diVERSES reKINDLED: In Conversation With Poet Zach Hannah

Attention is a form of respect, a message that something has done enough to stand out in the world.

Attention is also respect because it cannot be divided—to pay attention, ironically, is to ignore.

I spoke with poet Zach Hannah, who notes up his Appalachian roots. His work is quick to cast his innovative perception. He's a poet that has dealt with pain, physical and mental, as well as grief that I do not currently have the ability to fathom.

Zach’s ability to push poetry into the unexpected is what also draws people to Zach’s poetry. To deliver the unexpected means to attention to what is expected. What is expected surrounds us; most of what surrounds us is not our own. What complicates Zach’s journey further, with his experience with adoption and foster care, is concepts related to ownership.

It’s a question that art will always navigate: what is owed to the inspiration of the art? Often, that question relates to people. If I write about my parents, what part of my parents am I allowed, or not, to show? The question deepens because, even in portraying what is heavy, shining a light on it can transform it into an object of beauty, or resonance, or both.

What I liked about the discussion with Zach is a word that I, generally, despise: something. It is not purely people: whatever object a poem puts under a magnifying glass becomes an object of care. What care means we can certainly debate, but the idea a dog, a leaf, a doubt are as capable as being cared for as a sister, a first surgery, or midnight musing is refreshing. It's so easy to find the opposite. It's easy to find attacks, mistreatment. It's easy to find apathy or ignoring, which isn’t quite the opposite of attention, but worse.

When viewed as a means to care, suddenly poetry takes on a role not merely of art, but of support, and not only support for the artist, but for the object. Suddenly, attention not only becomes a way to isolate an object, but to be together.

Full conversation with poet Zach Hannah and poet Geoff Anderson: https://youtu.be/11R-jHQQsjU