Maggie Nelson: “I was overwhelmed with grief when Prince died” | Essays

MAggie Nelson was born in California in 1973, studied in Connecticut with the writer Annie Dillard, and now lives in Los Angeles with the artist Harry Dodge and their children. She is the author of numerous works of poetry and prose in which she explores questions of desire, sexuality, and family, often in a fragmentary, genre-bending style. Her books include The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, The red partsabout the murder of her Aunt Jane, and The Argonautsa bestseller that won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Blueberrya series of personal meditations on the theme of blue, was recently performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Her latest collection, Like lovecontains conversations and essays from 2006 about writers and artists such as Wayne Koestenbaum, Kara Walker, Jacqueline Rose and Björk, who Nelson said: “When I read your masterpiece The Argonauts, I was literally beaming with hope.”

In a piece of the book about the poet Alice NotleyTen years ago you described your energy as “intoxicating desperation”. Is that still the case?
I don’t identify with that phrase as much as I used to (though I still think it applies well to Francis Bacon and many other artists I love). Of course despair runs through me, but I wouldn’t call it my main soul. The key for me is to see both hope and despair as moods that come and go, and to sense that underneath lies something bigger and more mysterious that doesn’t change no matter how we think about it.

I really enjoyed your essay about Prince that you wrote after his death. Tell us a little about it.
Many of the pieces in Like love were commissioned by a gallery or museum or done at the request of an artist, but the piece about Prince I just wrote for myself on an airplane shortly after his death. Prince meant so much to me – he still does. The piece describes how Purple Rain came out at the exact time when my father died much too early (of a heart attack), and as my sister and I in our youth Purple Rain over and over in our basement, I experimented with identifying with Prince and Wendy & Lisa. For a long time, Prince embodied my experience of sexuality – he shaped my sexual development in a way that I found then (and now) incredibly positive in a world where there are many not-so-great options. When he died, I was overwhelmed with grief, and the piece came out of a feeling that I needed to pay my respects to him, however humble he might be.

You have written a lot about your own life. I was struck by your observation (in a conversation with the artist Moyra Davey) that your work does not fit easily into the matrix of shame, revelation and exposure. – it doesn’t matter how you see things…
When writing autobiographies, you find that many people approach the genre through the binaries of withholding and revealing and/or shame and shamelessness, probably because they think there is something exhibitionistic or insidious about the endeavor. I’m not saying that these terms never apply, but I don’t feel that they drive the art for me, nor do they form the core of my emotional life. I think for some people the very idea of ​​speaking or writing about themselves in public is anxiety-provoking, but since this has been one of my innate methods since I was young, I don’t feel that anxiety as strongly. So often I find myself in the position of fending off fear or judgement from others that I don’t feel myself, which can be strange and a little tiring. But at the same time, it can be a sign that the writing has taken a risk, which is also necessary. However, revelation is only one form of risk – there are others, such as trying out new aesthetic forms, working with explosive and complex ideas, and so on.

Poet and author Eileen Myles features frequently in the book, and the final part is a very fun Zoom conversation with them. How important were they to your work?
Eileen was very important to me, which is why she appears in several essays in Like love. The inspiration and camaraderie I’ve experienced from other writers and artists, as is evident in this book, means the world to me. It keeps me going, makes me happy to be living in the times I’m living in, and gives me new ideas for things to try. Eileen has taught me something about almost everything that’s important. They taught me how to live a life devoted to art, that a writing career is a spiritual expression, the value of sobriety, how to make predictions rather than please an audience, how to age with enduring courage, ignorance, and curiosity, how trees can keep you company. And that’s just the beginning.

Where do you write and what is your writing routine?
I don’t have a set place to write, nor do I have a writing routine. It’s more of a “by any means necessary” situation. I have a room at home called an “office,” but like so many others, I prefer to work at the kitchen table when no one else is home.

What are you working on at the moment?
I have a little book called Pathemata or the story of my mouth is coming out next year – a weird dream-based piece I wrote in the pandemic studio. I’m excited about it.

Which book or author do you always return to?
Roland Barthes seems to me to have constant perseverance.

What would you like to read next?
Roberto Bolaños 2666 – late to the party. Maybe Virginie Despentes’ Dear idiot? Further.

What else do you do?
This question is a bit broad! But as for how I divide my time, I am a father, I teach, I travel, I exercise, I enjoy time with my friends, I listen to music, I think, I suffer, I try to help.