25 Questions with JEFF ALESSANDRELLI
1. Hey Jeff, do you collect anything?
I collect fortunes from fortune cookies. Constant grinding turns an iron rod into a needle. To be eighty years young is more cheerful and hopeful than forty years old. The star of riches is shining upon you. Your dreams will be become reality. It is better to attempt something great and fail than attempt to do nothing and succeed. Seek out the significance of your problem at this time. Try to understand.
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2. Hey Jeff, got a favorite lyricist? (or musician?) Care to share a video?
George Jones, If Drinking Don’t Kill Me Her Memory Will. Sister Nancy, Bam Bam. Biggie, Everyday Struggle.
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3. Hey Jeff, do you have a website/ Youtube/ Tumblr/ Instagram or the like?
I do. I often feel like one of the L.A. delusions that David Cross talks about on his album Shut Up You Fucking Baby! Put me in your movie! Put me in your movie! Put me in your movie!
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4. Hey Jeff, what’s something poetic about life in Portland?
The rain in the morning burned off by the flitting sun in the afternoon eventually collapsing into a steel-blue gray night after night. Although even the poetic gets gangrenous and dreary.
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5. Hey Jeff, any poets you think should be household names in poetry households?
Donna Stonecipher. Douglas Kearney. Ryan Eckes. Dao Strom. Gina Myers. Harmony Holiday. Although I guess it depends on the household, eh? How might household be defined? All of the aforementioned writers are household for me. What are poetry households?
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6. Hey Jeff, what’s the last non-poetry book you loved?
The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism by Kristin Dombek. This Business of Living: Diaries 1935-1950 by Cesare Pavese. The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus aka Cyril Connolly.
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7. Hey Jeff, what’s the last great poetry book you read?
General Motors by Ryan Eckes. You Will Always Be Someone From Somewhere Else by Dao Strom. Unstable Neighborhood Rabbit by Mikko Harvey. Justin Phillip Reed’s Indecency is great. I really like all of Diana Hamilton’s work and am currently reading The Awful Truth.
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8. Hey Jeff, what’s a favorite comic strip?
Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield. The standards festooned in gold, white and black.
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9. Hey Jeff, got a favorite philosopher?
Diogenes, for sure. Dude lived in a barrel and skill-dissed
Alexander the Great.
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10. Hey Jeff, is there anything you consciously avoid when writing a poem?
I consciously avoid sentimentality and that which might seem to be expected, poetically or otherwise. I don’t always succeed.
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11. Hey Jeff, what do you think: Are poets made or born?
Made, 100%. We learn to write by reading. Reading is more important than anything else in my opinion. And no one’s born a reader. (Right? Or did Harold Bloom claim otherwise?)
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12. Hey Jeff, what would your poetry Heaven-on-Earth look like?
Poets being paid for their poems and books and more people reading said poems and books.
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13. Hey Jeff, what keeps you writing?
Books, reading, drive and routine.
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14. Hey Jeff, have you ever done any translating?
Years ago I translated some Octavio Paz poems, ones specifically written early in Paz’s career when he was heavily influenced by Surrealism. The few that got published turned out alright I think. Paz is 100%.
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15. Hey Jeff, have a found poem you could share?
Found in the parking lot of the University of Nevada-Reno Bookstore parking lot in 2004, a Del Taco receipt that on its empty back side, in black Sharpie, all caps, reads: THE FUNERAL IS NOT FOR THE DEAD. IT’S FOR US. DON’T FORGET WHAT KAREN’S FUNERAL IS FOR.
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16. Hey Jeff, have a favorite book-length poem?
It’s not a poem but it is book-length—Letters to Wendy’s by Joe Wenderoth.
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17. Hey Jeff, do you have a favorite bookstore for browsing poetry?
Powell’s in Portland, Open Books in Seattle, Jackson Street Books in Omaha.
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18. Hey Jeff, have a favorite typo?
Word for world or vice-versa.
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19. Hey Jeff, ever maintained correspondence with another poet?
I regularly correspond with writers like Trey Moody, Michael Earl Craig, Gabrielle Civil, Amy Lawless, Chris Harding Thornton, and a small slaw of others.
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20. Hey Jeff, any poets that crack you up?
Visual artist Joshua Ware cracks me up.
Image: Joshua Ware, Rosewood Fadeout.
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21. Hey Jeff, have any poetry-related tattoos?
There’s a Louise Glück poem from her book The Seven Ages that ends with the words “nourish, sustain, attack.” In the fall of 2002 I didn’t know much about Louise Glück or poetry or anything else really, but I was quite enthusiastic about tattoos. I was living in Cork, Ireland at the time, doing the semester abroad + several more months deal. To make a long story short, early in my stay I resolved to get those last three Glück words—nourish, sustain, attack—tattooed on my side in script. The night before I was scheduled to get the tattoo I got severely intoxicated and on my way to the tattoo shop the next morning I, whimmingly, decided to get “nurture, sustain, attack” instead of “nourish, sustain, attack.” After getting the tattoo finished I went straight to class for 6 hours, relishing my pain. Later that night I was showing off my bodily-eternality to all of my flatmates and Maeve pointed out that it almost looked like it said “nurlure sustain allack,” that the tattoo artist maybe didn’t cross the t’s on nurture or sustain. In the moment I mildly chastised Maeve that she needed to switch out her contacts more often, then lowered my shirt. Show and tell time was over. Ten minutes later I checked for myself in the bathroom and Maeve was, of course, right—the tattoo artist hadn’t crossed the t’s. Nurlure, sustain, allack is what my side read. I never got them crossed either. Nurlure, sustain, allack. All tattoo stories are better than the actual tattoos.
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22. Hey Jeff, any poems you’d get tattooed on yourself?
Not a poem but I wanna get Modigliani’s portrait of 20th century French poet Blaise Cendrars somewhere on my body soon.
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23. Hey Jeff, is there a visual artist you’d like to illustrate your work?
Ray Johnson or Tarsila do Amaral.
Image: Tarsila do Amaral, O Lago, 1928.
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24. How does your essay-writing brain differ from your poetry-writing brain?
In essays, I tend to deal with more factoids and numbers and “subject matters.” In poems, I try to Tzara as much as I can, making the connected unconnected by virtue of its loosely tenacious connective tissue.
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25. Hey Jeff, does your dog Beckett ever appear in your poems?
Yep. Love always appears, whether we look for it or not.
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[This Q&A was conducted in December 2018 and first published, via Facebook and Twitter, in January 2019]
A Dozen Nothing 