Parlor is an online journal run by Sarah Jean Alexander, a Baltimore writer and bartender. It’s unique, with a collaborative focus, pairing sets of two writers who don’t know they’re working together on one poem. The third issue just came out, themed “awake.” It features hotshots like Scott McClanahan, Mark Leidner, and Ana Carrete. Sarah Jean also just completed NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, a thing in April where people are challenged to write a poem every day. She compiled all 30 of her actually-very-good poems in a PDF titled, appropriately, NaPoWriMo. She writes with ennui really well, and a calm breathlessness. Sometimes she doesn’t use punctuation, for example. And that’s on purpose, probably because—as she says below—the internet is the writing style that comes most naturally to her.
What’s that picture of you? Is your hair on backwards? Are those sparkling chilis on your head?
I took this picture one morning right after I had woken up in a friend’s bed in Tribeca last fall. I think it had snowed or it was rainy and cold or something and I felt very happy but this picture doesn’t show it. So I added glitter devil horns. I wanted every emotion.
So Parlor is now in its third issue. It seems like Parlor is an online journal that puts two writers together to collaborate on a poem. Right?
Right.
Do you pick the writers that will work together?
Yes.
How do you choose them?
I only choose writers who I have kissed on the mouth.
Once you get the two people together, do you have any idea what their process is?
The writing process is delicate. This is how Parlor works: I choose a theme for the issue and then I write 4 poem titles to go with the theme. Each pair of writers have a ‘first’ writer and a ‘second’ writer. They don’t know who their partners are. I email the ‘first’ writers their title prompts and they send me the beginning of the poem. I screencap their poem and distort it so that only the first and last lines are visible. Then I send this to the ‘second’ writer.
The second writer follows with the midsection of the poem based off of the title prompt and the few lines that they can see from their partner’s initial piece. When they finish the middle section, I distort an image of their poem in the same fashion as the first and send it back to the first writer, who completes the poem.
Does that sound complicated? Mostly the writers wait to receive an email from me and then write a thing. It takes about 3 months total.
Wait, I don’t get it. So they never know what the other person is writing? But the poems kind of seem to make a lot of sense, more than I’d expect. So, no question here, just: good job.
Thank you, Adam.
Has anyone ever found out who their partner was and been like, “oh dang, I hate that guy”? This seems especially relevant because I’d think they’d all be jealous and angry to find out they’d each kissed you.
I tell everyone in the first email that they are not allowed to talk about Parlor or tell anyone they are working on it or they are kicked out of the club.
No one’s been kicked out yet. Aw damn, I would never kick anyone out.
Once, someone saw the lineup before one of the issues and emailed me saying, “Oh god, _____ is my mortal enemy. Is _____ my partner?” _____ was not their partner. Let’s kiss.
You’re like an insider in the global literary movement, but you told me you’ve only recently started getting around Baltimore’s reading and books scene. How’s it been going?
Oh no, am I really?
I did my first reading in New York and then continued to do readings there and write on the internet. I avoided the Baltimore lit scene without realizing it. But I’m here now and it’s nice. I am doing a reading on May 20th with Dan Chelotti and some other people at Say it with Writing in Station North. I will probably drink some beers and blink a lot. Baltimore is a good home and I like it a bunch.
For the record, Say it with Writing isn’t in Station North. It’s in a neighborhood called “Broadway East.”
Oh no is it really
You just released what I want to call a “rich” (like flavorful) PDF of all the poems you wrote during National Poetry Month, NaPoWriMo, intercut with some funny tweets and gchats from you and your friends, and some pictures of animals. And more, lots more. First of all–and this relates to Parlor as well–talk about, wait . . . why don’t you think poetry is stupid?
I feel heavy.
Can you say more about that?
The more I think about poetry and why it is or isn’t stupid, the deeper I get into an exhausting black hole of What Is Art and Is Art Stupid and Of Course It’s Not and Is Poetry Art and Am I An Artist and No I Don’t Think So and Is Anyone Going To Read Anything I Write and Is Poetry Stupid and No, Stop Asking That and Well Then Why Can’t I Think Of A Better Answer Than I Feel Heavy and Well Shit I Love Poetry And I Don’t Think It’s Stupid But I Still Feel Heavy Anyway. You know?
I know. And I’m sorry, that was my fault. Anyway, say you were to publish a book of poetry with a Copper Canyon Press, would you still include screen caps and stuff?
It depends what the book was like. I think I have a few different writing styles. I wouldn’t try to publish all the poems in NaPoWriMo in one poetry book because I think many of the poems have different styles. But because this was more of a personal writing project than a solid effort to create a whole collection of poetry, I didn’t mind that it was scattered and different and full of screen caps and selfies and gchat inserts. Does that make sense? Did I answer the question correctly. I don’t want to reread my answer. I like the internet whats up.
The poems are sad and funny and life affirming at the same time. Which of those three things comes the most naturally?
I spent almost all of last year writing specifically sad poetry and I like to think I’ve moved on but who knows, people still make fun of me for being Sad Girl. That’s okay. Sad came most naturally because I was a sap but then I decided not to be and that worked for awhile. I’m good, I’m good, Adam. I think the writing style that comes most easily now is emails. Gmail is my poetry.
Huh. Sad Girl. I like how the poems are pictures, rather than just text on a page.
Is this interview over. Did I kill it.
No, no, this interview is alive and well. What’s the funniest line in all these poems, to you?
Hold on let me go read the poems again.
Okay I didn’t find any funny lines. Am I funny? What do you think is a funny line, Adam?
Okay wait this is the funniest line. It is from April 26th: “you’ve heard the more obese a person is, the less water they are, oh god you’re going to dry up.”
Ha ha ha ha ha.
I also like this line from April 6th: “If it feels / good / do it.”
I didn’t write that line, I stole it from a Joan of Arc song because it is cool. Sorry.
I like the one where you think it would be too lazy to write a poem that goes “FUCK FUCK FUCK” so you write “FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU” instead. Were you mad at someone? You write a lot about “seems.” “Ocean waves seem like one element stealing from another . . . nothing you do matters.” You’re waking up or going to sleep a lot in your poems. What is “real” about poetry, about your poetry?
I wrote the F F F poem at 6 a.m. because I was frustrated with 2 or 3 things in my life and I couldn’t fall asleep and there were loudass city birds being happy outside of my bedroom window. I knew I had to write a poem for NaPoWriMo and was feeling discouraged and hateful towards poetry, so that came out. I’m so sorry.
All of my poetry and writing begins with something ‘real’. By the end of the poem or story, the piece as a whole is anywhere from 1% to 80% ‘real’. My poems are more ‘real’ than my stories. I like to take instances and moments and memories from real life and turn them into readable, cohesive pieces. I like creating stories and I like fiction and I like weird things that don’t make sense. My life is real, so I like when my writing is real without being real. I’m awful at interviews.
Me too! Do you have an interesting answer for this boring question: who is the “I” and “you” in your poems?
The I is Me and the You is one of five human beings I have known in life so far.
What makes you sadder, people or ideas?
With people, they let you down. With ideas, you let yourself down.
Damn. Thanks for nothing, Sarah Jean.
Adam. My man.
