Ryan Meyer received an MFA in poetry from George Mason University and currently teaches at SUNY Schenectady. His work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Nimrod, and Painted Bride Quarterly.
Ryan’s poems “Tired Hands” and “Guidelines for getting the silent treatment” appear in the Spring 2020 issue of Carve. Order your copy here.
Both pieces published in this issue explore the themes of nature and human activity and destruction. In some cases a more direct statement, “as we pop paper pills and swap ocean for land” and in others less so, such as the speaker inspecting “a faux leather leaf.” What brings you to these themes and what role does nature typically play in your writing?
I think these themes are almost unavoidable, writing in 2020. Although, the first poem (“Tired Hands”) was actually written in like 2014 or 2015, which feels like a couple decades ago now. That one’s a poem I hadn’t looked at in years before reviving it and editing it a bit recently. It was part of my MFA thesis, which was concerned with the idea of “constant construction”—the way we’re always building (literally and figuratively) and, almost inversely, to play on the phrase, the way we’re always moving towards some form of stagnation in the process. That relationship has always been interesting to me, and I think the themes of nature and destruction are simultaneously vehicles for that kind of exploration and logical endpoints in a way.
“Tired Hands” is such an interesting piece to read out loud—the rhythm and the wordplay really propel the poem forward. How do you approach writing this type of poem? Is this quality intentional in your writing?
Thank you! That’s my favorite thing to hear about any of my poems, since sound is so important to me when constructing them. Ironically enough, I also feel like the follow-up question about how to approach writing this type of poem feels almost impossible to answer. I guess it’s important to note, first, that these elements—sound, rhythm, wordplay—feel as natural to poem-making for me as the words themselves. I do find that some poems, more than others, can create sense and meaning using the logic of sound, and those poems are the most fun for me to write, as I often find the turns they take at once surprising and inevitable.
That also probably answers the question of intention, but I’ll also add that part of that intention is owed to how accessible a poem with an emphasis on sound can be for non-poets. You don’t need a degree in poetry to enjoy the way a poem sounds. I’m reminded of the first poem I had published, and my mother saying she liked it but didn’t understand it, and then my aunt, a poetry lover, telling her to try reading it aloud, just enjoying the music of it. The music is as important as anything for me.
Who are your writing influences? Who are some poets that make you excited to keep writing?
It’s interesting to think about whose writing influenced the first poem, since it was written over five years ago. I remember getting really into a bunch of sound poets at the time and also diving, weirdly enough, into the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. At the same time, I feel like that poem is just as much influenced by all manner of writers—there are loose references to some rappers I was listening to back then, including Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper, and several references to Sherwood Anderson’s short story collection, Winesburg, Ohio, too. These days, I count Tracy K. Smith, Ada Limón, Kyle Dargan, Ben Lerner, Terrance Hayes, and Jericho Brown among my favorite poets. But I would also say that the poems that make me most excited to keep writing are the poems my friends write. Getting to see new work from grad school friends, for instance, poets who were monumentally influential at a time where I saw the most development in my own writing—that’s the best.
And, for some reason, I always find myself especially eager to write when reading fiction. (I often consider the fiction of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce my favorite poetry.) Even now, I just finished reading Cloud Atlas, upon a friend’s recommendation, and despite also reading several books of poetry simultaneously, I found that story was the one that most made me want to put pen to paper.