Photo: Beth Kukucka/Cover art by Carlos Hernandez
Dragstripping author Jan Beatty
In her latest collection,
Dragstripping (University of Pittsburgh Press), Jan Beatty includes numerous poems about her father, who died almost 40 years ago, in 1986.
“I keep thinking that I’m done with him, and it just keeps happening,” Beatty tells
Pittsburgh City Paper. “I’m still wearing my father’s ring. I’m still very close to him. I’m not going to turn it down. I’m grateful that I’m still getting poems. I don’t want to put them in the book unless they’ve earned their way.”
Beatty will appear on Thu., Sept. 5 with poet Richard Blanco at Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland as part of the
Pittsburgh Art and Lectures series.
Dragstripping — which features cover art by Carlos Hernandez
— contains poems from the last few years along with work that the esteemed local poet has been working on for decades. The title poem, about meeting a woman on the West Coast, has taken Beatty 20 years to write.
“I just didn’t know how to do it,” Beatty says of the poem, which reads,
I met a stripper on my first visit to the big West/sitting on a hill in Marin – I was wearing a black red yellow plaid shirt/she wore something more open, loose/sleeveless.
Beatty adds, “I needed to grow as a human, and I needed to try new things, I think.”
When Beatty was writing
The Switching/Yard,
her fourth poetry collection, she constantly listened to The Subdudes song "Late at Night." Music is an important element in
Dragstripping, with references to the blues and, especially, Howlin’ Wolf — in "Spoonful," Beatty writes,
But Mr. Wolf, it’s not rescue/it’s deliverance I want, the high in your lowdown/howl.
Music has played a role in Beatty’s life since childhood when she was a regular listener of WAMO radio.
“In the ‘60s, growing up, I was tearing around the house with a transistor radio, listening to WAMO, which I didn’t realize was the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio,” she says. “Most stations weren’t playing what they called 'Black music' back then.”
In
Dragstripping, Beatty also returns to the theme of violence, specifically against women. The poems "When Rape Was An Ocean" and "The Emptying" notably examine how women are affected, and react, to violence.
“I’ve been obsessed with violence for years because it’s so prevalent and I’ve experienced it myself,” she says. “After teaching the [Madwomen in the Attic writing workshop] for years, I don’t know any women who haven’t suffered some kind of abuse or violence. I don’t think it's talked about enough or written about enough.”
While Beatty's latest anthology spans subjects and decades, she admits that she has still more area to tread, even as she returns to the same themes.
“There's a lot of stuff I haven't written about,” Beatty adds. “It doesn't mean I have to, because, in the end, it's not about me. But I felt like there were some things that I had been afraid to write down. So, I think that's some of the violence that shows up.”
Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures presents Jan Beatty with Richard Blanco.
6 p.m. Thu., Sept. 5. Carnegie Library Lecture Hall. 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. Free. Registration required. Livestream available. pittsburghlectures.org