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Show SIT DOWN WITH A POET BY BERNIE GARCIA /STAFF WRITER PHOTO COURTESY OF RAFAEL DAGOLD R aphael Dagold is a hidden treasure on the American poetry scene. After years of hard work, dedication and considerable persistence, he has hit critics with a tidal wave of creativity through his masterpiece work Bastard Heart. He will be a part of a tandem of poets reading their work at Westminster College's Gore Auditorium tomorrow, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. I was intrigued and excited to sit down with the comeback kid and ask him about his exquisite craftsmanship. Bernie Garcia: In my recent interview with Tony Kushner, he said poetry is an immensely difficult thing, which doesn't often have the structure of narrative and, being the purest exercise in language, is very difficult to do. Do you agree or disagree and why? Raphael Dagold: I guess with the operative word being narrative, then yes, poetry ... doesn't necessarily have narrative structure to fall back on. But narrative poetry is something I will do on occasion or even often. But certainly there is not the expectation in readers, and there is no requirement that a poem has to have a narrative structure ... Something I have been trying to do lately is that it will all connect on a certain idea. I guess most of our lives revolve around narrative structure. Newspaper articles are written like narratives, television shows and films. We tell stories all the time where we necessarily don't tell poems all the time, as in lyric poems that are built on image, metaphor or an idea ... So it comes down to reader expectation and also to put yourself out there, in a poet mindset, telling stories when you walk around and everything else around you is narrative. Yeah, poetry can definitely be harder. BG: How is being a poet harder or easier than other artistic disciplines and why? RD: That is a really tough question, it might be impossible to answer. I haven't really pursued another artistic discipline so I can't really speak from experience. BG: I have to cut you off right there because I have heard about your woodworking prowess, and I firmly believe that is an art in itself. RD: Yeah, you're right, that's true. I did do that for some time and quite seriously ... With woodworking, it is a physical activity as well as a mental one, so there is always the work that is prevalent ... There is the practical side of a career or moneymaking where poetry makes little to no money, whereas woodworking does make some. That can extend through to painting as well, where if you are solely a painter, but still, it is very hard to make consistent money. .1111111.11.1111000.•-- BG: I do believe every great artist has to go through a feast and famine point in their life to become great. Do you think this struggle is necessary for an artist to maintain their authenticity? RD: I think that is true, but I would pursue it further from the phrase you used as "authenticity." I don't know if any of us truly has an authentic self, but if it does, the artistic process would be for us to continually strive to find that artistic self. If I already know what the poem in front of me is going to be all about before I write it, then it's boring. It's s---. Why even write it? So the same can be said for the artistic self? If I already know my "authenticity," then what is the point? There is no discovery. So for me, I am constantly reworking what I imagine a poem is for me and what a poem is at all. It is frustrating and maddening for me to stare at a blank page and say, "I have no f---ing idea what a poem is." But for me, that is absolutely necessary to feel that way to facilitate discovery and exploration. BG: Bastard Heart is your most recently released book of poetry, and it has received substantial critical acclaim, as noted by the website 46 Clubhouse Venice Beach, winning the prestigious Gerald Cable Book Award and being a finalist for the Philip Levine Book award. Tell me more about this literary labor of love. RD: That book took so many years to come out. I am working on a new manuscript that is about seven-eighths done, so Bastard Heart, even though it came out last year, feels like it is really my old work. It is partly because a lot of the poems were in fact written a long time ago, and I went through the process of compiling a manuscript. Then after that, I gutted that particular manuscript, got rid of some of the poems and added some new ones. People have asked me, "Why didn't you give up?" or "Did you ever give up?"... and I never even considered it. My conception of having a book of poetry was something I always wanted to do. BG: I really admire that you didn't push it out there when others wanted you to. You released it when it was ready. Not to sound cliché, but anything that is a piece de resistance or something that is your magnum opus, it is ready when you're damn well good and ready to put it out there. Is that how you felt? RD: The first full manuscript that I had put together, which had a different title and a bunch of different poems, if I would have had that published way back, I would 4 { THECHRONY I NEWS I OPINION I ARTS I SPORTS I MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2015 } at m I. • Lys have been overjoyed. I would have moved on to write a second book, obviously. It wasn't like I needed to hone this manuscript, but it had more to do with the journey of my life and the poetry that went along with that journey. Being a woodworker, a teacher, in love, being married and then divorced — in a sense I regret that I didn't have that clear-sighted focus to push it out there right away. But on the other hand, in the bigger picture, that is not what happened. There is a reason why it came out and was finished when it was, and this is mysterious. But it came out to the world when it was ready. In a meditative sense, there must be some reason why it worked out the way it did. b.garcia@chronicle.utah.edu @ChronyArts SEEING IS BELIEVING BY AARON CLARK /STAFF WRITER PHOTO COURTESY OF ELIJAH NOUVELAGE I his past Saturday night at Capitol Theatre Salt Lake, audiences were treated to a magical extravaganza with all the flair of a Las Vegas spectacle with Jay Owenhouse's "Dare to Believe" tour. Owenhouse is known as "The Authentic Illusionist," and he lived up to the title as he wowed audiences with a series of mind-bending illusions. Cynicism quickly gave way to amazement as Owenhouse pulled off one magnificent trick after another and left everyone believing in magic at least for one evening. While it's tempting to go to a magic show with the intent of breaking down all of the magician's tricks, Owenhouse's stage presence is far from ostentatious. He instead manages to come across as the type of guy with whom you would want to share a drink. As a result, it becomes easy to be lulled into the moment of magic he presents on stage, and the illusions become a pleasure to embrace as reality. Part of Owenhouse's charm stems from being a family man who actually has his family working with him on stage and behind the scenes.The involvement of his daughters in the illusions builds suspense. For example, in one of the more complex tricks of the night, Owenhouse had his daughterJuliana climb into an origami box, and with a deft sleight of hand, Owenhouse folded a box large enough to hold a grown woman into a box barely big enough to hold a loaf of bread. He then stabbed three different swords into the box before taking them back out and rebuilding the box to its original size, and his daughter stepped back out onto the stage. Timing is everything with magic, and Owenhouse's clock ticks perfectly with his creative illusions. In one illusion he is hustled by a couple of clowns into a glass box covered with a tarp. A third clown appears, and the tarp is removed, revealing a stunning white Bengal tiger. While the audience is still murmuring with excitement, the third clown removes his mask, revealing himself as Owenhouse. Perhaps his most amazing feat of the night was homage to the great Harry Houdini and his great escapes. Owenhouse was fitted into a full straitjacket and was hung upside down between two 1,200-pound steel jaws held apart by a rope on fire, giving him less than two minutes to escape. As the clock ticked, the audience suspense was off the charts, and he slowly freed himself from his bonds just before the "Jaws of Death" snapped shut. By the end of the show the audience was mesmerized. Owenhouse ended with dialogue about the magic of seeing snow for the first time, and, to the sounds of a sweeping cinematic score, conjured up a mystifying illusion of being in a snow storm right in the theater. Ironically, it represented more snow than Salt Lake has seen all winter and was a fitting end to an evening of illusions that left the audience believing in the wonder of magic. a.clark@chronicle.utah.edu @ChronyArts 5 |