Name: Marshall D. Dury
Hometown: Somerville, MA
Education: B.A. in English, M.A.T. in secondary education
In May, I am expecting to be in a print magazine for the first time. I am also currently working on my most recent private collection of poems, as yet to be titled. Drafting, writing titles down while driving — that whole bit.
--Past projects and publications:
I completed an undergraduate thesis titled The Beating Heart of Busted Rhyme, which was a collection of my own writing. Fast forward a year, and I finished my own chapbook title Set the World Aflame. It is in the precarious situation of being finished but not printed. Quick aside: The trouble with any writer is sitting on poems too long. Unless they’re remarkably strong, the recent material begins to feel stronger than older material. Then publishing “not-the-best-material-right-now” feels antithetical to getting exciting material out into the world. Besides what I have mentioned, I have also completed two smaller personal collections titled The Open Air and more recently The Inside of a Load Bearing Wall.
I remember getting a poem published in 7th grade — one of those “we’re going to publish eight or nine kids from this class so parents can buy the book,” sort of deals. I would love to say I continue composing verse after that, but I did not. Writing became something I did in my free time in high school. I would say Emerson, Whitman & Frost forced me to start writing. Their material spoke to me then — and it still does now.
I started writing because of those small moments. They all started to back up in my brain. So rather than forget them, I decided to try and capture them on paper. I think a good poet can bring a reader in close to those small moments that really speak to him or her.
Like when I started writing, those small moments keep me writing. Poetry is a way to contain a moment — albeit it briefly. The preservation of our experiences and perspective on life is paramount.
2) What do you primarily write? (Fiction, Non-fiction, poetry, prose, sci-fi, horror, post-modern, etc) Why and how does that certain genre speak to you/draw you in? How does your work tie in to your everyday life?
I only write poetry. I dabble in fiction from time to time. Sometimes it comes out as prose poetry, but mostly poetry. The genre itself requires questioning of everything: grammatical principles, your own ideals, how to describe a passing airplane in a new way. The process of drafting also requires a self-critical eye that helps heighten your own thinking and reading. I find all of these things inherently beneficial to who I am, especially as a writer.
My poetry ties into my everyday life because it’s more of a living record than anything else — pictures, knickknacks, memories, etc. I occasionally re-read some of my old material and approach the ideas and images as an outsider. That’s pretty remarkable, and this is not something I am patting myself on the back about. I think writing, or any art form really—to quote Whitman—is a “barbaric yawp” against silence. It is easy, especially right now, to go through life consuming rather than producing. I like to think that I am producing something unique.
3) Which writers would you consider to be your influences?
I had the pleasure of seeing a poet who lives here in Massachusetts read: John Hodgen [Grace & Bread Without Sorrow]. I had a chance to speak with him about his work, and it is simple but brilliant. His poems start with small jabs, several of them. Then there’s the haymaker. He always gives you that payoff or that last bit that blows you away. More recently, Billy Collins’ material has helped ground my more whimsical lack of concreteness. His material is a good example of something that has an “ah-ha” moment—some final comment the reader is left thinking about after the book goes on the nightstand, the light goes out, and you’re lying in bed. Emily Dickinson’s material is something I go back to fairly frequently, because she was capable of being drastically ahead of her time. She understood poetry in a way I am not sure many of us do right now. Her forms inspire me: short and sweet. I went through a voracious Charles Bukowski phase. While steering clear of his prose, his poetry was all that I read at one point. He takes a lot of flak from academia, but at the very least, I think his work has a good understanding in showing a poet how to make anything poetical — even the ugly parts of life. A few more names: Mary Oliver, Kay Ryan, Umberto Fiori & Pablo Neruda.
4) Tell us a little bit about your writing. What makes it special and unique? Why do you write? What subject matter strikes you as particularly inspiring? Particularly difficult?
It’s like this question is begging me to sound self-consumed. Ha. I think my work is unique because no else could write about my ideas in the way that I do. I write because I like making sense of the world in a new way—at least for a few minutes. Until it stops making sense, and I have to sit back down at my desk and make sense of at least one thing all over again.
The subject matter that I find most inspiring would have to be our ability to endure any physical or emotional turmoil. I think as the world has changed, we continue to go inside ourselves more and more. Writing is a way of getting at that material and getting it into the light for a few seconds or minutes. I also find our ability to assimilate new experiences into our lives to be integral to writing—but mostly this is key to any rich life. On the other hand, I personally find writing overtly memoir-based poetry to be difficult. I like blending fact with fiction. Last week, I ran across a quote that was something to the effect of Everything you makeup in your writing is true. Any writer and inquisitive reader understands that, I think. But the experiences that are closest to me right now are the most difficult to write about right now. I am of the belief that you need distance from most any experience, happening or moment to really put it into perspective … and then use that understanding to portray it for the reader in the poem.
5) In what ways has your writing evolved over the course of your writing career?
I still have my notebooks from high school: painful. For where I am at in my life and as a writer, if I was not growing as a writer, I think I would be doing something fundamentally wrong. Pastoral poetry was the door by which I entered the genre, stealing what I could from Frost, Thoreau, Emerson. Truly stealing; American literature has these heavyweights that I was simply imitating. Occasionally, I still do. Then came the college years. This writing was marred with doubt about the future, questions. There was an uncertainty to every poem. It was all birthed from a place of honesty, as I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing.
Now, I think my work can really run the gamut of styles, voices, and subject matters. Mostly, I am focusing on process: drafting my poems until I think they are absolutely their best.
6) What’s in store for the future of your writing?
More writing, more reading. Hopefully more publication credits. Dare I say or be so lofty as to aspire towards a book? Whatever I will be doing, I think I will continue to write. In what capacity, I am unsure.
7) What are you reading right now?
I am reading W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe. Baseball is about to start, and it is a sport that I find most poetical. To go along with it, I am reading a baseball history book. I also like to stay current on the heavy hitters in poetry. Various collections and magazines. I am also reading John Hodgen’s Bread Without Grace.
8) If you could live your life in any fictional setting from a book or poem, which book or poem would you choose?
I find the narration of Hand’s experiences in You Shall Know Our Velocity! to be an apropos response to this question. I sort of like living vicariously through as many books and poems as I can read and write, so picking one feels a bit frightening.
9) Tell us about your experience with the Waterlogged August collaboration. What was enjoyable about it? What was difficult? What would you do differently if you had it all to do over again? What was your favorite photo/piece of writing?
The process of working with Waterlogged August was challenging. It came during a time when I was having some trouble producing poems. Whether that meant making time to write or feeling like I had something worth saying, I am not sure. So merely sitting down to give the publication the time it deserved was tough. At the same time, I had never written a poem based solely on another person’s art. Clearly, I have worked off of clear images before — paintings — but I found Jolene Monheim’s work to be something that I maybe would not naturally gravitate towards. Then something sort of gave way one night, and I took a more associative approach to the pictures. I stopped trying to write a story for each picture and began focusing on what ideas or images were called to my mind from looking at the picture. From there, I would continue to let things develop until I had something familiar to me — that urgency or energy to get an idea worth recording. This was also the most enjoyable part of the process — when the photo and words seemed to really work together. That was a true sense of accomplishment for both of us, I think. Jolene is very talented, and to try and use some of my words to communicate something about her photo was really a blast.
I did not really think I was going to be able to do it after the first week. But things really started to get rolling and then I found the process to be a bit more familiar and easier for me. It was nice to collaborate with someone else who composes art in such a different medium. This forces the reader/writer out of their initial comfort zone. How can that not be a good thing? If I had it to do all over again, I do not think I would do anything differently. I am extremely pleased with the result.
My favorite photo of Jolene’s was Son and Father. So far as the symbiosis between the writing and photography, I think I would pick Jolene’s photo Hope Floats Redux & my poem “Two New Horizons.” The poem was something that was really birthed out of the photograph. I think this is the most unique expression of a voice that combines with the theme of her photo to make something totally new.