Heaven and Hell

Transcript of episode

SPEAKERS
Camille Rankine and Ama Codjoe

Ama Codjoe starts the podcast
“People often talk about the solitude of making poems, but it is so communal, the way we learn to write. For most of us, it's really embedded in, like a circle and a bunch of people around a table that are sharing and offering and dialoguing together.”

MUSIC STARTS

Camille Rankine
Welcome to The Glimpse. I’m your host, Camille Rankine.

Thanks for joining us. Ama Codjoe is a writer and educator. In 2023, she was the poet-in-residence at the Guggenheim Museum, as well as the winner of the Whiting Award—and those are just two of the many honors she’s received. She’s the author of the poetry collection Bluest Nude and the chapbook Blood of the Air. Ama Codjoe is our guest today on The Glimpse.

MUSIC FADES

Camille
Spending time with Bluest Nude, I was really drawn to the way the poems’ see. It's a hard gaze without any gauzy sentimentality and it feels a little like looking someone straight in the eye and holding the gaze until someone blinks or looks away in discomfort, except these poems never blink. They hold their gaze continuously and with grace. There's a quiet intensity in that seeing; a boldness that is honest and unflinching and tender at the same time. Welcome, Ama. I'm really looking forward to talking to you about your work today.

Ama Codjoe
Thank you.

Camille
As I was reading, I was thinking a lot about, like, the way that the poems see, as I was saying, and especially how they see the body, specifically. I was really struck with the physicality and the attention to the physical form. So I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about why you're drawn to that; like how the body's presence plays into your work.

Ama
I feel like my good answer to this question has something to do with the fact that I was a dancer from when I was a really little kid until my mid-twenties maybe. I mean, it was a very central focus of my energy and my world. And I think it shaped the way that I feel in my body and the way that I move in the world. And I think [it] then just kind of as a consequence comes out in the writing, and I guess in the way that I notice and what I notice.

Camille
That's the good answer. Is there a bad answer? (laughter)

Ama
It's probably just maybe less, you know, linear or something? I think it's always hard to figure out what's you and what's, like, what's specific to you. Because if you only live the one life, you've lived with all of its influences and histories and childhood and, you know, languages.

Camille
I like that idea. I mean it's…I think about how, like, I have been my whole life just very involved in music, piano, singing, and I think that's a big part of how I hear and construct poems as well. So I hadn't really thought about how dance can, just the physical body can, be a part of how you construct and how you write and create.

So, I want to move into hearing your poem, which I think, you know, illustrates a lot of this idea of the body as well. There's a lot of the body in this poem. So perhaps you can read that for us.

Ama
Sure.

Heaven as Olympic Spa

[Koreatown, Los Angeles]

Gwendolyn Brooks stood stark naked.
I stared into her bespectacled eyes.

Ms. Brooks showed me how
to tend to myself by scrubbing dead skin

with a coarse wash cloth, rinsing
the body's detritus down a common drain.

My flesh was taut, loose,
and dying. Even in paradise I was dying.

At first, this surprised me. Oh, the capsized
boat of the body, Wanda Coleman sighed.

We keep sailing, even when we believe
we're ashore. Coleman drifted to sleep

on the heated jade floor. Clasping
my spa-provided robe, I lay on my side

beside her. Do the dead
dream? I wondered to myself.

Wrong question, Coleman muttered.
I remembered sleeping beside my mother,

touching her nightgown lightly,
as if a gesture could restore the cord

that, in the beginning, tethered us. As if
I smelled her death in the satin scarf

keeping the plastic curlers in place,
or in the Vaseline glossing her arms.

In childhood, I pined for my mother
though she was there.

Here, in the afterlife, I had no mind
to search for her. I was freed

from a loss that haunted me
even before it occurred.

Gwendolyn Brooks hummed a wordless
song that stripped me of all longing.

I untied the robe's stiff belt
and walked amongst the nude women,

my skin brushed smooth and silent.
I was ordinary and motherless.

Because I was not alone,
my nakedness felt unremarkable.

I didn't miss my mother—
I didn't miss missing her.

"Heaven as Olympic Spa" by Ama Codjoe, from Bluest Nude. Reprinted with permission from Milkweed Books, 2022.

Camille
Thank you. That's so beautiful. I love that ending so much. One of the things that really struck me about that poem was that ending and that idea of paradise. I think we often think about it as a place where we will be reunited with people that we've lost or will kind of be together with family. So the idea of being there and not feeling grief or loss in that place, but also not necessarily being reunited, being with those people at the same time, was really interesting. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about why that element of it is a part of this kind of paradise space—why that is one of the things that you focused on when you were creating this poem?

Ama
I think I was interested in a lot of things or exploring a lot at the same time. And one of them was about, what is a version of heaven or paradise? And I think emotionally, if I had to pick one definition, it would be to be free of the grief that I haven't experienced yet, but that I carry with me in my living: the awareness of my mother's death. Yeah.

Camille
That's interesting. Like, it's not exactly grief, but anticipation of grief, like the anticipation of grief being something that you don't have to carry with you in that space. Yeah, I mean, the setting of a spa, of course, is very surprising. And the Olympic Spa, particularly—you chose that particular place. Can you talk about why that choice? Is that a place that you have, like, a particular relationship to or does it hold resonance for you in some way?

Ama
Yes. So that's a real-life spa in Los Angeles that I went to with a friend of mine, probably like a decade ago at this point. And you have to be naked to be in the baths at the spa.

And that kind of stipulation was like, interesting, and maybe slightly off-putting, like, in theory. When she told me I was like, “ooh, I don’t know.” But then I went. And I felt like it was a glorious place where there were just all these different kinds of bodies. And it felt really liberating and beautiful, and mundane.

And I just—when I was thinking about this book, which is so much concerned with the black feminine nude, this was just a space that had come to mind. And again, it's like, this could be heaven. I mean, that's the thing about those kinds of words, like “paradise” or “hell”—I think we're living all of those things all at once, now. And for me, it's useful, especially when the world seems like it's just a hellscape, to understand that there are moments that can also feel paradisal and beautiful and bucolic. And, yeah, lovely.

Camille
That's a comforting thought. I think. Yeah, because it is often right now that I feel like we're like, “Oh, can it get any worse? Oh, it can get worse.” So, right? But it can be a lot of things at the same time, which I think sometimes is a hard thing for people to kind of hold in their minds: the idea of that, like, multiplicity of one moment. That it can be terrible, but also beautiful and you can vacillate back and forth. And it's not necessarily going to be always exactly the same thing from one moment to the next. I was also thinking a lot about the obvious appearance of these mentor-poet figures, Gwendolyn Brooks and Wanda Coleman, in a context that we don't expect. I mean, not only because they're naked, which is not necessarily how we imagine them in our minds, but because they're also there, like, mothering figures in the poem. So I'm just curious, why that choice of these two, why are they here?

Ama
Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know how Gwendolyn Brooks got there, but she got there first.

Camille
I love that she's like naked with her glasses, she’s not wearing no glasses.

Ama
Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I admire her, obviously. Like, she's a tremendous poet. And I think initially I was thinking about—maybe I was just thinking about lineage. I think the soulful parts of Gwendolyn Brooks, like, I really resonate with. She writes about love really beautifully. I think she just came to mind because, if I think about my lineage, she's a poet who comes to my mind. And at first I actually was thinking about Lucille Clifton as well. But because this particular spa is in Los Angeles, it just brought to mind Wanda Coleman, who is an LA poet and who has a little bit of sass, at least in her reputation. (Ama laughs)

Camille
Yes, that's why I was like “Wanda?” Yeah, yeah, she does. That's how people know her. I don't know her personally. But I know that people like—that was her reputation, definitely, she had a little bit of a bite. And I like that Wanda Coleman, as she shows up in this poem, is kind of…she scolds you a little bit. Like she's lying down on the jade floor and falling asleep, but she's also like, “girl, don't, like you're getting it wrong.” You know?

Ama
You got the wrong question.


Camille
She's like, “let me school you also while I drift back into my sleep.” And she's like reading your mind at the same time, you know?

Ama
Totally. Exactly.

Camille
I’m thinking about…we have these poets appearing in this space in a sort of caretaking role, like you're saying, that kind of role of guiding, and there's a kind of intimacy there. And I wonder if you feel like there is a relationship between art making and poetry and caretaking? Is there an overlap there, do you think?

Ama
Well, I think certainly in the way that this relationship dynamic between the speaker and Gwendolyn Brooks and Wanda Coleman exist[s], like I think that that's a definite, there's a kind of copying of the pattern of mentorship that is a part of, hopefully, any artist's path and certainly my own experience as a poet.

Yeah, I wouldn't be making what I'm making without the influence of my teachers and mentors and the people that I grew up alongside, taking workshops and getting feedback from. It's such a…people often talk about the solitude of making poems, but it is so communal. The way we learn to write is, for most of us, really embedded in a circle and a bunch of people around a table that are sharing and offering and dialoguing together.

Camille
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think even if that table is metaphorical, if it's just like reading other people's work and being in conversation that way, I think it's such a big part of what we make. What are we doing without having some kind of exchange? That's, that's kind of, to me what it's about. So maybe this is a good time for a little break.

BREAK-
A message from co founders Cathy and Peter Halstead:

We hope you're enjoying The Glimpse. It's just one small part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. We are the founders, Peter and Cathy Halstead. Our goal is to make poetry more accessible to everyone. And we do that in a variety of ways. Through partnerships, our film series, this podcast, and our website, brinkerhoffpoetry.org. We hope these works will lure you into a parallel universe, the way a Möbius strip brings you into another dimension without leaving the page you're on. Thanks for listening.

Camille
Alright, so we're back. Miss Brooks is back too, right?

Ama Codjoe
That's right. I love this sonnet. Should I go for it?

Camille Rankine
Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Ama Codjoe
Okay. So this is
“my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell” by Gwendolyn Brooks.

I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can tell when I may dine again.
No man can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.

"my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell" by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions."

Camille
That is an incredible poem. I love that so much. I don't think I'd read that one before. And I was like, pretty blown away by it. Can you talk about why this poem came to mind as one that's an inspiration to you, that influenced you?

Ama
Yeah, I mean, I'm always so astounded by the way that her mind works. And it's just an odd kind of construction, both in the way of thinking about the poem, but also in the actual lines and the sentences. There's a lot of clauses that end the poem, and if the idea is like, I have this honey and this bread and these jars, and I'm gonna have to wait to enjoy them, there's something that's about the middle of that, like, “What is that journey? Who is there? What's the heartache and pain about?” that I feel really intrigued by. Yeah, I guess the conceit of the poem is just really interesting to me.

Camille
It is. I mean, I think it's interesting, you know, reading this poem after talking about yours. And now it's like, you know, there's your poem, this conception of heaven. And now we have a poem that is sort of a conception of hell, but hell is not…we don't really see what hell is, in a way. I'm curious what you think about Hell's presence here, like, what is it doing or not? And like, what shape is it making here in its absence?

Ama
I think there is an argument that hell is in the absence, that the “hell” is the state of mind, you know, that's only sure of its grief, essentially. The only sure thing is that I don't have access to the honey and the bread right now. And I don't know when I will again, and I don't know if I do, if I will enjoy it. Isn't that like a state of hell in some way?

Camille
Yeah, it's like the hell is the waiting without necessarily a sense of when that waiting will end. And it's interesting, because it's…you know, in the beginning of the poem, it feels as if the power is with the speaker in a way. I mean, there's such a power in the way this is constructed, and the voice here. This is like a sense of control. And I love looking at the way this poem moves and how it's constructed to communicate those things. Like those end stop lines and their kind of certainty.

But then when we arrive at this…the third of the way through, I love this moment so much. “I am very hungry, I am incomplete.” I don't know, I was so struck by that. And those two short lines, that kind of shift in syntactical rhythm, there, kind of revealing this need. The urgency shifts in that moment for me, and then I see that shift in perspective, and that this speaker is not in control. “None can tell me when I may dine again.” I thought that was really interesting. Like, who is there? Who is this person in control of when the speaker is allowed pleasure? You know?

Ama
I mean, there are so many lines in the poem that just undo me, and “I am very hungry, I am incomplete”—it's definitely those two sentences. And then, the hoping that when the devil days of my hurt / drag out to their last dregs.” “The devil days of my hurt,” is just like, oh, it's so good. So good. (Laughter)

Camille
Yeah, I love when a poem, you're just like, oh, man, how did you…what did you? It's like, you feel a little bit upset. (Laughter) Yeah, there's a lot of moments like that for me where I just felt surprised. And I think that one of the things that I like about the poem too is that looming sense of the thing we can't quite see—the hurt, that denial and where that comes from. What exactly is the hell that the speaker is slogging through? We don't know, and I think the fact that it's not exactly specified or described but what we do experience, is that what you're saying—the hell of that kind of space of denial and waiting and uncertainty. I think there's such an emotional resonance in that, and that what's missing, like, “what is putting her into that situation?” We're imagining that looming thing that has a presence in the poem that’s sort of threatening or something, even though it's not there.

Ama
Yeah, I mean, I think it's because it's not spelled out, we're able to offer that of ourselves. Right? It's an invitation to the reader, even if it's not intentional, for us to bring our own devil days of hurt to that poem, which makes it feel so personal and relatable.

Camille
Yeah, that is true. I feel like you can bring in that shadow, whatever it is that you feel like you have to get through at some point in your life or have had that feeling, then that's kind of what you bring into the room with the poem, which is so effective. Is there something about this, in your thinking about this poem as an inspiration, is there something in here that you see that you think “I can see how this has touched my work”? And I can see how this…something that she's doing here is something that I kind of carry with me as I write.

Ama
I think it's both. I think Brooks is just the queen of describing love in kind of unexpected ways. And since that's one of, like, my obsessions, it would serve me well to pay attention to her. And I think too, these long, that long…I mean it’s 1-2-3-4-5-6…Yeah, six lines, it’s the last six lines—well, actually seven, because there’s a semicolon. But there's that long, long sentence. And it, I love it, I love how it makes you kind of trace back and like, you know, use your finger and really look closely at what's going on. And that I've definitely, just in a general sense been like, “Okay, Ama, make a sentence that's not just a simply constructed sentence.”


Camille
Yes, yeah, I feel like that sometimes. And I'm like, “Can I do that?” I'm not sure. But I am always impressed, especially when I see a semicolon in a poem, and it's used in a way that looks correct. I mean, I think I know what a semicolon is. Like, I'm pretty confident. But I’m always like, “Do I really know?” When I see one in a poem being used to construct a long sentence like this, I'm always like, “Bravo,” you know? (Laughter) I don't know, I think my relationship to punctuation and like syntax and sentences is too loose…I'm not sure if I could do it. But maybe one day.

Ama
I have faith.

Camille
But I love that last line. It's like, it's so, that last sentence is so long.

Ama
Yeah, it's the waiting.

Camille
It’s the waiting!

Ama
It’s that… kind of mimetic sensibility that's happening with the construction of the sentence. It's the same thing that we're going through, or the speaker is going through, and we're going through as a reader, that puny light, that puny light of wait.

Camille
Yeah, I like that idea of “Wait” as a puny light on the horizon, somewhere at the end of a long tunnel. And that last sentence, and its movement, it really, to me, I did feel like this is the wait, this is the embodiment of that efforting through to the end, and waiting and trying to get to that sense of resolution at the end in that last line. You can feel that work, I feel like, in a way, with the fact that it is a complex sentence. And you have those moments where you're like, “Wait, what is this referring to?” And half of it? Yeah, so skillful.

Ama
Right? Yeah, she's amazing.

Camille
Still schooling us, you know? Yeah, thank you, Miss Brooks.

Ama
Thank you, Miss Brooks. I just love it. There's a speaker that's doing her own descent. She does seem sure she'll come back, you know, like, “Be firm till I return from hell.” We don't know what she'll be like when she's on the other side of that journey, but she knows she's coming back.

Camille
Yeah, this was a great poem to read. And I just, it made me want to immerse myself into her work again. So thank you so much for bringing that poem back in front of me. It's really great.

Ama
You're welcome. And I also would say, I memorized this poem in the spring. It's also a nice one to memorize because it's a sonnet and because she's really using the meter, and you know, in the sonnet-like way, it's not that hard. And it was really nice to just, like, get in there through the memorizing to try to hear things differently.

Camille
Yeah, this was one that I read out loud. Because I was like, I think I need to be in this poem in a different way. And there's something about memorizing that feels, like, musical so it feels like you're relying on this muscle memory almost in the way that you move through it. And I think that's…there's just something just very satisfying about that experience for a poem, you know, and on a poem like this that relies on that kind of movement of the speech and how it sounds.

Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today. It's been a delight. And it's just been so great to spend time with your work and spend time with your work in the company of Miss Brooks in various ways. Yeah, it's been lovely. Thank you so much.

(music)

Ama
Thank you for having me. Camille. It was a pleasure.

(music continues)

Camille
Thanks for joining us today. I’m your host, Camille Rankine.

Ama’s poem “Heaven As Olympic Spa” from her book Bluest Nude was aired with permission from Milkweed Books, copyright 2022.

The Gwendolyn Brooks poem ”my dreams, my works must wait till after hell” was aired with permission from the Brooks Estate and reprinted with thanks to Brooks Permissions.

Coming up next week, Kaveh Akbar talks about language, loss, and identity and touches on his new novel Martyr!. We’ll be giving away copies of his new book.

Make sure to like and subscribe to The Glimpse wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find episodes on our website, brinkerhoffpoetry.org.

If you have any questions or comments, please drop us an email at
theglimpsepoetrypodcast@gmail.com

The Glimpse is a production of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. I am your host, Camille Rankine. Our senior producer is Jennifer Wolfe. Kat Yore is our technical director and mixing engineer. Editorial Director Amanda Glassman is our curator and production coordinator. Amy Holmes is the foundation's Executive Director and our co-founders are Cathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks for listening.