In The Field—Conversations With Our Contributors: J. D. Debris

Your poem, “Song of Solomon” in Volume 26, brings to life vivid images. What sparked the creation of this piece?

Appreciate that comment. The poem takes its title from Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, as well as her novel’s biblical namesake, both of which did pretty well for themselves in terms of character and story. That freed me up to write something fully lyric—to not stress over narrative and go all in for the incantatory. So, it wasn’t so much about bringing images to life as it was singing them to life. Just trusting the logic of The Song—that mythic, inexplicable, titular thing—even as I put it on the examining table and dissected it.

The poem is in couplets, and many of the lines land on a word or phrase that only gets completed with the next line, so the reader switches images in the middle. What is your process when crafting a piece like this—how do you find the breaks? Do those cliffhangers come as you write, or are they edited in later? 

Yeah, you’re onto it, couplets and cliffhangers: the enjambment is a direct result of the form. You could probably reverse-engineer those line breaks, but that’s—no shade—a more free-verse way of thinking, whereas I’m constantly, as a half-musician, framing my thinking via form. 

Since I gravitate toward simple forms—in this case, AA BB rhyming couplets—pushing against the constraints of such forms is a must. The form of this poem is as predictable as it gets—you know exactly where the rhymes are going to hit, and, like Derek Walcott said about the ocean, its meter never changes—so the challenge is decalcifying the couplets, decentering them, imbuing them with a little bit of the shimmer, the weirdness, of being alive. 

With enjambment, you’re embodying astonishment in the text. That’s what, in poetry as in fiction, suspense does, or should aim to do: to put into words (and into the spaces between the words) a moment-to-moment uncertainty. That way, we might capture a fraction, a flash, of consciousness, and what it feels like to have it.

What themes do you find that you return to in your work?

Bravery and cowardice, certainty and doubt. 

You are also a musician. What was your instrument of choice? How does your knowledge of music influence your poetry, and vice versa?

Years ago, Yusef Komunyakaa asked me, Have you ever tried singing your poems? That question clicked on a light for me, though it took me a while to figure out. But when I heard Arthur Flowers read his work to the hypnotic beat of the Array Mbira, that gave me a model to emulate. I basically owe my whole performance style to Arthur Flowers.

Now, when I perform, I cross poetry and live instrumentation, accompanying myself on guitar and alternating between speaking and singing. Since my stuff is jazzy and adaptable, I love to bring other musicians into the mix whenever possible.

To be honest, I’ve heard some cornball shit that fits the above description. So I just do my best to make it sound smooth, and not fussy or dusty whatsoever, and to keep the faith that the role of the griot, or the lyric poet (i.e. poet with a lyre), or however you want to refer to a poet shameless enough to think he can sing, is as relevant as ever. 

What stories or texts inspire you? What authors helped shape the writer you are today?

Two formative experiences from my teens. One: my younger sister (the best reader I know) handing me her copy of Yusef Komunyakaa’s Neon Vernacular and telling me You Need To Read This Right Now. And two: stumbling on Roberto Bolaño’s The Romantic Dogs in the public library.  

One of the many upsides of reading Komunyakaa and Bolaño young was that, through their allusions and bibliomanias, I wound up with whole constellations of writers and artists to check out. A truant, angry, autodidactic, mutt-ass misfit couldn’t have asked for a better syllabus. Through those two books, I found my way to Vallejo, Césaire, Cortázar, and Mingus. 

Now, if you’ll allow me a brief indulgence in dorkiness, I’d like to shine a light on some other writers slotting (roughly) into my parents’ generation, some—but not all—of the literary aunts and uncles who’ve been formative to me, whom I hope to do right by:

John Edgar Wideman, Jay Wright, Lyonel Trouillot, Marcia Douglas, Marcial Gala, Derek Walcott, Kathleen Collins, George Elliot Clarke, Ai, Percival Everett, Adonis, Lynda Hull, Dambudzo Marechera, Franketiénne, Cornelius Eady, Larry Levis, Oscar Hijuelos, Ni Kuang, Gil Scott-Heron, Joy Harjo, Patrick Chamoiseau.

You can divide every generation of young writers into two camps: those who want to burn down everything their parents’ generation did (always easier—and faster—to burn books than it is to read them) and those who want to build on it. I’m old at heart—not in the sentimental way, in the arteriosclerotic way—and as such, I’m ten toes in the latter camp. 

What writing or projects are you working on now?

Novels, ya heard? Voice-driven shit. Trying to smuggle poetry into fiction the way many of my heroes have. That, plus getting back into the mic booth ASAP.

J. D. Debris is the author of The Scorpion’s Question Mark (Autumn House Press, 2023) winner of the 2022 Donald Justice Prize. His work has received fellowships and awards from New York University, DISQUIET, Narrative, and Ploughshares.