There’s one scar
a river carved, but this ground isn’t
a bible you know. True,
there are chapters
of basalt and clay,
but no leaves get saved between them.
-from "Amazonis, Mars"
The Tilt Torn Away from the Seasons by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers documents a different crisis than the one we're currently, ineffectively navigating: people depart from Earth's terrible environmental damage to help settle a colony on Mars. As a big fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars trilogy, and as someone who fantasized in childhood of rocketing off in interplanetary travel, I love this premise and its inventive execution. Rogers' language is lovely and surprising, and she's exceptionally formally adventurous. "Red Planet Application," in which she mimics, you guessed it, an application form, reminds me (in a good way) of Oliver de la Paz's powerful "Autism Screening Questionnaire" series in another wonderful new book, The Boy in the Labyrinth. (At least I remember that as a series--I'm away from most of my books now.) There are also loose riffs in The Tilt on more traditional forms, such as two unrhymed sonnet crowns and "Lolita's Rover Ballad." Often Rogers uses the page as field in the tradition of Charles Olson, a strategy that particularly suits the book's strange terrain. Finally, like all good sf, this book interrogates history, such as the gendered violence that accompanies all kinds of missionary experiments. Below, she attends the next meeting of my Virtual Salon.
If you were ordering thematically appropriate refreshments for this shindig, what would they be?
Whiskey, I believe, is the only true drink mentioned in the collection–it’s pretty dry on Mars–and maybe we could use it to make red-planet themed cocktails in space-aged looking glasses.
Eats: Olive varieties from the old Gethsemane (referenced in “Arcadia, Mars,”). Lolita’s candy stash, which includes old-school jawbreakers (“Lolita’s Rover Ballad”). Fried rice, eggs, and magic mushrooms (from “Seven Catastrophes”).
If, after your breathtaking reading and the subsequent standing ovation, a friend pulled you into a curtained window seat and asked, “How are you really?” or “Are you able to write these days?”, what might you answer?
Right now, on top of the terrifying crisis we’re all a part of, I’m dealing with the disappointment of having my robust book tour cancelled. Some things will be rescheduled, but it’s not the spring I was expecting. I’ve been mostly home with my baby since he was born last April, and instead of going out into the public, I’m home with our kid.
This pandemic is going to change us as a culture in ways I can’t even imagine. We’ll be talking about it for the rest of our lives.
Writing-wise, I’m in a period of relative quiet, I would say. We have a small human here, and it’s been so hard to write this year; it’s hard to even think. My biggest goal this year is to make sure he was taken care of. I’m always writing–slowly, badly–and it takes a very long time for me to figure out what the next project really is. I’ve been writing a lot this year about parenthood and climate change. One of those subjects is perennial for me; the other is new. I also have a book of essays I’m trying to publish. Stay tuned.
How can your virtual audience find out more?
Acre Books’s page; author‘s page; and you can order the book here. The Tilt Torn Away from the Seasons was a Rumpus Book Club pick, and you can read our various conversations here: https://therumpus.net/2019/12/why-i-chose-elizabeth-lindsey-rogerss-the-tilt-torn-away-from-the-seasons-for-the-rumpus-poetry-book-club/ Here‘s an interview with the journal MEMORIOUS about the book.
*Finally, dear readers, please check out an interview about The State She’s In on Will Woolfitt’s terrific Speaking of Marvels blog. It includes my thoughts about research, giving readings, and the difficulty of writing whiteness, plus a PLAYLIST for the book. All kinds of writers and editors are volunteering to bruit new poetry books now. I’m so grateful to Will and all of the rest of them!
LESLEY WHEELER 