Interview by Karina Jutzi
KJ: Art is a huge theme in the book, not only in your featured artwork, but also in the title of the poems. Is there a reason that the poem’s numbers jump around? You had Exhibit:13 then Exhibit: 30?
SC: The numbers correspond to my age at the time. I was thinking about going back and piecing together moments from my life that show evidence that I’m bisexual. I wanted it to feel nonlinear. That just tends to feel more true to me, to my experience of life. I felt like if it was all in order it would be too logical. I wanted the poems to correspond to the way memory actually shows up. Like, “oh remember that time I was at the park with that older girl…”
KJ: Right. And then your memory will jump from the there to last week or college or wherever and then you can make those connections.
SC: Exactly.
KJ: That’s so interesting. To me it felt like when you wander into a museum and you sometimes don’t see things in order, you just go to what you’re drawn to.
SC: I like that interpretation, I think that is part of it.
KJ: Was there a reason you chose to focus so heavily on art? Not only did you make the art in the book, but you used such strong artistic imagery.
SC: That just happened on its own. This being my first full collection, I had poems scanning the past ten years: poems that were recent, and poems that went even before my MFA. It took me a few years to find the throughline, which was art and its relationship to desire.
KJ: I think it was a smart move. It works so well for the reader to feel grounded in the art.
SC: I’ve also been called a shapeshifter which is a term I resonate with. I like to try everything in my work. I do theater too, so I sometimes inhabit characters in my writing. Art to me is life! When you read someone’s poetry collection it’s sort of like being in the writer’s mind, and seeing the strange connections that happen inside their brain.
KJ: True.
SC: I grew up with a Grandfather who was a sculptor, a Grandmother who was a painter, a Mom who always painted, and a Dad who also sculpts and carves. They always took me to art museums, so I grew up seeing the world through that lens. I started to realize that the larger metaphor with the structure of my manuscript was an exhibit that someone walks through. I wanted to build an installation on the page.
KJ: It’s fascinating how those things from our upbringing naturally appear.
SC: Yes! And of course, the other meaning of Exhibitionist is putting oneself on display. I tend to write about sexuality and power dynamics a lot.
KJ: That was one of the main things I noticed. I think all of the poems in the book have at least a sexual undertone, if not being explicitly sexy. Is this something you really wanted in this collection or is this a topic you often return to?
SC: It’s definitely something I return to. It was a theme of my first chapbook as well. I find there’s a big link between creativity and sexuality for me. I’m always interested in the power dynamics of sexuality as well.
KJ: I really enjoyed the “female gaze” series of poems in the book. Can you speak a little bit about what inspired that and what the goal was?
SC: Those were really fun to write. They were playful and experimental. A while ago I had this one document where I was just writing anything that felt related to the theme of how to look or how to gaze. As a woman, how do I look at other women (or other people) from my own desire, without it being contaminated by the “male gaze?” How do I look at myself? Those were questions I was grappling with and continue to think about. So I looked to women artists I admired to find what I could learn from them: Frida Khalo, Lee Miller, etc. I call these “compost compositions” now because I start with an erasure. Like with Frida’s poem, I took a letter to her from Diego and I did an erasure of that, then built back on top of it.
KJ: Oh, that’s so fun.
SC: If I were to rewrite these poems I would consider calling them the “feminine gaze” to make my language more inclusive. We can all gaze in a feminine way. Painted Bride Quarterly did a podcast where they discussed a few of those pieces, and something they uncovered was that there’s no one definition of the female gaze, whereas the perceived male gaze can be more easily defined as what is perceived as attractive, like doing a search for a certain kind of body type in porn. Whereas the female gaze includes personhood, relationship, complexity, diversity.
KJ: Totally. It’s like the patriarchy has gotten into our eyes and we have to reclaim our own eyes and the way we view the world. I love that concept. That sparks a lot of thoughts for me.
SC: I’m glad. We each get to decide how we see the world. That’s the magic of art.
You can find more of Shari’s work through her newsletter Luminous Yes. She also leads The Poetry Brothel in Boston.
About the interviewer: Karina Jutzi is a playwright, poet, and essayist. Her plays have been produced across the country, and her drama Where All Good Rabbits Go, was published through Original Works Publishing and was named the Best of Equity theater in 2018. She recently moved to Vermont to start a family farm.