At BOMB, Chris Martin and Hannah Emerson Are Present for Neurodivergence
At BOMB, poet Chris Martin's new book, Things to Do In Hell (Coffee House Press), is just one interview subject for Hannah Emerson, a non-speaking autistic poet and author of the chapbook, You Are Helping This Great Universe Explode (Unrestricted Editions). Martin is co-founder and director of the Minneapolis-based writing program and publisher, Unrestricted Interest, which "centers on listening to neurodivergent learners and what they write," as Aviv Nisinzweig explains in an introduction. "To be steeped in these poems, in this work, is to be present for difficult making: a constant practice."
Martin met his student Emerson every week, over video chat, to write poems and discuss this difficult making. An excerpt from their conversation:
[CM] …As Ta-Nehisi Coates elucidated, the “American Dream” can only be built upon the nightmares of oppressed people. That’s true for individuals as well. The intrinsically violent dreams of white supremacy—unearned power, plundered wealth, land as property, murder as safety—are normalized so that the dreaming kissing life we actually want to live in will seem unrecognizable. I’m interested in exposing those dungeons, these murders, that plunder, without obviating the possibility of the dreaming kissing life we actually desire. That’s why heaven and hell are inverted. We need to turn out our pockets, air out our dungeons, welcome some of that liberating sun into our darkest nooks where it belongs. I’m reminded of your line: “Try to kiss the animal inside you trying to bite you.” Normal life is a life of self-deceit, silent violence, and spiritual disfigurement. We need wild, authentic dreams and there is nothing normal about authenticity. Authenticity necessitates difference, connection, disequilibrium, and embrace. The more we brace and transact, the faster we drive toward oblivion.
Phew! I guess I really needed to say that! Maybe you could let the readers know how your concept of “nothing” crucially distinguishes itself from oblivion. And maybe give voice to your subversive version of hell as well?
HE Nothing is the stillness that is the moment that is now yes yes. Please try to go to the place that is in all of our dark places that we try to run away from every moment of our great great great beautiful lives yes yes. Please try to understand that these thoughts go directly to the place that we need to go to deconstruct the freedom that we think is the way to a comfortable life that has brought us to the brink of extinction yes yes.…
Read the full interview at BOMB.