“Without Knowing What That Meant”: Six Questions for Anthony Madrid
Anthony Madrid was born in 1985 in Bethesda, Maryland and currently lives in Chicago. He graduated as a PhD student from the University of Chicago (in the graduate program in English language and literature), with an MD from Columbia University, an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona, and a BA from Penn State. Some publications are ; I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say (Canarium Books, 2012), and Try Never (Canarium Books, 2017). His first publication was a celebrated debut collection praised for its inventive style and surrealist energy. As for his second collection, it explored themes of desire, memory, and the absurdity of human interaction. Two poems have been selected for Best American Poetry; “Once Upon A Time” (Best American Poetry 2013, edited by Denise Duhamel), and “My Fault” (Best American Poetry 2021, edited by Tracy K. Smith.) Many of his work has been featured in esteemed journals, including Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, and Fence. Madrid is a recipient of multiple fellowships and grants for his contributions to contemporary poetry.
Madrid first caught my attention through his poem “Once Upon a Time,” featured in the 2013 volume of Best American Poetry. The poem’s use of the ghazal form intrigued me, along with its humor, vulnerability, and intellectual depth. I chose to explore Madrid’s work further because his poetry pushes boundaries while remaining accessible and human.
Your work often incorporates a mix of humor and logical depth.
There was something I read when I was young and impressionable, a line in the American writer H.L. Mencken. He was describing Beethoven’s music, and he said something like, “There was always something Olympian in his snarls and rages, and always a touch of hellfire in his mirth.” I thought—and still think—Ah, that’s the way to be.
How do you approach balancing those tones?
Balancing is hard. There’s no science to it. Sometimes, a totally violent conjunction of two radically different tones is perfectly fine and even great. Then other times there will be two specimens next to each other that are supposed to be pretty much in the same tonal register, and one of them will be just a little too sharp, a little too mocking, or whatever, and every time one reads the lines, one cringes. How do I approach balancing? I bite on a horseshoe and take out the part of the poem that’s giving me trouble, and put it in some other poem.
And what role do you believe humor plays in revealing deeper parts in poetry?
Well, there are many different departments of humor. The Department of Boneheaded Buffoonery—which I’m very fond of—has little role to play in revealing depth. But wit, because of its seductive qualities often allows one to cut right to the deep stuff, lightning fast. What role does it play? I would say … that of a hypodermic. Various poems of yours have a strong sense of playfulness with language … that’s me imitating the stuff that I like in other people’s poetry.
How do you experiment with form while still maintaining the emotional effects of a poem?
I think what you’re asking is: Does the wordplay factor mess up the emotional core of the poem sometimes? And the answer is yes. In which case, I have to make the call: Do I prefer the distorted core, or am I basically defacing something that would’ve been good? If the latter, I have to bite on the horseshoe mentioned above, and bring out the scalpel and the hemostatic forceps.
In I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say, you explore themes of power, love, and desire. What was your approach to doing this and what were your influences?
My influences were these super over-the-top, super facetious, super cosmic poets from distant lands. In Latin, Catullus. In Persian, Hafez. In Urdu, Ghalib. And outside of poetry: James Brown. How did I navigate [the themes]? I thought: #1, go ahead and be irresponsible. Say whatever sounds cool; you can explain later what percent of it you really meant. #2, pretend like none of this stuff is ever going to see the light of day until 200 years after you’re dead. So be as immature as you want. People will forgive you 200 years from now.
Your work often engages with mystical or historical references in unexpected ways. What draws you to these references, and how do you go about reiterating them with a modern context?
This goes deep. First, all the poetry that I loved when I was eighteen was written by people utterly addled by a fantasy of world culture. They wanted a society where everyone would speak fourteen languages and pick up on any reference to any classic poem, no matter what language, no matter how obscure. They all thought like that, so I did too. And I’ve never been able to shake it. Do I have a philosophy of literary allusion? Yes, but it’s stupid. I just pretend the world is full of T.S. Eliots and Ezra Pounds and James Joyces and all those cranks. No one’s going to read your stuff anyway, so go nuts.
In some of your poems you feature unpredictable narrative shifts. How do you decide when and how to break the original storytelling?
All I know is: If it ever works, it’s because the readers are satisfied with the story-particle that I’ve given them. If ever they think “Wait, I want to know more about that!” then I’m sunk. So I try and keep their head spinning, so they don’t know what’s going on.
Given that poetry is a very personal form of expression, how do you determine the line between personal experience and universal themes in your work? Do you ever feel like they clash?
I guess I really do believe that it’s pointless writing about truly unique experiences and feelings … if I even have any.
But let’s say I write something that describes opening a bottle of fizzy water. I say I have “pressed a dimple into the bottle cap.” Now on the one hand, I’m counting on the reader’s never having thought that the gentle “whatever” in the bottle cap is called a “dimple.” That expression is supposed to be new. But it’s the experience of finding that dent pleasing in a weird way—I’m absolutely counting on the reader having had that experience, just like me. See, so there’s the balance struck between the unique-to-me and the common-to-everyone.
Maybe that’s a shallow answer, though. Maybe what you really want to know is … do I have experiences and feelings that I intentionally distort so they will be comprehensible to the reader? And are there things I wish I could get down in a way that tallies perfectly with my lived experience, even though people wouldn’t get it? The answer to both of those questions is yes.
I fantasize all the time about writing about my real feelings regarding my wife. If I could get down what really passes between me and her, it would be like nothing I’ve ever read. But that’s exactly why I can’t imagine actually writing it.
Anthony was actually born in 1985.