Tending to the Spiritual Interior of Language with Lia Purpura

by Swanson
photo by Contemplify

“Lia Purpura’s essays make the tethers between apparently separate things not only visible, but luminous. Frankly, I can think of no better―by which I mean, adamantly, more necessary―quality in art. We are connected to the guy across the way ashing his cigarette. We are connected to the hawk at the dump, the murdered student, the fire ant, each other. And to do it with so much goddamn music! Time and again I found myself re-reading sentences and paragraphs throughout these essays wondering how I arrived where I did. Astonished, and grateful for it. These are some of the best essays I’ve read in a long time.”

―Ross Gay, author The Book of Delights, Essays

Tending to the Spiritual Interior of Language with Lia Purpura

There is so much I can say about the poet and essayist Leah Purpura. I’ll give this brief introduction, Lia was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the writer in residence at the University of Maryland, and has been published in all the notable places. I read her two most recent works, It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful, a book of poems, and All the Fierce Tethers, a book of essays, and was graced by her mastery of language and reverence for the awe and wonder in the details. Our conversation does not disappoint, Lia is wise, poetic, and enjoys the same teeter totter I do; playful with serious matters and serious about playful matters, balanced on the fulcrum of loving presence.
Read Lia’s poetry and essays. I recommend beginning with All the Fierce Tethers and find her online at liapurpura.com.

Episode Show Notes

Books by Lia Purpura

Resources & People Mentioned

  • Abraham Joshua Heschel
  • Good Earth Almanac: Manual for Living on Earth
  • Emily Dickinson
  • James Agee
  • Jams Baldwin
  • Adrienne Rich
  • CD Wright
  • Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren
  • Barry Lopez
  • Bill Moyers
  • Emergence Magazine
  • Stanley Kunitz
  • Dante Barksdale
  • “Virus Alters University Mowing Schedule” (poem by Lia Purpura)
  • “Belief” (poem by Lia Purpura)

Drink Recommended

  • Water

Questions

  • When you hear the word “contemplative”, how does that moniker relate to you or your work?
  • If someone were going to teach a class on the formation of Lia Purpura, what would be the 3 mandatory works (readings/art/places) that formed you that would definitely be on that syllabus?
  • When someone approaches you and says they have been impacted by your work, what is first among equals of that impact — essays or poetry? 
  • What is the role of the essayist in today’s saturated world?
  • You have this craft of honing in closely with acute attention of a scientist on the specificity of a word, a thing, or idea and then panning out so the details of attention can congregate more broadly. How does an inkling of essay begin for you…up close with a detail or wide out under a thematic canopy?
  • The essay “In the Despoiled and Radiant Now” you write about two moose encounters on the same day. The first time alone and unspoken about, conjuring moose, and the second time with friends… and there is a line “there exist ways of listening a listener hardly understand”, i was moved by the mysterious nature of that sentence. And was brought back to the conjuring of moose and thought, there are ways of speaking that a speaker hardly understands… how have you cultivated that ear and voice as a person, a writer, because it’s experience is palpable in your essays?
  • On the subject of your own belief, you write “All things want to speak in their voices” 62. There is a religious conviction in this that I celebrate. We are one of billions, yet have a belief to voice all our own… do you consider yourself a religious person (in the most heartfelt meaning of the word )?
  • I want to live in your lexicon, you draw from a deep closet of words and playfully hold and turn them over in your essays… is their a new word that fascinates you? What is it and why does it fascinate you?
  • Overrated or Underrated for kindling the examined life
    • “The Scream” by Edward Munch
    • Quilting 
    • Ironic detachment 
    • A sky burial
  • What project(s) is on the horizon that is drawing you forward?
  • Will you read a couple poems?
  • The turbulence of our times paired with mass media piped into our pockets and homes offers oases of entertainment to distract us or our cultural addictions to substances, on your best days…how do keep the edges hot in kindling your own examined life for your own becoming.
  • If you had to pair this conversation with a drink, what drink would it be and why?