CNF Interview

How did your essay develop, both in your initial thinking about it and in the revision process? What happened in writing that you didn't expect would happen?

This is one in a series of essays treating similar themes. In this series, I try to give a sense of what it means to be a New Orleanian. One of the main components of the native identity has perhaps more to do with how we hear ourselves rather than how we see ourselves. I wanted to write a piece that got at the heart of that sound by addressing the problem of what can never be heard -- in this instance, the ever absent sound of Bolden's silver horn. I wanted to write not about silence, but about the eternal absence of a sound we all know (or believe we know), and to say something about the extent to which we are marked by that sound and its absence. I did a great deal of research in order to write this piece and came away quite happy at finding very little to work with because, again this--to my mind--pointed to the theme of absence. Not because nothing has been written on Bolden but because the material presented as factual does not manage to say anything about Bolden that we (natives) really need to know. I read numerous volumes on New Orleans music and musicians, listened to early jazz recordings, compiled lists and charts of bands and orchestras, and carried this topic about with me no matter what other projects I began and completed during the months I worked on the Bolden piece.

I did not revise. My plan for this piece was already clear in my mind before I began writing. And while it took many months to complete I never changed anything in the structure or shape of the piece. I worked from different sets of outlines and notes and progressed (slowly) straight through from beginning to end.

What I least expected was publication. After all I'd put into this piece, my greatest concern was that it reeked too much of New Orleans to prove interesting to anyone outside of New Orleans. It is the one piece I thought would never find a home.

If you write in other genres (poetry, fiction, playwriting, literary criticism, etc.) how does your experience writing in creative nonfiction depend upon or depart from your other kinds of writing?

I came to this genre from poetry. For the past 18 years, I've worked and published as a poet. I'd always planned to write essays and made notes for 10 to 12 years for prose pieces I thought could work. Ten years ago, while a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, I began a group of three essays. The first of these was published in American Voice in 1995. Friends, and even my agent, had tried to impress upon me that the word "essay" was death incarnate for anyone who expected to be taken seriously as a writer. The essay, they explained, was associated with literary history, with the past. I'd begun to write articles of various kinds, and I knew that was not what I wanted to count as serious writing. In fact, I began writing articles for a local monthly simply to establish in my own mind that I could write prose, that I had not forgotten how to write sentences. And I sense that mine is a poet's prose. My prose is akin to my way of speaking; it is perhaps an exaggerated version of my speaking and thinking style -- long sentences, parenthetical examples, longish asides, etc.

Also, the subjects I choose to treat tend to be the same across genres. I am obsessed with history and the past; religious/spiritual practices and traditions; the evils of tourism and the difficulties of belonging to a place besieged by and dependent upon a "tourism industry;" the relations of music, dance, food, celebration, death; language and languages (I collect dictionaries of all kinds) and by the codes we create within languages and the means we use to substitute for spoken word. I have a fascination with the old, the elderly and all things old and used and an impatience with youth and newness. And I am pursued by the topic of New Orleans and the native inheritance.

What are the specific literary techniques you attempt to use as a creative nonfiction writer? For example, do you attempt to write in scenes? Do you employ dialogue? Specificity of detail? How and why?

I am most concerned with voice, and try to create multiple narrative voices within a single work. This may involve a switch from my own straight voice to that of a nameless character who functions as a trustworthy observer (as in the Buddy Bolden piece where a witness to Bolden's day of madness describes what he saw when Bolden broke away from the band). Because mythologies are important to my work, I often favor a kind of mythic voice typified by elevated language, broad strokes.

I do try to create and fill in brief scenes or skits so that the reader can witness the story as it occurs. I try to provide available detail such as biographical or historical data but am as likely to present such information for the purpose of debunking it. One of my concerns as a writer is how we know what we know and who says so.

What advice might you offer young people interested in writing?

Since I've never worked with young people, the only advice I can offer is probably fairly standard. I've never believed in the romance of writing, or in any such thing as inspiration -- only work and more work. Writing is a process of study, examination, experimentation. And keeping a journal or working notebook is a good way to begin thinking through projects. Years of dedicated reading, study and research is the best beginning I know. Having a good writing mentor early on is a big plus.