In HEATHEN, R. Flowers Rivera remixes the classical and the Biblical, the usual and the typical until what we thought we knew of ourselves and others is new again. The mythic becomes particular; the particular becomes mythic in these fascinating poems of personalities and personas. Rivera’s work is rich in empathy and invention. Heathen is a book of psalms for the present day.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how R. Flowers Rivera's poetry transforms our understanding of self and society through innovative remixes of classic and biblical themes.
Terrance Hayes describes R. Flowers Rivera's collection, 'Heathen', as a transformative work that revisits well-known narratives and archetypes, repurposing them to reveal fresh insights about identity and human connection. The fusion of mythic elements with particular experiences allows readers to perceive the commonalities of personal and collective existence in a new light, while Rivera's rich empathy infuses the poems with emotional depth and creativity, positioning them as a modern-day testament akin to psalms.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about modern poetry and its cultural significance.
I'm chasing a kind of language that can be unburdened by people's expectations. I think music is the primary model-how close can you get this language to be like music and communicate feeling at the base level in the same way a composition with no words communicates meaning? It might be impossible. Language is always burdened by thought. I'm just trying to get it so it can be like feeling.
When I applied for grad school, I did not specify genre. I said I wanted an MFA in Creative Writing. I was so cute and stupid! The admissions committee at Pitt decided to put me in poetry.
So the best way to understand poetry, which is made by men, is to imitate, and that goes back to making work as a kind of doorway into new work, as opposed to making work as a mirror of the old work.
Art is not the kind of thing where you get what you put into it all the time. So I learned to not expect anything other than the sort of joy of having a poem in front of me.
Poems are a form of music, and language just happens to be our instrument - language and breath.
In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak.
I write poetry because I can’t disobey the impulse; it would be like blocking a spring that surges up in my throat. For a long time I’ve been the servant of the song that comes, that appears and can’t be buried away. How to seal myself up now?…It no longer matters to me who receives what I submit. What I carry out is, in that respect, greater and deeper than I, I am merely the channel.
Time broadens the scope of verses and I know of some which, like music, are everything for all men.
All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls!
Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone.
I believe if you come out of a movie and the first thing you say is, 'The cinematography was beautiful,' it's a bad movie.
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