Allison Carter
Writer for the TrenchArt Tracer Series.
Allison Carter is the author of A Fixed, Formal Arrangement as well as three chapbooks: Sum Total (Eohippus Labs, 2011), All Bodies Are The Same and They Have The Same Reactions (Insert Press, 2010) and Shadows Are Weather (Horse Less Press, 2009). Additionally, her work has been published in Out Of Nothing, Conjunctions, Joyland, P-Queue, 5_Trope, Fence, 3rd Bed, and other journals. Her poem ‘Razor Sharp Penny Candy’ was included in the Best of Fence: First Nine Years anthology. Her long poem, The Nests, is available from H_NGM_N, and can be viewed here.
Allison teaches creative writing to young women. She currently lives in Mt. Washington, in Los Angeles, California.
Read an excerpt from A Fixed, Formal Arrangement
Read Measures and Signs, an ongoing project about training for and hiking the PCT
Allison Carter’s website: www.accarter.com/
Interview with Allison Carter
FEATURED FIG #1: ALLISON CARTER
1. Tell us a little bit about your aesthetic inclinations?
I like work that moves like a perpetual motion machine – an imbalance causes tension to accrue until the text and reader are shoved off onto another ledge. The process starts over; the wheel turns.
2. Where did you come from and are you happy that you’re no longer there?
I come from Richmond, Virginia. I am happy that I am no longer where I am from, but now that I am Allison, I would love to spend some time in Virginia. I miss my family.
3. What does your work demand? What does it offer?
My work demands that the reader suspend logic and narration-expectations for a few pages. The work proposes an accessible but alternate kind of sensual logic and (therefore) narrative. If the reader can let herself slip into that, she will be able to observe from the inside – to participate. The work is, after all, very realistic from that angle.
4. Where do you do what you do?
I do what I do wherever I am when I am travelling from one place to another, from one desire to another, from one thought to another.
5. If push came to shove…
I hope I would land in someone’s arms!
6. Please tell us about beauty, belief or bawdry. You may begin.
I don’t think there is an ‘or.’ Any B + B without the other B is probably a lie. I believe, for example, in tenderly pulling back the curtain and looking at what is being done there, in the room you don’t use because of the ghost.
7. As Gertrude Stein says “let us why why.” Please proceed.
I think it helps to look around at what is there (what there is). What is there? Cat, apartment, breakfast, tree. Let’s say that a ‘why’ is a kind of tree. The important thing is to keep the soil moist and full of worms to break down the decaying fruits, animals and leaves. Why do we need trees? To breathe, obviously. We need a lot of trees to breathe.
8. What does art do to you?
Art takes me out of need for a moment – sets desire into motion without an object. I don’t want the piece of art, and the art doesn’t make me want anything in particular – but I WANT. Sometimes art makes the actual things I wanted seem very far away. Art takes me out of conclusion for a moment – sets thought into motion without an object. I don’t understand the piece of art, and the art doesn’t make me want to understand anything in particular – but I THINK. Sometimes art makes the actual things I understand seem very insignificant – then they morph or expand.
9. Who (or what) do you admire?
I admire works and people who kick and buck, and I admire works and people who build and commit.
10. What is a good question? What questions do you ask?
All questions are good questions if they apply. Personally I prefer the “what if” variety of questions.
11.What do you find deeply satisfying?
Getting to the top of a very steep hill. Sudden, unexpected changes in weather. Honing an argument until it is very, very tight – in other words, understanding something. The first 15 minutes immediately after finishing a novel. A firm handshake. Flying into LAX. Jumping into a cold swimming pool, then getting out again. Taking the first sip of coffee. Remembering a word that I had forgotten. Pulling something out of something and getting the root. “They were two superior eels at the bottom of the tank and they recognized each other like italics.” A toast, and then dinner with a friend.
12. What are your favorite kinds of figs?
