Interview with Adam Clay

This is the first of the Octopus vs. Chipmunk interview series. Our guest today is Adam Clay, author of The Wash, a book of poetry from Parlor Press. Recently, O v. C had a chance to sit down with Adam and discuss his book, his life, and his dreams. Or something. When I speak, I speak in red italics.
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I want you to discuss the process of putting together your book. Specifically, I mean how you got from point A (we’ll call that Adam) to point W (The Wash itself) and how points B (the book itself) through V (the completed volume) evolved. Also, what plans do you have for X, Y, and Z?

I want to start by saying: you’ve got a tough interview face. A Poker Face, but with no cards in your hand, no chips on the table. It’s highly likely your intimidation will factor into my responses, so pardon my hesitancy and, at times, dishonesty.

I often arrive at places not knowing how I came to be there. W was for the most part my MFA thesis, originally titled “Apology”. The poems were written over the course of my three years at Arkansas—I probably wrote a few hundred while I was there—and what ended up in W are the poems that seemed to frame the overall experience (that is the A to W experience) which felt right. Order was maddening to me. I knew the placement of the first and second poem was right, but from there, it was wide open early on. Because I wanted the book to be more of a sequence than a bunch of poems thrown together, I avoided (for a long time) the idea of dividing it up into sections. In the end, I folded—titling the sections gave each section more of an ability to “speak” to each other.

I don't know if I even answered your question.

You mostly did, I think, so that's good enough. You have a great “poet writing name.” I mean “Adam” – first man – and “Clay” – stuff of the earth, all that. Has your name affected the poetry you write? I mean, if you were born with a name that was wholly unsuited toward poetry, would you be a different type of writer?

All poets seem to notice this. My parents claim they had no idea.

All poets? Wow. What about the title? Is it a noun or a verb? Or is it something else entirely?

Both. The bath. The laundry. The cleansing. Kimberley likes to watch the clothes spin in the wash. It’s something I thought a lot about when I was coming up with a title for the book. I liked that it was both. I liked that it could be.

Did you consider other less monosyllabic titles?

As a rule, I’m pretty much against polysyllabic words. I tried to revise them out of the text as I revised, but some of them just couldn’t be taken out. To be honest, if we could just speak in grunts and groans, the world might be a better place. The world is complex enough; why do we need long words?

You lead off the book with quotes from Larry Levis and Herman Melville. Who do you think would win a fight between the two?

Arm-wrestling: Levis.

Boxing: Melville.

Thumb-wrestling: Draw.

In your poem “Apology,” you write, “Rivers are a savior of sorts[.]” Can you support that statement with evidence?

I thirst.

Name a few poets, past or present, who would hate your work.

Larry Levis.

Herman Melville.

Jim Morrison.

The first word in a poem in the book is “trusting” and the last word in these poems is “along.” Discuss.

Shannon Jonas always does this with books—looks at the first word and then at the last. Having seen him do this on countless occasions, it didn’t occur to me to check the opening and closing words. I defer to him (insert Shannon’s response here—).

Some of my readers might not know who Shannon Jonas is. Care to elucidate him to those who may not know him?

Shannon Jonas is an enigma.

Oh. You’ve been called a “poet’s poet.” Can you talk about that a bit?

Who said that?

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And with that, we ended our conversation with a lengthy awkward silence. You can purchase your copy of The Wash here. You should. It's quite good.