Exploring ‘Case Notes’: An Interview with David Stavanger

[CW: This interview contains references to mental health, mental illness and treatment for mental illness.]

Welcome to Part 2 of my “Spotlight on Australian Authors and Poets” with poet David Stavanger, whose new poetry book, Case Notes, which was released a couple of months ago. In this interview, we discuss the inspiration behind Stavanger’s latest collection, his thoughts on the Australian poetry landscape, mental health, and how he’s handling self-isolation.

 

Congratulations on the release of your new poetry collection, Case Notes. It’s great. What do you want people to take away from reading the book, particularly in this period of uncertainty?

 

The last line of one of Case Notes’ poems is: Certainty is the strangest thing. If a reader takes that away, that’s enough for me.

 

This is your second collection of poetry (other than Solid Air, which you co-edited last year). Your first book, The Special won the Thomas Shapcott Prize. Since then you’ve received numerous accolades, published various pieces, and it’s led you to even more opportunities in the literary scene. With all that in mind, were you nervous leading up to the release of this collection?

I don’t really buy into the economy of poetry in regards to its value being determined by reviews or accolades or prizes. Or its inherent worth being decided by other poets, as it often is. I think that’s hugely problematic in regards to who is then framed as the ‘expert reader’. I don’t write for my peers.

As much as I have been fortunate to be shortlisted and selected for a few things along the way, and hold much gratitude for those moments, I have also worked incredibly hard and stuck to my own process and vision of what poetry isn’t. I still don’t know what poetry is to me. And what its value is, if any. So no, I wasn’t nervous.

Have you found that the current health crisis has inspired you to write even more poetry?

No. It’s inspired me to drink more during the day, have more tele-health calls with my psychiatrist and think about poetry as community as opposed to a cultural commodity.

How long did it take you to write this poetry collection?

Case Notes came together over six years. In part because I was more focused on producing poetry and spoken word at various festivals and putting together a spoken word anthology Solid Air, as well as leading a number of other writing based projects working with people with lived/living mental health experience such as Writing on the Street and MAD Poetry – as well as dealing with the escalation and decline of my own inner worlds. I’m not a fast writer when it comes to the whole. Period.

 

You used to be a psychologist, and your experiences have often informed your writing. How and when did you decide to make the leap and become a full-time poet?

I think that informed my first collection The Special  a lot more than this book. This time I ended up on the mental health coalface far more as a ‘consumer’ – sidenote, incredible how neo-liberal language has got in to every space, though there is some repositioning of power and rights in this phrase too as opposed to a passive medical-model term like ‘patient’.

As for leaping into poetry, I more turned to it at first as a release for hypomania and the stifling constraints of psychology as conservative force in my life obsessed with the idea of norms. I only leap into waves and sometimes, arms.

And I don’t think anyone is a poet full-time, not if they really want to be happy.

 

Would you ever go back to practising?

Maybe. I think I have so much more to offer now. I was so young and full of it when I was first working in addictions and rehabs, as well as public mental health, and my burn out after ten years in the welfare and community sector is not uncommon. I also like the peer-based mental health model and have been lucky to work with the likes of peer-worker poets like Tim Heffernan and Alise Blayney.

Actually, practising sounds like a golfer. I dislike golf. So, no.

 

Besides your time as a psychologist, what else informs your writing?

Increasingly being a parent. My son is present in a lot more of my recent writing. Dogs are a reoccurring motif throughout Case Notes, as is the sea, both of which are now essential parts of my life. Tenderness – something I’ve heard Tony Birch talk about and something I value increasingly in other writing/writers.

Apart from that: random internet searches, the way institutional language can shape someone’s life narrative, reading other poets that startle me in some way, walks where I talk to myself and I listen.

Were there any hesitancies about what you could and could not include, from a professional standpoint?

I don’t really have a professional standpoint – I’m a lapsed psychologist, haven’t been registered for 15 years.

My frequent collaborator, Anne-Marie Te Whiu (please check her poetry and weaving out too), really challenged me to not inhabit others experiences in this space and the importance of permission / who has the right to write within the skin of a story. There is one short prose poem about an ex-client I had in this book but it is only there because it vicariously fed into my own trauma and desire to disappear at the time, and ends up being about the shared space between those experiences.

 

How important is education in decreasing the stigma surrounding mental illness? What more do you think could be done, in your opinion?

I’ll respond to that with an excerpt from my poem Mental Health Week:

 

I cannot attend the free BBQ in the park.

I cannot promote exercise as a way to feed the mind.

I cannot not attend the seminar on nutrition.

I cannot meet your legislative requirements.

Give me a printed balloon, a glazed donut, thanks for the blue pen.

Maybe it’s time we talk about capitalism.

 

What was your writing process like when it came to Case Notes?

I can’t recall all of it – in part due to receiving ECT, in part being on heavy doses of anti-psychotics, in part due to a period of reasonably chronic marijuana use. There is a lot of documentation of both direct and indirect experience which has then been filtered through different lens, as well as being cut up with found and sampled text.

I play with who the ‘I’ in this book a bit, as well as the unreliable narrator perhaps being the only reliable narrator at times in a mental health context. There is also dialogue based pieces, performative texts, ekphrastic poems and a lot more longer sequences than I had previously written. And I spent a lot more time editing these poems too – there is an awareness of specificity to language and being aware of the both the doors it can open and the damage it can do.

There are quite a lot of references to animal instincts and how they intersect with the human psyche in this collection, particularly in opening poems such as Suicide Dogs, one must utilise every part of the animal [when faced with one’s own fears]  and Dog Minding. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Dogs are both an avatar and a dog in this book. I have many dogs in my life, even the ones that finally found that long lost bone and won’t be coming home. The writer Laura Jean McKay really pushed me with Dog Minding (a longer dialogue poem with a dog named Harry) to ensure the poem was truly an exchange, and that I was clear what the authorial intent of the dog was in this context. I’m still not 100% when I am the dog and when the dog is me but at least it’s a tooth for a tooth.

 

Who are some of the poets/artists/creatives you look up to (either Queensland-based, nation-wide or even globally)?

Many. Here’s a list of a few I look up to today:

Emily XYZ, Tishani Doshi, David Shrigley, Joy Harjo, Pascalle Burton, Hal Sirowitz, Tony Birch, Lydia Davis, Miranda July, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Tamryn Bennett, Mark Doty, Ben Brown, PiO, Tusiata Avia, Jacob Polley, Natalie Harkin, Brian Eno, Taylor Mac.

 

What’s the epitome of success for you?

Sometimes success is hanging the fuck on. In fact, maybe that’s the only success there is.

 

As a spoken word artist, you perform a lot of your poetry on stage (under normal circumstances). When writing, how do you tell the difference between a poem that is destined to be a spoken word piece and one that remains on the page?

A piece will tell me what it is when it’s ready. I need to listen and make sure I follow its destiny.

I never saw myself as a spoken word artist. I often used the phrase ‘spoken weird artist’ as it better captured the spirit and intent of my work on stage. I don’t perform much these days except for in interviews and waking up.

I increasingly moved towards producing and advocating for the form, both on the stage and page, due to its erasure and diminishment within Australian poetry anthologies and imprints. I intend to come back to performance, I still love the electric short circuit of live work.

Is writing a cathartic experience for you? How do you feel when others share their reactions with you, or find solace in your writing?

Swimming in a winter ocean is cathartic for me. It’s one of the few times my mind releases its grip. There is a poem towards the end of the collection Shell which has a few lines where I get close to that feeling.

I am more than happy for people to share their reactions to my work, positive and negative and beyond that binary, as long as their intent is genuine.

As for solace, I find that in the music and poetry of others I often return too far more than I do from writing it myself.

A few of your poems, particularly I Lied and The Bingo Code of Etiquette in this collection are experimental in terms of form and formatting. Is that something you set out to do when writing a poem, or do you write it all out first, and then play with it in editing (or even just before publication)?

I Lied was a random formatting accident. I like Eno’s oblique strategy “Honor thy error as a hidden intention”. There is a lot of play in this book, including with form and line breaks – which some poets hold up as sacrosanct but I don’t buy into that. Break things and put them back together the way you hear them.

I’m also a fan of mondegreens and misinterpretation too, especially when applied to a clinical or domestic setting.

In the past, you’ve been quite vocal about funding in the arts. Do you think Queensland is getting better at funding and recognition for poets, or is there still a long way to go?

It’s not a good time for arts funding on so many levels right now, both federally and at most state and local levels. And COVID-19 and the lack of a direct economic response for our sector is devastating so many small-medium arts orgs, many which were already just hanging on. I deeply feel for those arts workers the most, I’ve had that responsibility to keep things afloat while trying to meeting the ever increasing unrealistic expectations of funding bodies for constant growth and defining success on others economic terms.

As for Queensland, it’s at a tipping point I think. I’d like to see UQP publish more poetry titles each year, and another QLD-based poetry imprint emerge from a non-university context. I really hope that Arts Queensland continue to back things such as the Queensland Poetry Festival and the QLD Poetry Awards in all of their forms, as they have become known internationally and create an aspirational creative culture and community gathering point / developmental touchstone for many SE QLD poets and spoken word artists.

You co-directed the Queensland Poetry Festival a couple of years ago. What did you learn from that experience? Is it something you would do again?

I learnt that poets can be both the most giving and the most unforgiving towards those that choose to work for the form, especially if you have a vision or enable change and platforms for new and divergent voices. That Australian poetry has a long way to go still in regards to First Nations poets and writers of colour being centred in a festival context for their writing not just for their identity.

That there is still much privilege and nepotism in poetry, as much as there is generosity and joy. And that a good reader or performer is key in a live context, as is mixing up the way poetry is presented via cross-platforms to a non-poetry audience, which I still see as central to poetry having ongoing relevance.

 

Being in such a position, you presumably would have had the opportunity to learn a lot from other poets, in terms of techniques and such. How has that experience influenced your writing, if at all?

We were too busy to attend much, especially workshops. My own practice got sidelined. I learnt more about human connection. How disciplined many established poets are. To play a long, long game.

 

What are the highlights/lowlights of your career thus far?

One highlight – sharing the stage with Joy Harjo and Ali Cobby Eckermann at Adelaide Writers Week 2020. Hearing Ali encouraging the audience to respond with bird calls, and watching Joy take flight between poetry’s spirits and song.

One lowlight – University of Western Australia’s plans to dismantle UWAP, the imprint that put Case Notes out. It’s worth fighting for – UWAP currently publish about 15% of all poetry titles in this country, and the publisher Terri-ann White is a fighter with a tender sharp editorial eye which we need more not less of.

You’ve also recently been announced as the guest poetry editor for Moth Magazine’s upcoming Autumn issue. What will that role entail?

Choosing poems anonymously for their Autumn edition – looking forward to it. I love doing Guest Editor gigs, and this is my first overseas one. All the details are here.

 

What’s your biggest regret?

Not always living close to my son.

Not being present in my last relationship to the degree I needed to be.

Not always putting my heart on the chopping block.

Putting poetry ahead of life.

 

What advice would you give to aspiring writers and slam poets?

 

Some key pieces of advice I’ve received were from my mentors of mine. The performance poet Emily XYZ told me we all have to be a servant to our art form – in some way, at some stage. Give back to the art you claim to love. Jacob Polley saying that ultimately it’s about the work, work, work. Not very sexy but truer to me with each year. Some advice I would advise emerging poets to ignore:

Spoken word doesn’t work on the page.

You have to do a Creative Writing degree to write.

You should be focused on your legacy as an artist.

Once you’re published, everything will change for the better.

Fiction editors know how to edit poetry.

Awards and reviews matter.

Given the current world health crisis and the ever-increasing restrictions regarding gatherings and self-isolation, you and a lot of other people in the creative industries have taken quite a hit both financially and socially. How are you adapting to the changes?

It’s too early to tell what the long term impacts will be. I’m over screens, for one thing. I miss hugs at gigs, seeing someone you haven’t seen for a while. I don’t miss open mics (poet joke. not joking.)

I’ve hosted a few live stream things and I’m doing a couple of online feature readings. The upside is geographic audience reach and documentation of the work; downside is loss of the poem that happens between the poet and the audience in a live setting, as well as decreased book sales and paid gigs.

 

Is this something you intend to do in the future, regardless of when the restrictions are lifted?

Yes. This book has life in it, it needs to get a run in the sun (not just the white light of a screen.) Plus there are poems in it that are made for the air, pieces I really want to share in the live medium to better get to know the work. I also love doing events/tours and celebrating the strangeness of getting a poetry collection across the line.

 

If you could invite three people from history (living or dead) to dinner, who would they be and why?

 

The US-Scottish poet Ryan Van Winkle because I miss him, he reminds me of Frank Zappa and he can cook. And two people he’d like to bring, as he has never introduced me to anyone dull or unkind.

 

***
David Stavanger is a poet, performer, cultural producer, editor and lapsed psychologist. His first full-length poetry collection The Special (UQP, 2014) was awarded the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. David co-directed Queensland Poetry Festival (2015-2017) and is a Senior Project Manager at Red Room Poetry. He is the co-editor of Australian Poetry Journal 8.2 Spoken, Rabbit 27 Tense and SOLID AIR: Collected Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP, 2019.) His new collection is Case Notes (UWAP, 2020). David is also sometimes known as Green Room-nominated spoken weird artist Ghostboy. These days he lives between the stage and the page.

 

Case Notes is published by UWA Publishing. Click here or on the book cover above to purchase your copy, or find out more about the titles they publish.

 

If you missed my review of Case Notes, click the below image.