explore my own brattiness. Why do I feel this way? Why am I so, why am I so particular sometimes about a scene that I have playing in my head that doesn’t come to fruition for whatever reason? Yeah, why am I ridiculous about my husband and his very real concerns, I guess? And so it just kind of started as an entry point of honestly, why am I being a brat? Like, why am I upset about this thing that really, in the grand scheme of things, is so small? And little, and… I don’t know, it just….it felt like a Missouri thing, it felt like….I have little pleasures in this life….let me….let me get in the truck bed kind of a thing, so….Yeah, that’s mostly….it used to be a lot longer, but I cut it down….I cut it down quite a bit.
EM: I’m intrigued.
BS: Yeah, that’s a long one, yeah. But yeah, it just kind of came out. I was honestly just trying to figure out why I was being such a brat, to be honest. That’s what came out.
EM: Not enough people are exploring the brat attitude.
BS: Amen! I think Charli would second that.
EM: I think she’d be proud. I think she’d be proud….I’d love to hear more about your poetic influences, because I know you’ve mentioned My Antonia by Willa Cather as well as Wrong Norma by Anne Carson. I’m wondering how who else, what other books, works, or non-literary influences upon that helped DEBAUCH come to be and what has influenced your poetics in general.
BS: Yeah, during this time I was reading a lot of Anne Carson. I was reading a lot of Anne Sexton as well. I was really interested in confessional poetry, I also like Henry Goldkamp, he’s out of New Orleans. I just think what he’s doing with clown poetics speaks to me in terms of, like I want people to have fun, I want people to enjoy this. Poetry is a great communicator for sincerity, for great emotion, but at the same time, I don’t think we’re using it in all the facets that it could expand to. Henry is a really, really cool person, clown, poet. So he was definitely a person, as far as people outside….Oh, also, I was reading a lot of T.S. Eliot. Love T.S. Eliot. I thought that I’d come up with “DESIRE ITSELF IS MOVEMENT” myself, and I was like, I’m a genius. And then I went back and read my notes a couple weeks ago, and I was like, oh my god, T.S. Eliot literally said that. I was like….Well, he’s a Missourian, he’s from St. Louis, originally.
EM: Oh man.
BS: Crazy. But as far as, like, outside of books, I was watching a lot of movies, too, which I really think helped. I can’t remember what movies in particular, but I frickin’ love movies. David Lynch died, and it gave me an excuse to watch all of his movies, and to try Transcendental Meditation. Which stuck for about a week, and then I was like, I love you, David, but I can’t….I can’t, but yeah, I think a lot of movies as well, and the friends around me, I think that’s the thing that keeps me most plugged in to my own work is watching others. Alex Tretbar is a good friend, and his practice is, like, insane. Like, the way that he’s able to sit down and write is just insane, and….just by Missouri people, honestly, yeah, seeing what they’re up to, what they’re doing. I think we’re all so bored in Missouri that there’s no competitive nature whatsoever, so we’re just literally cheering each other on please make something….make something that I identify with so I can consume it.
EM: I love that, and I think that having that art and community outlet together is really beautiful and helps things grow. I also love the way you and Alex support each other.
BS: Yeah, yeah. We’re actually having a chapbook release party together, but for DEBAUCH, and his is called toofarwandered, so we’re calling it DEwandered.
EM: Love. Love it.
BS: It’s gonna be a great time.
EM: I bet!….I’d love to hear how teaching has impacted your poetry.
BS: Okay, teaching. Honestly, it really grounds me to teach, to be honest because interacting with students about writing and about reading, I’m just reminded a lot of people view poetry as super pretentious, inaccessible, And I used to feel that way, and I think just talking with them, speaking with them about poetry, about writing, about making your own argument, making your own assertions. I think it keeps me grounded, and I don’t want anyone to read my poems and feel like there’s not an entry point. I guess that’s why I make it fun, too, because when I look at my students, I want you to know that no matter what you’re into, if it’s poetry, if it’s fiction, there is literature out there for you, and it’s speaking to whatever you’re experiencing. Grounding oneself in human connection, I think, is the ultimate goal of most of my poetics, bringing people in rather than keeping people out. Talking to 16 to 18 to 19-year-olds on a weekly basis definitely keeps me, like would they like this poem? I hope they would like this poem. I want them to enjoy it. I want them to find work that they enjoy, and so I try to inject my poetry with that as well.
EM: I love that you’re putting your actions into your work, too, because I think that’s very important, and I think bringing fun to poetry is….It is important.
BS: Agreed, yeah.
EM: My last question. Do you have any of the projects in the works?
BS: Yes. I actually, hold on, like, literally as soon as DEBAUCH got published, I.…it was April. And I started working on this project that I’ve titled CABBAGE POEM. And….I’m glad the cabbage sings to you!
EM: You know, I love cabbage so much, just….the way they look, everything about cabbage, they’re really ripe.
BS: Totally, no, literally, yeah, totally. There’s so much there, and I went on this spree in April where I was like, I’m gonna try and write two pages a day, and see what happens. And it’s really different from DEBAUCH. It’s a book-length collection, and I initially got inspired by Ariana Reines, by Cœur de Lion, her second book of poems. It’s way more confessional, it’s way more intimate. It’s playing on a lot of themes that are covered in DEBAUCH, but it’s also expanding when it comes to my own maternal nature, and applying that to the cabbages, applying it to the garden, and I don’t know I’m literally turning 29 tomorrow, and my mom’s like, you don’t have to think about being a mother, and I’m like, you’re right, I don’t, but also…
EM: It’s hard. It’s hard.
BS: It is! Yeah, it’s so hard, it’s so hard to be like, okay, I’m on the cusp of 30, I have to, like, make a decision either way, and I still feel totally, 50-50, and so I think CABBAGE POEM is a lot of exploring that feeling through the garden. I also talk a lot about generative AI because that’s something I’m thinking about constantly with teaching at a community college. Yeah, and what is real, what to pursue kind of a thing. Yeah, all of that.
EM: Oh, that’s so exciting. I….I’m excited. I’m excited.
BS: Personally. Yeah, I’m excited you’re excited. The first part of it’s getting published in Little Engines, so I’m excited.
EM: Oh, that’s awesome!
BS: I’m pumped.
EM: I’m so looking forward to that, I will keep on the lookout.
Interview by Elena Macdonald
Elena Macdonald (they/she) is a lesbian writer from Northern Virginia. They are an editor for Aftertouch Magazine. Their work has been featured in The Ekphrastic Review, Kitchen Table Quarterly, and Silly Goose Press. You can find more about Elena’s work at www.elenamacdonald.com.
