Short Informal Interview at Pratt Institute
by Eileen Myles, Dec. 2001
On Friday, December 14th, Alex Olson gave a reading for the Writer's Forum at the Pratt Institute, accompanied by Eileen Myles. Afterwards, there was a question and answer period. This is what she said: (Taped and transcribed by, Shannon Bowman-Sarkisian)
Question: What differences have you noticed in the different poetry scenes around the country?
Alix: What I do mostly is spoken word, spoken word scenes, and I do that around the country. My sense of it is that it’s getting more common. We’re removing some of those differences, because it’s becoming more of a national touring thing. I think that maybe we’re losing some of the regionality of the poetry, but I’m not sure about that.
Q: How did you get into writing poetry? How did you start performing it?
Alix: I was an actor and a performer, that was definitely my passion. I did that from the time I was a little kid. I went to college and sort of discovered feminist poetry in my college classes. That was really how I started doing poetry, externally, and then I would write it down. I never really understood the process of writing it down and then reading it out loud. For me it always came to me while I was walking down the street, out loud. Then I came to New York and I had Eileen (Myles) as a teacher that messed up my sense of poetry. It was a less linear sense of how poetry
should be written down. And then I went to the Nyrucian Poetry Café and that was the first time I was surrounded by the highly political, it made the political ballad for me. It made it okay to be outspoken.
Q: How did you decide what musical accompaniment you wanted on your cd?
Alix: I had no idea. I knew that I wanted some music. I listened to what music there was on other spoken word cds. I asked people that I had known for a long time, people like Katie Curtis, who’s a folk singer, and they came in. I kind of let the musicians do most of the work; they really designed the pieces around what they felt. It was more of a collaboration project. I write with music in my head sometimes. For some of them I just knew what I wanted.
Q: Do you have any habits for writing?
Alix: Coffee. Being vigilant about noticing things. Notice with a capital N. Don’t just notice and be like, “Oh, that happened.” but notice and say, “That happened, and what does it mean?”.
Q: A lot of artists are very angry when they do political work. You use a lot of humor in your poetry, how do you feel that enhances or changes you message?
Alix: I’m still very angry. I don’t think that anger and seriousness or angry and humor are opposites. I don’t think that I do it on purpose, it’s my approach to life, because I’m angry about so many things, if I didn’t find the humor, I wouldn’t enjoy living. When people laugh together, there’s something created. I’d rather enhance that feeling then have people just feel angry together. I hope it helps people feel a little more relief.
Q: Who are your favorite writers?
Alix: Eileen Myles. And others! I love Michelle T. A.J. Mitch. Harry Potter.
Q: Do you ever write stuff that is meant to be in print (as opposed to spoken word)?
Alix: I actually do write a lot of stuff that I never perform. When I write to perform for my job, then I write to perform.
Q: What would you do if you couldn’t write?
Alix: That’s such a hard question, because I’m so happy with what I do. I would probably be an activist. I’d be more mainstream, mainline. I’d be on a task force. Doing hand-on, pissing people off in a formal way.
Learn more about Alix Olson and read samples of her work here: alixolson.com
Buy her new CD at cdbaby.com
Read an online magazine that interviewed Alix Olson: technodyke.com
Eileen Myles and Alix Olsen answering questions in Writer's Forum class in the Engineering Building, Room 110 (Photo by Shannon Bowman-Sarkisian).
