Tina Cane: In that book, there are some poems that are essay poems. I was trying to think about how I got the idea to even do that. And I think I actually think part of it had to do with the column that I had been writing in the Providence Journal during my tenure as poet laureate, the column space that I inherited and really loving writing essays. And I think also, the idea that a poem is a system of thought, and emotion, but really a system of thought, and words. So I’ve written these essay poems, and this one’s called “Essay on Mercy.” And I wrote this one very early on in the pandemic. This whole book The Year of the Murder Hornet was written towards the end of the Trump administration and the mid and then the kind of most intense beginning part of the pandemic. Essay on Mercy. It’s all management before mercy for the suits at the rallies. And for those alone in the ICU. Not a single mask to reuse, even for the mothers. Grieving in advance is intense, and anguish akin to combat, which it said feels like the second before a car wreck only all the time. A single prescient moment, right before impact that tenses the body for eternity, bruises, the psyche, and rewrites the system to run solely on adrenaline. But mourning is not war, and Antigone was not her brother. She sought to bury Polyneices because ritual is everything. So a warrior she became. Still, mythology continues to bewilder as if life doesn’t train us for death. It all remains grim. If we don’t see small mercies in our midst, the lessons we might miss, etc. Once when I was young, kissing a boy I didn’t love on a mattress on a floor through off 10th Avenue. I had the feeling I was falling through time. It was then, only then, that life wasn’t about saving things, at least not mine.
Chuck Hinman: Let’s talk a little bit about the new book, The Year of the murder Hornet. Is there a poem in it by that title?
Cane: Yeah, the opening poem is Year of the Murder Hornet. And actually the book while I was writing, it was called dog whistle, which was an allusion to the political phenomenon. dog whistling. And the book was a lot more had a lot more of the political speech poems in it that I had been writing. And then as time went on, this kind of fell away. And you might remember, like, my kids would send me videos about the murder Hornets coming to the United States on YouTube. And so that… I began to think more of the book is as a chronicle of a time.
Hinman: Last time we talked, we were I think, in the middle of the pandemic. It almost feels like this pandemic is easing, which is a nice feeling. Yeah. But at the same time, it’s kind of amazing to me that it’s been two years or more since it all began. And I’m wondering, how has it been for you? Have you had any realizations, epiphanies, things coming out of this, that you feel maybe have changed you?
Cane: I hope so you never want to go through something that’s really strenuous, emotionally and psychologically, and not be changed by it. It really, just on a daily basis, kept me checking in with priorities, and taking stock and putting things in perspective, like the problems that we think that we have really pale in comparison to a lot of the problems that the world has. So I think collectively, really on a global scale, it should have done that for all of us. And I’m certainly hoping so. And I’m hoping that some of those collective realizations stick and turn into action.
Hinman: I found your Poetry Project “Poetry is Bread” to be a great companion. From time to time for me. I would put it on, on my drive to work in the middle of the night.
Cane: That’s so great. That’s exactly what it’s for.
Hinman: I get to hear these, these poems. And they were just, you know, drop out of nowhere and give me something to think about. And also, it was great when I could look at my phone and see someone reading and I just thought, What a great idea. Can you talk a little bit about how that came about and how it’s going?
Cane: Sure. We shut down everything late March of 2020. And I started it on April first of 2020. Because that was National Poetry Month and everything had been canceled. And we were all kind of in the state of shock. So I, I just put out a call for videos, short 10 minute videos of people reading their work. And I started posting one every single day. And every morning, I would do that. And it was a really helpful gesture for me, psychologically, to be able to do something because I really couldn’t leave the house. My kids were upstairs. And then it just kept going. And even as we’ve opened up over the last couple of months with the vaccinations, but that’s ongoing, and I still post about once a week, and a press approached me [name] press, which is a wonderful international press. And so we’ll actually make a print anthology of “poetry is bread” coming, I think in spring of 2023. So I’m excited about that.
Hinman: Tina Cane says she also published a novel in the fall a young adult novel in verse, which she’s agreed to read from, it’s called “The Alma Presses Play.”
Cane: So this book takes place in 1982, in the East Village of New York City, and the character is 13 years old. I think I’ll read this one piece called Kings Plaza, which is a section of Brooklyn, and in this scene, Alma is nine years old, and she’s a 13 year old remembering this moment when she was nine. Kings Plaza. It was July. Not long before grandma Miriam died. I was nine and driving around with my cousin Jonathan from the Brooklyn side of my family. My elbow propped on the passenger window of his sunbird. We were cruising kings plaza at dusk. How deep is your love was on the radio. I remember Jay said the Beegees sound like girls in a way that meant he’s the type of person who might not think girls run as fast as they really do. Jay was 17 wore cream colored bell bottom jeans like John Travolta, a blue eyed quarterback from Sheepshead Bay. It seemed to me he should have known more about girls than he did. But I loved him for playing Frisbee with me on the field across from grandma Miriam’s for driving me down Flatbush Avenue, as he stopped here and there to chat up girls with feathered hair, Jordache jeans, and wide combs in their back pockets. Like the kind I wanted to get. That said hot stuff and curves ahead. I remember it was humid. My hair fell thick as a real pony’s tail. Everything was electric. Everyone friendly, and we were all smiling, feeling fine in a way that even when you’re nine, you savor for the sense that time won’t keep the moment unless you do.
Hinman: Tina Cane, Rhode Island Poet Laureate. It’s been great getting to know you and learning about poetry from you and I wish you all the best.
Cane: Thank you so much for having me. It’s always a privilege and a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks.
