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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 2014)
Street roots 5 Aug. 29, 2014 PARZYBOK, from page 4 channels or to have a big web presence. I find that really challenging. I don’t necessarily like a lot of attention. It would be awesome if the book just did all the work. You know, “I worked on you a long time. Stand up now, please.” S.Z.: Tell me about Project Hamad. B.P.: A gentleman named Adel Hamad was a Sudanese man living in Pakistan. He was rounded up by Palestinian officials paid by the United States government to gather possible suspects after 9/11. He happened to be an immigrant S.Z.: L e t’s talk about drought. I t ’s laborer who was working as a hospital happening, a n d not ju s t in a science fiction assistant. He was taken to Guantanamo. novel. Our intent (for the project) Was to find a Guantanamo inmate and create a real B.P.: It’s insane right now. In fact, I narrative ofthis life to bring attention to was just reading about how they were what was going to start happening there, enforcing water He was an rationing in San amazing ping Francisco. Sao Paulo, pong player. He Brazil is in the "T b e fir s t persea to was sort of a middle of the worst re co il nla© tlia t ptm tans were prankster. He had drought in 85 years. changing the atmosphere absolutely no ties The city there is w ith carbon emissions was a whatsoever to calling for rationing. terrorism and Was Oregon is in a B ritish gny 1st 1938. That never charged. He drought right now as was alm ost a h o a d re d years well. spent 11 years in ago. I t happens on a Guantanamo. He lost his eyesight S.Z.: This sum m er tim eline^ b u t we a re n 't there. He had a is the hottest on record reacting In a tim e ly way.w since we started family that he had keeping track in been supporting . in Sudan. Portland in 1940. Maybe as fa r back as At the same time, there was a 1890 when records were kept in Vancouver. legal team in town who represented him as well. Our combined efforts blew up. We B.P.: Nine counties are in a state of emergency because of that drought. When were picked up in La Monde in Paris and on Boing Boing. He was eventually you look at (United States) Drought released about a year later. He was never Monitor - which is a really amazing tool - the headings range from abnormally dry charged with anything. to exceptional drought. All of the S.Z.: You’re a poet, though you say on designations are a bit grim. your website that you haven’t written poetry We have a natural tendency to actively since pretty much the start o f procrastinate as humans in bur reaction to change.And a .change that,happens like Gumball Poetry in 1999. You have also said drought happens on ji, geological scale*^ that we just can’t comprehend very well until we are already deep into it The first person to recognize that humans were changing the atmosphere with carbon emissions was a British guy in 1938, That was almost a hundred years ago. It happens on a timeline, but we aren’t reacting in a timely way. S.Z.: W hat is your writing process? B.P.: Writing is so tedious. I wrote “Couch” pre-parenthood. When I had kids, I went through a darker , period where I didn’t write at all. “She'rwood Nation” was a real effort to become disciplined again and to change my biological tendencies, which were to stay up really late at night. Now I get up really early before everyone is awake and I do my writing then. I write every day. that poetry saved your life. B.P.: Everybody has dark periods and I definitely have experienced some dark periods. I don’t know — are they biological or chemical? Sometimes they don’t make sense to me. Over time I’ve gotten a lot better about managing those. There was a time in college when I read Jim Harrison’s, “Letters to Yessin.” It’s a series of 30 poems that he writes to a Russian pdet'who has hung himself. In the course of these 30 poems, Jim Harrison manages to talk himself out of suicide. S.Z.: One o fyo u r characters from “Sherwood N ation,” Nevel, lets readers know early on that he suffers from depression. “He wondered i f he were depressed and whether he ought to see a doctor about getting some medication.” Then he turns his attention toward digging a furrow underneath his home. What are some o f the underlying themes that you address with this novel? . B.P.: I had a ton of fun writing Nevel. His character is one that I couldn’t have written pre-parenthood. He’s a father. He’s saddled with a lot of responsibility And he has a totally irrational reaction to ; the disaster that is taking place. I mean he’s digging a tunnel, which might be perfect for bomb shelters, but it’s not | working out for a drought. He can’t help himself. It’s become a sort of mania. And he certainly depressed and stressed and unsure and immobilized. It’s sort of like the outside world is requiring him to take action and he has no idea what kind of action to take. So when he takes action, it’s a totally meaningless action. There is a lot to unpack there. Another question I am asking is whether democracy as we have invented it, as we are practicing it, can really handle urgent crisis like climate change. And my answer? It’s a great system when it’s working. There is a lot of money involved in politics and it’s absolutely ridiculous. Short term limits which make for fad issues that may not have at all to do with the longer vision of how we want to five? How do we want tô be in this country over the next 50 years? How do we want to treat each other? Renee (the protagonist in “Sherwood Nation”) becomes a dictator. The Romans invented that word. These moments b y K e n n e th N icke ll These moments come nowhere to us. It was an Indian Summer. At 171 had just bought my own car, a beaten- down Plymouth Reliant, which did not live up to its name. At the same time I had just come home to my father’s house after nearly a year of estrangement. Amidst the monumental, my sister had come to visit, hearing of my unexpected return, very excited having driven across two states to see me. Somehow it was just the most ordinary of things. We had breakfast in my den. I introduced some friends in the area to her and we decided the beach was the place where doing nothing was something to. do. She drove myself and two of my closest friends, even-though my rustbox was wrought with reliability. A sign warning of road construction held her view from her, only two seconds away and BAM] They call it a T-Bone; though it tasted like blood and asphalt. I the proud owner of a “new-to-me” car, was seated at the point of impact; would not walk for six months, nor would I ever drive my first car. A dictator was somebody who was • e leeted -b y th esssn ate to ru ir th e empire in times of absolute crisis. They acknowledged that a senate, with numerous voices and arguing voices , cannot handle a large scale crisis. A dictator, who can congeal a single vision and a single plan of action, can really handle an emergency in a crisis much better. One last theme that was important to try out was thé idea ôf heroism. What is the arc of a hero? In this case, Renee does a somewhat heroic act and then the media completely overblow it and make her way more of a hero. And she has this inner conflict trying to figure out where she stands within that range of media and public reception and the act itself. In this case, she decides to rise up as much as she can into that role they created for her. 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