Iced Wine, Bathtub Laundry, and “He” Versus “I”: An Interview with Nathan Lipps

Anecia Larsen: The poem that you submitted for the latest issue of Barstow and Grand is so beautiful and deep to read. What made you create this poem? Was there any specific inspiration that came to you?

Nathan Lipps: First of all, thank you so much for those kind descriptions—I’m glad you consider it a beautiful poem. It’s not very easy, at least not often, to know why a certain poem leaps into existence. I can say that I grew up in a very rural environment. Much of my family—parents, uncles & aunts, grandparents—were farmers. And so, it’s not uncommon to see those landscapes and those labors in my poetry. My grandpa was a cornerstone of the extended family. When he died things were never same. Part of this poem is of/for him. 

There’s also this idea of how a life lived in constant labor (and there are many forms and manifestations of labor) can be a life that puts off the very things we work so hard to enliven: family, love, leisure, basically those pursuits that exist beyond work. This is a life millions of people in our country live. 

AL: I looked at your previous work from your website and read some of the pieces. There were some poems that had a nameless narrator “he.” Is there any correlation between all of these “he” narrators?

NL: Part of using the third person pronoun probably stems from my early reluctance to use the first person I.  When I started out writing years ago, using I felt self-indulgent. I’ve since realized that this was something I needed to get over, and that the I can be very honest: there’s nothing to hide behind. But I do still enjoy the distance that he offers: not a distance of safety, but one of introspection or observation. Even if the he is sometimes me, that distance allows me a certain clarity. I’m also hesitant to use we, though I still do occasionally. So, he works as a compromise—it’s partly me and partly not me, which is a duality that I imagine most writers live within. 

AL: In “What About Ambition, It’s Hunger?” I got the sense that the poem is about hard-working people going to bed only to get up and do the same thing in the morning. Is that what the poem is about? 

NL: That’s certainly part of what’s happening—the long cycle of labor with small incremental gains. But I’d like to think there’s more going on. There is the idea of hope, how it propels us through the decades of grind. Morning is an idea loaded with hope. But I think the poem is also trying to ask or suggest that we look at what exists beyond that pattern of work.  

AL: There’s a line that I think is beautifully written: “the apple not sliced and sugared into pie, but frozen in winter on the branch and pressed into wine.” How did you create such a beautiful line?

NL: What I’m referring to here is more commonly called iced-cider or iced-wine. It’s a lengthy process of leaving the fruit on the tree so that it will freeze over winter. Eventually it’s gathered and processed into a wine. It’s one of the rare experiences where you do not harvest when the fruit is ripe. Instead, you simply leave it be, watch it freeze as the snow falls, and eventually gather them up before they tumble to the ground and fully rot. The whole idea runs counter to the bread-basket concept of American farming. It’s a different kind of investment of time and value. And I hope it supports what the poem is trying to do. I also want it to be known that pie is great. There’s nothing wrong with apple pie. 

AL: What got you started into poetry? Do you have a favorite author that writes poetry? 

NL: I believe poetry can often more effectively say what is difficult to say. I was a very quiet kid, and I dreaded expressing myself out loud. But writing is a different endeavor. I started writing poetry in elementary school and learned that I could communicate what I wanted to say in a manner that much more closely resembled my actual thoughts. Of course, I’m probably overly romanticizing that period of time. The dangers of memory. 

I think one of the many reasons some people find poetry hard to understand is because they were required to read Tennyson in middle school. Or they had to memorize a Frost poem and recite it in front of their peers. And in those situations what was most important was the performance, the memorization, the unquestionable support of the canon, while very little thought was ever given to purpose or expression of the poem itself. And even less thought is often given to the audience (what the students actually need to hear and from whom).

I don’t want to get into favorites, but some contemporary writers that I read and admire are Adam Gellings, Tiana Clark, Shelley Wong, Adam Clay, and Ada Limón to name just a few. And I often find myself returning to Jack Gilbert, Linda Gregg, Mary Oliver, and Wang Wei, again to name just a few. 

AL: During this quarantine, did you read any poetry? Or books? If so, would you recommend them to readers? 

NL: For recommendations I would direct you to my response of the previous question. 

During quarantine everything slowed down, including my reading and writing. I’d spend the whole day doing laundry in the bathtub. And that was alright. I imagine this is a common story. 

By Nathan Lipps

Bread not because of butter

but wheat planted beneath sparrows

and my grandfather in a grave

the wind no longer

at his hand in the wheat

this summer or the next

nor the promise that bed gives

that turning over and awake

there is somehow more.

At night, exhausted

I taste honesty

and spend the day forgetting it.

What we do instead.

Postponing a thing like love

until worn out with age

fortress of the mind finally broken

we allow ourselves to witness

when the heart says yes.

The luxury, the artifice gone.

The apple not sliced and sugared

into pie, but frozen in winter

on the branch and pressed into wine.

The promise of more

finally terrifying. Finally too much.