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Tributaries: D.A. Lockhart + Commonwealth
D.A. Lockhart examines home as a place and migration in his new collection Commonwealth (Kegedonce Press), sharing “Union Pacific North to Lake Forest” from the book for Tributaries. He also recommends a poem from A Mingus Lullaby, one referencing the current chaos of our times.
An interview with poet D.A. Lockhart
All Lit Up: Can you tell us a bit about your book and how it came to be? How did you come to write “Union Pacific North to Lake Forest,” and how is it representative of your collection?
D.A. Lockhart: The idea for Commonwealth came during a book tour through Indiana some years back. I was sitting behind an artist cabin we had rented, overlooking the powerlines that ran near Persimmon Ridge outside of Bloomington. I was watching a bluebird move around a nearby oak tree and considered the idea of migration and home in where birds choose to land. We had left Indiana for Windsor just a few years prior and I had found myself considering which place was truly home. And how I worked my way through this relationship between myself and the physical space of Indiana, the poems in this collection came to be. And there are ancestral echoes and personal experiences from the lands in question throughout this collection.
“Union Pacific North of Lake Forest” is the penultimate poem in the collection. Meaning that this piece is the stitching together of everything and everywhere the book-as-voyage encountered. One can’t forget that this collection is particularly driven by the Midwestern American literary cannon. And the train as a critical vehicle is central to the midwestern metaphor of communal movement. Throughout much of Indiana and the Midwest, trains have been notably absent for the last forty years. Except in Chicago, the city of the trains in the land of fragrant grasses. And the presence of the train, the speaker riding it across the changed and mostly urbanized northern stretches of northern Illinois speak to both the literary past of the city and region and to the end of most migrations north across the Midwest. Unlike the other pieces, the METRA train is rapid in its motion, and speaks to the acceleration of time in our current world. Most importantly, the piece leaves us with hope that is gathered from the migration and change spoken of throughout the entire collection. Home is a possibility in the coming days from the end of the poem, both in terms of what was left behind and what still lies ahead in the verdant lands the speaker finds themselves in.
ALU: What drew you to poetry? What do you most value about poetry?
D.A. Lockhart: Dear friends actually drew me to poetry. Back in my Treasure State days, there was a group of us in undergraduate English there that really took to writing. And we did it in a really Montana way, lots of Richard Hugo, but also Seamus Heaney, flying around craft beer parties. There was a group of us that really were really encouraging and nurturing to each other and our work. Sharing reading materials, pushing back against terrible canonical lit being taught to us, not so quietly pronouncing our new literary heroes in face of those constant canonical pushes. Because of those roots, I genuinely value the community of poetry. And I mean that in both the physical way that poets hold space with each other, but also in the literary sense of the work. Poetry reflects other poets and their work. The entire craft of poetry is an ongoing conversation across the generations. You can read that in the way the Gerald Vizenor takes the Japanese haiku forms of Basho and Issa and creates something new, in terms of just one example. There are no bullshit borders in reality. And in poetry that is very much the case. Community and borderless work. That’s really what there is to love about the craft.
ALU: If your collection had a theme song, what would it be?
D.A. Lockhart: Chet Faker’s “Gold.” I say that because Faker’s work is typically road music for me. Has been for years and definitely first did so during our time living in Indy. And as a book of movement and migrations, the song is apt. Every time I hear the track, I get this vision (acquired through the music video) of roller skaters, maybe roller derby Warriors, gliding down two-lane highways in the dark, reclaiming the spaces in between. There is a way that the music of Faker, in general and in a representative way in this song, takes in the world with a slow swagger, holds its space so long as to observe and engage, before evaporating into the ether it came from. Music to set the tone of a respect-drive witness to the world, one to quietly embrace the joys and melancholies that that witness of the world can engender, and maybe, just maybe, give you a nudge to get up and move a little yourself.
D.A. recommends…
“Loss” from Dane Swan’s
A Mingus Lullaby (Guernica Editions)
ALU: Why did you choose Dane Swan’s poem “Loss” from his collection A Mingus Lullaby? What do you love most about this particular poem?
D.A. Lockhart: I’ve found myself listening to a lot of vinyl these last few weeks. And perhaps heaviest on the rotation have been the works of Charles Mingus. The rage and strength of his work is a real draw. But all that listening to Mingus brought me back to one of my favourite collections, Dane Swan’s A Mingus Lullaby (Guernica Editions, 2016). Swan captures so much of the great jazz musician Charles Mingus’s life and work in a book that reaches out past simply the man’s work and connects it into our time. The energy of a Mingus composition and performance reverberates throughout the collection. And particularly from the book, especially in the moment we seem to be inhabiting (or perhaps have never left), I turn to the piece “Loss.” (pg.92)
In many ways my love of jazz and love of writing emerged together and have long fed each other over the course of my career. Coming to Swan’s collection was a natural for me. Moreover, the focus on the biography of one man (albeit a critically important and interesting one in terms of the music world and the Black experience in America) speaks to the way the living land as other is often projected in the world. And in terms of the choice of speaking about this one particular piece, the sort of cacophonic urban disjointedness of the piece’s movement and interactions with the world embrace a common sentiment I know that I’ve been experiencing. From conspiracy TV as prime time viewing, the talk of endings, and breakdown of social order and what is expected we feel with the speaker. And are left with a question and reassurance of our sanity in the midst of all this chaos. The poem (and collection) is an apt reflection of chaos, anger, and response for both of the most important musicians/composers of the last century and a physiological and emotional response to the unfurling chaos of the world around us.
Loss
On the subway a woman barks like a dog, her husband holds her hand. The man of professorial stature mumbles nothings into ears while in line at the fast-food restaurant. Without provocation an employee gives his boss details: why he must see a dentist, her looks, an exact address.
Conspiracy theory TV is primetime fodder.
Some say it’s Armageddon, point to Mayan calendars which they cannot read. Claim to be archaeologists; experts of ancient documents with online degrees.
Others blame political incompetence.
“Is everyone losing their minds?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not you.”
Reprinted with permission from Guernica Editions.
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D.A. Lockhart is the author of multiple collections of poetry and short fiction. His work hasbeen shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award, Raymond Souster Award, Indiana Author’s Awards, First Nations Communities READ Award, and has been a finalist for the ReLit Award. His work has appeared widely throughout Turtle Island including, The Malahat Review, Grain, CV2, TriQuarterly, The Fiddlehead, ARC Poetry Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry, Best New Poetry from the Midwest, and Belt. Along the way his work has garnered numerous Pushcart Prize nominations, National Magazine Award nominations, and Best of the Net nominations. He is pùkuwànkoamimëns of the Moravian of the Thames First Nation (Eelūnaapèewii Lahkèewiit). Lockhart currently resides on the south shore at Waawiiyaatanong where he is the publisher at Urban Farmhouse Press.
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Thanks to Daniel for answering our questions, and to Kegedonce Press for the text of “Union Pacific North to Lake Forest” from Commonwealth, which is available to order now (and get 15% off with the code TRIBUTARIES until April 30!). Thanks also to Guernica Editions for the text of “Loss” from Dane Swan’s A Mingus Lullaby.
Follow our NPM series all month long to discover new poetry or connect with old favourites, and visit our poetry shop here.
