Visiting with Jeff Alessandrelli
by Claire Guyton
What inspired your poems “Panning for Gold” and “Shhhhhh”?
“Panning for Gold in the Washing Machine, Scuba Diving in a Shot Glass” was initially inspired by the “Don’t talk about it, be about it” line that occurs in the fifth stanza. Although I didn’t wrestle in high school and thus didn’t have a coach, I did play basketball and I remember hearing variations of “Don’t talk about it, be about it” throughout my playing days. I never really understood what any of my coaches that uttered the phrase meant, however, probably because, even back then, the phrase sounded overly oxymoronic to me yet at the same time strangely appealing; I too wanted to be about something and did not want to just talk about being about something. I had neither thought about nor heard the phrase in years until, a few months back, one of my friends who plays online poker a lot nonsensically uttered it in response to a derogatory comment his girlfriend made about his excessive daily internet use/online poker consumption. From there the poem came about in the way poems for me come about: slow, in increments, full of tentative steps backward and forward, revisionful.
“Shhhhhhh” had its roots in three disparate things: the recent decision by Sony to discontinue making the cassette-based Walkman in Japan, the furniture music of the 19th and 20th century French avant-garde composer Erik Satie and the book The Journal of Jules Renard by Jules Renard.
Tell us about your writing process—either generally or specifically with regard to the birth and development of these poems (or just one).
I generally write poems piecemeal; rarely do I sit down and tell myself, “Today I will compose a poem.” Instead, I start off with a line—normally a “found” piece of language that interests or intrigues me—and then I skulk away after jotting down said line. I take a hot bubble bath. I walk the dog. I listen to music. I wait an hour or a day. Then I return to the poem and insert another line, or, failing that, another phrase/word/comma/etc. Both “Panning for Gold in the Washing Machine, Scuba Diving in a Shot Glass” and “Shhhhhhh” were written in this wholly inadvisable, half-senseless way.
Do you remember when you decided you wanted to be a writer?
I’m not sure I ever decided to be a writer exactly. As a child I liked to read and eventually—also as a child—that begat trying to write. I’m still trying, with various results from week to week, month to month, year to year.
What’s the best title you didn’t use? (Or, What’s your favorite title? Or both.)
The best title I personally didn’t use/ have yet to use is “You Can’t Discover the Lost Treasure if the Ship Didn’t Sink.” For a poem on any subject, in any form and of any length, I also like “How to Count the Darkness.” As for favorite titles by other authors/artists I’m particularly fond of Nick Demske by Nick Demske, Walking the Black Cat by Charles Simic, The Making of Americans by Gertrude Stein, High Violet by The National, “I Might Be Wrong” by Radiohead and King of the Beach by Wavves.
