Gilmore Tamny is not just a talented writer but also an accomplished musician and visual artist. She has published poems, stories, essays, interviews, and artwork in a range of print and online publications, and her novel My Days with Millicent, which I highly recommend, has been serialized by Ohio Edit and is available here.
Gilmore has just published a collection of haikus, HAIKU4U, which has earned praise from Daniel Clowes, among many others. Here, she responds to some questions about the haiku form, what it’s allowed her to achieve, and more.
B.C. Does the haiku form affect your choice of subject matter? In other words, does it act as a kind of filter for the ideas percolating in your mind?
G.T. I like that haikus offer a kind of container for thoughts that dribble by. It’s interesting how you have to kind of prune or contort a thought and then it just won’t go. It’s like trying to stuff slippery basketballs in a suitcase. Sometimes a thought I’d think was completely haiku-suited–like the dogwood flowering or whatever–and I’m really less prone to such things–balks and the more you try, the balkier it gets. Other things just neatly fall into place boom boom boom boom boom/boom boom boom boom boom boom boom/boom boom boom boom boom (little haiku joke there). So in a sense, the form has the upper hand, if you are really wedded to saying what you mean as close as could be possible. And I like that. It’s annoying sometimes but oh, when you nail it–very satisfying. And it works for plebeian or dumb things and the big unknowable. That’s a joy too.
B.C. I love how your haikus capture both fleeting moments and big truths that carry a lot of history. Here’s one of my favorite haikus from the latter category:
I look back I see
punk rock ruined lots for me
all necessary
Did you try to balance both the fleeting-moment and big-truth haikus in the book, or did you follow some other principle(s) for choosing or organizing the haikus?
G.T. Thanks–that is, in fact, my very favorite in the book. I liked the idea of order being kind of like a random thought generator. Having it be something you could read in any order was important to me too and if it was too…topically clumped together I don’t think it would have worked. Fortunately, Amy from Ohio Edit understood this and did a lot of great work on ordering the haikus. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about song order for the music I’ve worked on. I’m sort of keyed into ordering things. But it is the illusion of randomness we have here. It’s not like Burroughs or whoever who cut things up. Although I always wonder if he really did that as much as he said. I mean it’s really really hard to let go of, and Junky and Queer are really smooth, exacting, lucid prose. Anyway.
B.C. Are there any ways in which haiku writing has benefited or shaped your fiction writing or vice versa? Does writing in a briefer form ever give you a kind of respite/brain refresher from fiction writing?
G.T. Fiction is such a slog–you know how soccer is called “the beautiful game”? Well, I find fiction the beautiful slog. So much fun, but such work to get all the sentences in order, and have it be engaging for a protracted period of time. And that exposition, and transitions, I did get weary of that. So after a fair amount of fiction-ing it was really nice to go way way on the other end of the spectrum.
B.C. I really admire the lyrics you’ve written for Weather Weapon and your other musical outlets. Do you ever see them as a form of poetry, or are they a different sort of beast?
G.T. I write songs first and lyrics second always, so there’s this superstructure that they have to hang on, if you will. Lyrics do feel like a form of poetry, and lord knows I’ve pored over them when I had albums, as if reading poetry, but in a way I think they work less well standing on their own. When I’ve picked up books of lyrics printed as poetry I’ve yet to be really into it. Maybe it isn’t the right artist though. I have read Weather Weapon lyrics at poetry readings just to see how it feels. And it feels weird.
B.C. Can you think of anything else you’d like to say about your haiku book, your other creative endeavors, or anything else?
G.T. I’m hoping to collaborate with an experimental composer/musician, Sarah Hennies, who I admire very much but I’m not sure if she’ll have time. I’m crossing my fingers though. I would love to see what she does with the haikus.
I guess the last thing I wanted to say is getting feedback from people that read the book–and said that they enjoyed it–has been pretty thrilling. That’s been a consistent way people have put it: “I really enjoyed it.” At another time I might have wanted someone to say about something I wrote, “IT BLEW ME AWAY” or something to the effect of “YOU ARE SO LITERATURE-Y,” but now “I really enjoyed it” makes me so happy.
I wanted to write something people could effortlessly get into and out of (maybe this is related to my commitment issues), and it seemed like I may have succeeded on that front. And to completely not humble brag, but brag-brag more people than I would have thought have read it out loud to their partners, friends, kids. That I hadn’t expected. I’ve subscribed to the thought if you touch anyone, any one person, that is great with art. It’s nice to think you touched 48,000 absolutely–but anyone or any one is great too.
Would My Pick be Your Pick?
If you're interested in ________, the answer may be "Yes":▪ Poetry in general and haikus in particular
▪ Minute studies of life and its particulars
▪ Poetry that offers depth, honesty, and humor
