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Poet Talk
A podcast where poets talk. Hosted by poets Jody Chan and Sanna Wani. Join us as we delve into mundane matters, carefully researched and curiously curated, usually with a special guest. From dogs and video games to beginnings and beauty, find out what poets are talking about and why.
Poet Talk
2 — Poet Talk about the Parasocial featuring Summer Farah
Welcome to the second episode of Poet Talk! In this episode, Jody and Sanna talk to Palestinian poet, critic and editor Summer Farah about the parasocial. Together, they delve into all things online: video games, prose poems and Tumblr as a critical space. The trio defines the parasocial by analyzing pop culture, like Chappell Roan and Mitski's “solidarity” with Palestine and Richard Siken's relationship to the Supernatural fandom. Summer shares poems from her chapbook, I could live again and die again, and her in-progress series, I tell Etel Adnan about Supernatural. From loneliness and obsession to the ancient act of fanfiction, this episode is an introduction to what the parasocial and poetry have to offer each other.
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Cool Stuff Below! 🛍️
💬 "para"
💬 "social"
📚 Dictionary.com's definition
📗 I could live today and die again by Summer Farah
📕 "& I was so young when I behaved 25" by Summer Farah
📙 Capable Monsters by Marlin M. Jenkins
🎮 Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
📺 Haikyu!!
♪"Punisher" by Phoebe Bridgers
🗣️ "Mitski had to Quit Music to Love It"
♫ Laurel Hell by Mitski
❤️ Etel Adnan
📘 There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraqib
❤️ Mary Oliver
📺 Supernatural
📕 How Do I Look? by Sennah Yee
📝 "The Desert" by Sennah Yee
📖 canthius
📘 Crush by Richard Siken
📙 If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga
📗 War of Foxes by Richard Siken
📝 "I Tell Etel Adnan about Mitski" by Summer Farah
❤️ Jess Rizkallah
🔔 Follow, rate and subscribe to Poet Talk wherever you're listening.
✨ Poet Talk is independently run, created and produced by Sanna Wani.
♫ Check out the show music in the album Hélice's Awesome Dance Adventure and the creator Komiku on their website.
📲 Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, @talkpoet.
Poet Talk about the Parasocial featuring Summer Farah
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Sanna Wani: [00:00:00]
Hello, and welcome to Poet Talk, a podcast where poets talk. I'm your host, Sana Wani.
Jody Chan:
And I'm your host, Jody Chan.
Sanna Wani:
Before we begin, I want to ground us in another land acknowledgement. This time our guest is coming in from California in what is colloquially known as the United States. The area which is now known as San Diego County has been inhabited for more than 12, 000 years by the Kumeyaay, the Poyamkamacham, the Kupenyo, the Kawila, and the Hashiman, among many other local predecessors.
The Kumeyaay Research Department writes on the resistance of the Kumeyaay against the Spanish. It was seen as overwhelming to the Spanish at times. In 1771, a lieutenant colonel summed up the Kumeyaay attitudes as follows: "Indeed, this tribe, which among the discovered, is the most numerous and is also the most restless, stubborn, haughty, warlike, and hostile towards us, absolutely opposed to all rational subjection, and full of the spirit of independence."
In this time, may we all embody the spirit of restlessness, stubbornness, and hostility towards the forces of colonialism that look to silence us and continue committing genocide across the world ceaselessly. May we all carry a spirit virulently opposed to all rational subjugation and full of independence.
From Turtle Island to Palestine, none of us are free until all of us are free. This week, we're talking about the parasocial. We'll discuss the parasocial in terms of parasocial interactions, parasocial behaviors, and as the word is most commonly found, parasocial relationships. To contextualize the word even further, let me borrow from Dictionary.com's Tech and Science Dictionary and Wiktionary. For a moment, I love Wiktionary. The typical definition is as follows. Coined by the American sociologist Richard Wall and Donald Horton in 1956, the term parasocial refers to a relationship that a person imagines having with another person whom they do not actually know, such as a celebrity or a character.
It has also been popularly referred to as intimacy at a distance. The term can be broken down into the ancient Geek parts para-, as a powerful prefix meaning beside, along, adjacent, or next to, um, which also has associations with strangeness, unrecognition, avoidance, or falsehood. And social is a word we all know pretty well, but perhaps I can amplify by adding that the root of the word is simply friend.
And joining us to discuss the parasocial is the incredible Palestinian poet, writer, and editor, summer Farah. She's the author of the zine "And I Was So Young When I Behaved 25,: poems [00:03:00] inspired by Mitski, and the chapbook "I Could Die Today and Live Again," inspired by the Legend of Zelda series and published by Game Over Books.
She's funny, thoughtful, and like ridiculously cool. Um, I've had the honor of knowing her maybe parasocially, maybe virtually, it depends on how we define it, for a few years now, and her writing never fails to stun and surprise me. When I think of rising stars in poetry, and when I think of writers who I can deeply trust and rely on for both their delight and their ethic, Summer immediately comes to mind.
She's a beacon of what it means to me to know poetry in all of its liveliness, all of its grief, all of its good memory. Jody, now it's Jody's turn to talk about lovely things about Summer.
Jody Chan:
Sorry to make you squirm off the top. Um, but Sanna, I love that you grounded us in the roots of parasocial also - beside a friend -
[00:04:00] because when I think about you, Summer, I think of you as a friend of a friend in the best way. Um, everyone knows someone who knows you and has glowing and loving things to say about you. You're someone I've been connected to in community and adjacently for many years now, and now through Sanna as well, so who better to talk to about the parasocial, both the celebrity aspects, um, and some of those maybe dangerous aspects, but also how it can genuinely bring people together in connection and community. These days I've been bringing Summer's work into almost every reading that I've been doing - you're someone whose work I turn to to be with humor, hunger, ancestry, love.
I'm thinking about a few lines in your poem, our flag means death, which I read recently: "no more, if only, if only, if only instead we wanted different and we've decided to make it so. instead we know what we've always deserved." And your poetry offers so much of that different that what we've always deserved.
And for me, it's a compass for my own living and community building and yeah, reading you always reminds me of the feeling of freedom and what it is we're fighting for. Welcome. I'm sorry. Welcome. We're so sorry. Oh my goodness.
Summer Farah:
No, that's nice. Listen, um, I had like four hours of sleep. This is really overwhelming.
Thank you for being so nice to me. I admire both of you so much and I think we're going to have a lot of fun.
Jody chan:
I think so too. But yeah, Summer, we're wondering if you want to start us off today by reading one of the poems from your chapbook, I Could Die Today and Live Again, and yeah, just share anything you want with us about why you chose this poem for today.
Summer Farah [00:06:00]:
Yeah, I'll read this poem: "In another life, Link is a poet."
Shaped by need, desire, legend, my heart
Scattered in pieces across time zones
Immortal as tradition
What am I but goddess will?
Across cliff sides, I leap towards salvation for me, for country Stalling at every song that leads lovers astray Mustn't forget where I am meant to be Each interlude a stolen secret, a quiet tremor against what has already been told.
Long had my movements been dictated by worn trails, trotted on by horses named for goddesses, by the familiar brush of blonde as desert darkness looms at every signpost. Me, who does not speak until spoken to, femininity a sword, calloused hands remember ancestry as calloused hands touch steel. I yearn for the after, I feel it in sibling laughter, in the house across the lake, the seclusion of water, it brings me peace, it brings me death, I write this verse over and over, if the bard stops singing of green, who am I when the last chord rings out?
Oh, in my fingertips, in my breath, long have I yearned for more than me, for all of us.
There's a few poems in the book with that title, "In Another Life Link is a Poet," um, and it became sort of the anchoring motif for the book. So it's poems inspired by Zelda. Um, I wanted to write poems where I wasn't immediately obviously the speaker in the way that like, um, I think most of my work is very incredibly confessional and intimate.
And so I want to experiment with like taking on a different voice both in terms of tone of the line and language and, um, figure who's speaking, and I think video games are especially a lot of Nintendo protagonists are so fun for that because they are not you, but they are you, you know, like they aren't characters that you can customize into yourself, but they're also, um, sort of blank slate enough where you can project onto them.
And so there is this kind of, um, convergence between player self and the character self. Um, um, was, yeah, it was like a fun experiment to see like, how much can I reference my own life so immediately, but it also be, Something that you can pull from the game as well, like I tried very hard to be like there.
I'm not gonna use, um, moments of departure of metaphor or image that don't have, um, kind of like cognates in the game as well, unless I want to be very, very, drastic and pointed about it. And so, yeah, and thinking [00:09:00] about like parasocial relationships and that kind of distant intimacy, I think that, um, relationships to sort of fictional, I think when I think about parasocial, most of the time, I do think more about like my celebrity relationships, but there is like this kind of two way attachment, I think, there's a convergence.
And so, yeah, I thought it would be a fun poem to read for our conversation. How do we project onto things that can't push back against that projection as well. But at the same time, staying very grounded to the images or the objects or the reference points that are kind of within that world or of that character.
Jody Chan:
Yeah, I like what you said, unless I'm gonna be really drastic and intentional and and very pointed, um, about the reason for that departure.
Sanna Wani:
I was thinking as you were [00:10:00] reading that I love hearing Link's voice through you. Like, you bring, like, I think everybody has their own special kind of like when you're playing the game, it's like a different, everyone's a different link, maybe, right? But then like, Summer's link, I love the quiet, precise poetry of it. Like, I don't know, there's just this feeling of like, when you're in the game, like, there's that Bigness and that expansiveness that bring so many of us to it, but then there's also just this very precious quiet and like, I feel like you captured that so beautifully.
Summer Farah:
Thank you. Um, I think in a lot of, I don't know, just like general media I engage with, but mostly I'll normally play video games where there is like fighting and violence. Um, cartoonish most of the time because I mostly play Nintendo, but um, I think like when you watch like, I don't know, like shonen anime or you play games where the protagonists are young [00:11:00] people, a lot of times it's like, well, I wish I could take them away from this violence and this struggle.
Um, I want to put like, I just want everyone to play volleyball on Haikyuu.
What if Link could coach a high school volleyball team?
But yeah, in thinking about a character who has a cyclical destiny and like, well, what is the what-if of this character? And I think Link could be a poet. Why not? That'd be really fun. Yeah.
Jody Chan:
I love that. Totally. What is the what if of this character? So I was gonna say, as I was listening to you read this poem, there's almost like a split screen kind of thing happening for me.
Like Link as the character and then also there's this sort of loving presence that I'm sort of hearing coming from you and surrounding this character with the what if and even in exploring like the yearning of [00:12:00] the character, like these blank slate video game characters don't get to have desires or their own longings, or so often it's just like it's just like scripted, Your heroes adventure or whatever, and um that it is for the people or for the all of us. But yeah even in that last line of yearning for more than me for all of us, like including, including himself in that all of us.
Sanna Wani:
Um, and yeah, I'm just like, I don't know, is there an escape from this responsibility for this character who has this, who is, yeah, kind of cast in this way. Um, God knows he needs it. Yeah. I'm also thinking, since you've, uh, summoned Haikyuu into the room somewhere, I'm thinking about, I also, I'm a big fan, obsessed with that ridiculous volleyball anime, don't know why I'm so emotionally dependent on their success.
[00:13:00] Anyway, um, but there's one scene that's coming to mind that's very resonant with what we're talking about, which is like, one of the characters on a rival team is like, Very kind of like Kenma, like the very video game, quote unquote unmotivated sort of character. But then there's this one scene I think about a lot where he's like running or he's just doing a basic exercise where he's like running outside and it's from his perspective and you can just see what the video games bring to his life.
Like the imaginative power, I think, which video games and poetry have deeply in common. Um, and I just think that that's like, so, because there's also like that recursive relationship to like, where you were in control in some way of like the game and of link in that sense, or like Zelda or whatever's happening.
But there's also a power that they have for us or like that they give us as well, to reimagine our lives or to have this [00:14:00] like, and especially with Zelda, it's just this shockingly beautiful place. And then I just, I feel like that reciprocity between the game and the gamer is so interesting to me in what it can bring to people's lives.
Jody Chan:
Speaking of game and gamer, summer, I was wondering, so when I was reading the acknowledgement section, there's this line at the end where you wrote, thank you to my very real friends, Link and Zelda. I wondered if you want to talk about that and. Yeah, just what kind of relationships are possible with video game characters, with anime characters? Like, would you call that parasocial? Or yeah, just what?
Summer Farah:
Yeah, you know, I, um, you know, in some ways it's like the line is a goof, right? But it is also kind of like the Zelda franchise or games that I've played since I was like a very little girl. Like I think I [00:15:00] kind of learned to read quickly because of playing Ocarina of Time with my brother and he would like scroll through the dialogue really fast because like he'd either already seen it or like just didn't really care and I was like I just learned to read so I've never seen this before.
Um, but please slow down. Um, and so I think a lot of my like Becoming a person is very attached to video games. Um, and I can mark a lot of joy, both in the act of playing with my brother and the other kids in our neighborhood but also like, The kind of imitation. I was a little baby gymnast and I would pretend that I was link, you know, tumbling around.
Um, I think that I had such a strong affinity for the visuals of the games [00:16:00] where there are like the beautiful luscious trees that children live in and just this desire to be like, that kind of independent child left alone in this magical self sufficient world. Um, and I think Zelda is also a character that was always really appealing as like, you know, I wasn't, I liked princesses as a kid, but I wasn't really like a princess girl.
Um, and so I liked the duality that Zelda offered of being like, a little girl who likes video games where there is a princess character that can fit into like sort of what you're supposed to like. Um, but she's also like chic. She's also a ninja. She's also like a powerful player in this sort of triangulation of destiny.
Um, and yeah, I very much was [00:17:00] attached to both of those characters. and at every point in my life, there has been a Zelda game for me to play. Um, And this book in particular kind of started both, you know, as the experiment, but, um, I first started thinking about wanting to write about Zelda when I was really sick after I graduated college, um, like I'd wanted to write Zelda poems before. Marlon M. Jenkins, my dear friend, an incredible poet, has Capable Monsters, which is an incredible chapbook of Pokemon poems, but I'd been reading their work, um, before the chapbook came out, but I just was so enchanted with the way that they sort of wove poems from Pokedex entries. And I was like, well, I want to try that. I'm trying to turn game into poetry. Like, how do I capture the feeling of playing into a poem the way Marlon sort of does these kind of [00:18:00] just gorgeous, sort of like a frosted poems from Pokedex entries. But I had this period where I was like, after I graduated college, basically like all of the stress of being a student sort of made me very ill. Aand I was like having just bad asthma flares where I just couldn't really walk down the street without needing my inhaler. Um, and so I was playing a lot of Breath of the Wild and it was my strongest escapism of like, well, I'm with my buddy Link who can climb cliffs and waterfalls and fight and doesn't need an inhaler every three hours.
So yeah, I think that there's that sense of comfort and I don't know if it's, I mean, the thing is like by definition, I guess it is parasocial because these characters [00:19:00] can't interact back with me. But some of parasocial to me, there is a sense of expectation, I think, based upon the other person in the relationship, as if they can't reciprocate, because we don't know each other or they're not real.
And so I'm expecting a certain behavior that would mark the reciprocation. Like, I love Mitski and her music. And she's a talented artist whose work I see myself in. And so my brain says, well, then she must care about Palestine because we can't talk to each other, but she can signify a reciprocation of our relationship by acknowledging genocide or something, you know, and I think that's when that kind of parasocial thing fucks me up, right, because I'm not even realizing that I'm [00:20:00] hoping for that sort of relationship or considering that reciprocation. And then I'm like, Jesus Christ.
Jody Chan:
Right. Yeah. Like when they fail that expectation, that actually it's like, Oh.
Sanna Wani:
I love that word, like just expectation being added or differentiating like the parasocial and I'd love to dig more into that. one of our questions was about how we define the parasocial. So I'd love to hear like how you think of it. Yeah, just to share more about what that texture of difference is.
Summer Farah:
I mean, I think it's hard. I was listening to some Phoebe Bridgers earlier, and what is it? What's the song? Uh, Punisher. Uh, she has the line, what if I told you I feel like I know you but we've never met?
I think that there's kind of [00:21:00] two lanes in which there is this desire and hope that the other people that we are kind of sharing this earth with have good values, you know, or at least like caring values or minimum sort of threshold of care for fellow humans. Um, and then there's the parasocial aspect, which is when we are maybe like projecting onto or taking more than maybe they deserve credit for, for what they've done or said.
Um, like Chappell Roan just performed at the Governor's Ball. Um, she's awesome. I love her music. I'm having a great time being a fan of her. And she, You know, she declined to play at the White House for [00:22:00] Pride, because of the, you know, U. S. contribution to genocide in Palestine.
Um, I mean, but the thing is, she didn't say that, right? She said, like, this vague kind of, When there's peace and justice for all, then I'll perform at the White House. And then at the Governor's Ball, she said something like, I don't know, like freedom for all people in occupied territories.
And, you know, she's been, uh, she's been selling like friendship bracelets at her shows that go to, um, like as a relief. Um, and so, that's like, that's a cool thing that she can do as someone who is touring and people want to buy things that have her, signature on them, right? Freedom for people in occupied territories can mean anything, she's performing on stolen land, right? But, you know, you can see people saying like, Oh, well, like, Palestine's not the only genocide [00:23:00] happening. And it's like, totally. But I think every people, if you are expressing care for them, they deserve to be named. They deserve the dignity to be named. So if you are shouting them out at your show when you have this sort of platform, if you're talking in code, then that's a kind of a bummer, but like, you know, I will, you know, take it or leave it, but I think the parasocial aspect comes in with the, well, like, I know what Chappell means.
Jody Chan:
Right. My good friend. It's almost like in that desire for intimacy with this person that you have this parasocial relationship with or celebrity and being overly generous and like ascribing an intention like, Oh, of course, of course she meant Palestine. Of course she meant this or that when actually like, like, we don't, we don't really know what she meant because she wasn't specific. Yeah. And someone with that amount of celebrity, like having [00:24:00] responsibility or like accountability for the power they have, um, or the platform they have.
Sanna Wani:
It's reminding me too of like attribution because the term parasocial is very psychological, and then that brings to mind these ideas, like what do we attribute to what and sometimes like, Why do we do that? And how does that not necessarily correlate to like, what exists or not for that person, but what exists for us? And then I was just thinking that this whole Chappell Roan thing reminded me of Jody. Some of your thoughts about Mitski. Yeah. Maybe we could slide that way.
Summer Farah:
Miss Of course I support Palestine.
Sanna Wani:
Could it be anything else? Go, go, go. Three Mitski lovers in a Zoom call going, go, go, go. Get her, get her.
Summer Farah:
Like, give me a fucking break. I don't know. Um, yeah, Jody, I would love to hear your [00:25:00] thoughts. Cause I have some entirely way too generous parasocial feelings about like this entire. I love, I love the new album.
I love it so much, but I'm so fascinated in the technique of the rollout of it and what she's been doing. Like leave me alone, kind of like, making herself a character, creating these types of allowed Intimacies where it's like, come watch the movies that I like. Now we have that in common.
Listen to me talk about what the songs are about. That's what we have. Like these kind of allowables that she's giving for this because people are, you know, they're awful to her or her fans are not kind to her. Um, and it's scary. And I understand that. And I feel for her in the ways which she's talked about it, but it gets to a point where it's like, okay, but like. There are bigger things than the characters that we have to play in order to sort of protect ourselves.
Sanna Wani:
But just to contextualize maybe for [00:26:00] people who don't know just to lay the groundwork maybe if we could say more about, like I actually don't even know that her fans were awful to her. I just kind of took it for granted that she just hated being a celebrity, like this is what Jody and I talked about, like there's this one interview I've read where she refuses to even share her cat's names, just in case somebody might like, she feels like somebody might be able to track down where she lives, which is completely valid in this age of the internet.
Like it's terrifying to have yourself be out there as a public persona. But then she, you know, kind of pretends to opt out of her celebrity, which leaves this kind of raging open gap that it's what we're all poking at being like, well, you know, you're not really opting out at all.
You're just being silent, which is your choice. But like, Yeah.
Summer Farah:
So I guess where I'm coming from in terms of like a fan history, uh, earlier interviews that she's given, she's talked about the ways that people have like [00:27:00] touched her, when she is in a crowd or when she's exiting a crowd. I think that there's a lot of like kind of invasiveness and kind of sense of ownership over her body and she's talked about being a small Asian woman in these spaces and just the kind of ways people want to kind of hold her and like have her and I think that that's in the kind of like Contemporary era of her career in which she is far more successful has turned into. She says, please don't use your phone the entire show. I would love to connect with you all. And then people are so mad at her for weeks to the point where she has to apologize for saying, please don't be on your phone the whole show. And I mean, I think all artists experience some degrees of this, but I think there is a, um, especially with the way her earlier music is that kind of like, [00:28:00] incredible raw vulnerability.
I think that is being used against her by people who are ideally supposed to be like celebrating and feeling with her. But it feels like it kind of comes into a place of ownership, or if she owes them something, because of the attention, instead of it being a reciprocal exchange, which I think is what she's been trying very hard to get with the last two albums and it isn't right.
Jody Chan:
It's interesting to like, try and tease out these dynamics of like entitlement or expectation, like the kinds of ownership that you're describing, like with some of her fans. But then on the other hand, at what point are celebrities, I don't know, do have a responsibility to acknowledge like the power and the wealth and the platform they have. And [00:29:00] I feel like that's a way that people like critique others who are like, hey, why haven't you said anything about Palestine? Or why haven't you said anything about Sudan? Or like, and then people will say, oh, that's not true. These people are humans. You're not entitled to their activism and you're not entitled to their politics and that feels like a totally different thing.
So how do we talk about these different kinds of expectation in this realm of parasocial.
Summer Farah:
So, um, what is it, not silly, but it is silly when people say things like that, when it's like, okay, there's a big difference between Mitski telling you her cat's name so you can stalk her and her not doing a ticket sale when there's been a strike called from journalists in Gaza, you know?
and those are kind of like moves of solidarity you can make as an artist. So yeah, it's like, we're all people in this world, right, and we all can do certain things, and like, I would love it if my most listened to artist did all of the things that I would want myself to do if I was in their position.
Um, I'm not going to create like an ultimatum in my head for that. Like maybe I should, I don't think I'm capable of doing that though. Um, unfortunately, um, but there are things where it's like, yeah, it is a bummer that the tickets for a show. went on sale when I was not spending any money because to respect the wishes of journalists for being experiencing a genocide or, um, she hasn't played in Israel.
I don't think she will.
We both know. [00:31:00] And then it's interesting because the people that kind of surround her creatively are pretty vocal, like her photographer for this full album cycle is incredibly vocal about Palestine. People who have worked on the installations, um, her pop ups are incredibly, are Palestinian even, her openers, like Julia Jaclyn, um, yeah, and so it's just a very interesting thing where it's like, what is the holdup? And I think the holdup is that she is trying very hard to be like this new era of Mitski. I don't know.
Jody Chan:
Maybe I'm projecting too much but it's also almost like the more people move up the ladder of fame and celebrity and success, the more coddling or special babying there is of them around [00:32:00] making a very basic political stance or like a stance of solidarity when actually it's young racialized working class artists and Palestinians who are actually experiencing a genocide who are actually experiencing these consequences. Um, and why is there so much holding of the feelings of this person who has so much and is not.
Sanna Wani:
To kind of return this conversation about, about Mitski and about celebrity to your poems, Summer, like you do have a series of poems writing to or writing with, And so I'm curious if you want to say anything about that and why you gravitate towards the parasocial and what it, yeah, offers those poems or [00:33:00] to your poetry in general.
Summer Farah:
So yeah, I had my Mitski zine, which was written basically mostly in an April 30 for 30 kind of thing. I was in a lot of like emotional pain, um, very turbulent moment in my life that hasn't really stopped being turbulent. Um, and, uh, you know, I was listening to Laurel Hill just like constantly, constantly, and I really like using music and broader pop culture in my poems cause I don't get out much.
And especially where I live now, I'm quite isolated from other people who are not my family members. [00:34:00] Um, and so a lot of the kind of company I keep is sort of the TV and music I listen to. And I feel like I wasn't as interested in kind of writing Mitski beside me in that sort of way, but I was interested in the way that her voice is a voice I hear more than other voices, maybe my own even, and so it got to a point where it's like, I didn't, I wasn't really able to write poems without that kind of interruption of her voice, sort of like, it became a sort of heartbeat. Like hearing her music as I was thinking and processing, um, and yeah, it was fun. It was, you know, it was just a fun project to do, but I don't like my [00:35:00] tendency towards the parasocial. I don't like how obsessive I am. I would like to not be that way. And so, I've been writing poems that are kind of like, to Etel Adnan, legendary poet, art philosopher.
I've been reading a lot of her work and, you know, she writes about art so beautifully. She writes about obsession, and she writes through her obsessions and she creates these incredible things from them. And I was like, well, like, loved Mount Tamal, PA, and she loved Cezanne and Picasso, and I love Mitski and Supernatural.
And so I've been trying to sort of find a more critical edge when I'm writing about these sort of figures. Um, and [00:36:00] so, the other Mitski poem that I have now is really moony and really loving. But I do have drafts of ones that are more, kind of like heartbroken, and critical.
I just finished Hanif Abdurraqib's new book, There's Always This Year, and the chapters about it's, you know, it's a basketball book, but it's a Hanif book, so it's tender and gorgeous and heartbreaking and like the most incredible poetic prose, you know. but the chapters about LeBron James leaving Ohio are like, just so devastatingly beautiful and just the most poignant kind of meditations on longing and heartbreak and the desire to stay and return and be in a place with others.
[00:37:00] It's just, it's so beautiful. And, you know, I'm reading this book and I'm like, man, this is like parasocial handbook. Like, I love Hanif's work and partially it's because he writes about these sort of parasocial relationships in a way that feels dignified. Yeah.
I write a lot about friendship. And I think it does make sense that I've started to write a lot about parasocial too, because a lot of my friendships are because of the art that we engage with together. And I've written about friendship breakups and heartbreak. And so I'm trying to, how do I, I don't know, intellectualize myself out of obsession.
Jody Chan:
Oh, good. Well, if you, if you think of anything, please let me know. I would love to intellectualize myself out of obsession too. Yeah.
Sanna Wani:
When you said, Summer, that you don't particularly like this [00:38:00] part of you maybe that gravitates towards the parasocial. I'd love to hear more about that. And then I also wanted to hold for a second, like just the whole idea of friendship or loneliness or being alone.
Because I think when, when we decided on this topic and I was doing my really early research, like without having talked to Jody yet, one of the things I was thinking about was like, and when, when I, when we were asking the question of like, how do we all define the parasocial? I felt like, I don't know, almost like important to say, it's so resonant what you're sharing, because like, I don't know, moved from Toronto to Jeddah.
So I lived most of my teenage life, I don't think I like talk about this publicly very often, but I lived most of my teenage life in Saudi Arabia in Jeddah. the ages of 10 or 11 to 18. It's like really formative years where I was kind of honestly like really a loner. Like I had really strict parents.
[00:39:00] I was living in this country where there were no movies. Sometimes there was TV. I was just, I only really had the internet for like most of that time and I really feel like a lot of people relate to this but growing up with the internet as one of your teachers like really does something to the brain and to really just like, how close up it feels like your personhood is to technology, or is to online. I feel so shared in that sense and like there's a particular kind of loneliness that parasociality assuages, and I think, honestly, saves lives.
Like it really offers something when there is very little else, when you are in a space that is for whatever reason kind of isolated, it really is quite important, I think, to allowing a sense of agency or allowing a sense of self to still flourish. So I was just [00:40:00] thinking about all of that.
And just also like the dignity in the parasocial, and how, like, I don't know. Like, this is not a new thing, I think. Like, parasocial relationships have existed since, like, Dante was fangirling over Virgil in, like, Inferno. Like he, you know, he was obsessed with this poet, and then he decided to write a really famous book that is essentially fanfic about a poet that he loves.
Um, Bible and Virgil combined. And I think that that's like, the dignity is offered sometimes to those, to certain figures, not to maybe say anything against Dante or Hanif, but it's like, who is allowed that dignity?
Summer Farah:
Absolutely. Right, like, why isn't, like, the random person writing really really good, like, [00:41:00] BTS fanfiction in, like, some Minnesota town offered. Like why is that offered shame and then this is offered dignity, it's like high and low art kind of thing, but it's like who values what, maybe, yeah, and you know I think the low art thing is something that I'm really attached to.
In that like, poetry theoretically is normally considered a high art, I guess, but I think the poetry that people maybe talk about a lot is the poetry to consider low art, like Instagram poets, and like Rupi Kaur, and just kind of like, Mary Oliver slander, you know, kinds of things, which, yeah, that was crazy.
Oh my goodness. What was going on there? You know, okay, speaking of Mary Oliver, every person I have told to read Mary [00:42:00] Oliver, they've been like, wow, I don't want to kill myself anymore. You know, not to be crass. Like, I think that there is a life saving parasociality with Miss Mary Oliver.
May she rest in peace. But yeah, to kind of jump back to the earlier, like why I don't want that kind of obsessive relationship. I'm on my phone a lot. I'm on my phone all the time. I'm on screens all the time. and sometimes I'll be like, I'm going to turn off my phone for a little bit and like, read a book.
But then I sever myself from friendship, communication, knowledge of the world, and I would love to be in a place in my life where I don't need those kind of [00:43:00] handholds. Kind of like the way that obsessive relationships to art have kind of filled the spaces of loneliness and sense of displacement in my personhood.
Um, yeah, like I love having a good time and reading Haikyuu five times in one month. But it's like, I did that because I was really lonely and really sad and I needed something to help me, encourage me to take care of myself, which it did. Haikyuu is life changing. it is good for the spirit.
And there are things that are not good for the spirit, like Supernatural.
Jody Chan:
I feel like this is bringing me in my mind to talking about Sennah Yee and How Do I Look and those poems.
Sanna Wani:
[00:44:00] Totally. I think that that's, that's exactly where it was taking me to. So Sennah's book, How Do I Look, published by Metatron Press in, I don't know when actually, 2018 maybe? Maybe 2017? Amazing book, blurbed by Mitski also, if we're continuing the powers of the universe circling us.
But she also writes in this register, I feel of like bringing, and we've been talking about high art, low art, like bringing the things that she loves into poems to try to understand what they mean to her. Like a lot of her poems are titled after movies. And they're all prose poems, which is a nice little tickle to follow later.
Cause I wanted to ask you about prose poems too, but why don't you share why you love that book?
Summer Farah:
I feel like she is the person who kind of did the things that I wanted to do. And I was so enamored that there was a model with [00:45:00] which to build on. I think I first saw one of her poems in Canthius, which is another connection. And I read it and I was like, I said, I got to get her book right away.
Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah I love prose poems. I'm so drawn to them. I think there's a frantic energy to them that feels very in line with both kind of just my general vibe and why I come to writing. And I think that I just love the book. I love all of the different ways that she moves through the movies and things that she is talking about, some of it is like, sort of an encompassing of a moment in her life. My favorite poems in the book are actually the ones that aren't movie or TV or [00:46:00] art related. They're the flora, fauna in the desert. Those are my favorite. I think that she does this incredible job with, uh, I think it's sort of like the Kenma thing.
Like moving the sort of constructed world of art into our natural environment and envisioning it as if it were real. Like, cinematizing our world, sort of. And I just, I love those poems. Like, I always think of the line in the desert. What do you want to be when you rot? I want flowers seeping out of my jaw, snaking around my bones.
I want something to grow out of me. It's like, it's just a four line poem and it's so impactful to me. It's so vivid and it feels sort of like, at the end of hours and hours and hours of sort of obsessive, hyper fixated state. That sense of bodily rot, [00:47:00] imagining something new from it.
And yeah, I just, I was so drawn to it. I've read it a million times since I've gotten it and I recommend it to so many people. I adore Sennah. I try to read books that are mostly prose poems a lot, both in that, just like to learn from, but also to feel better about the fact that it's just the form that I gravitate towards, and so it was probably one of the more, like, exciting and empowering texts that I've spent time with.
I think the rest of my career will just be stealing Sennah's vibe.
Sanna Wani:
Perfect. I think she will be happy to hear that. She's so sweet. So bright person. I'm really curious about one thing you said just now about prose poems, uh, maybe shed light on like what brought you to [00:48:00] writing in general. Could you say more about that?
Summer Farah:
Yeah. I was always like a bookish kid, you know, writing little short stories. But when I was in high school, and I was on tumblr.com. I was really into this show called Supernatural. Have you ever heard of it?
Jody Chan:
Yeah. It's come up once or twice.
Summer Farah:
And I think a lot of the technical creative skills that I have come from being in fandom. Like I know how to edit videos because of YouTube. Disney Channel fandom on YouTube. I know how to use Photoshop because of Tumblr. I know how to, you know, these kinds of things. And so, you know, people make like gif sets on Tumblr, of, you know, characters and relationships and things, and they'll put poems.
[00:49:00] and I'd always wanted to be into poetry because I was like, I feel like I'm like really sad and moody and that would be good for me as a 15 year old girl. And so I was like, I don't really know how to find poetry that feels good on my brain or hits the thing.
And luckily, Mr. Richard Siken's work was all over Tumblr. There he is. Um, you're in a car with a beautiful boy. And that was like, his work was really big and supernatural, specifically like Destiel. I do want to, I need to state that for the record. Not the other one. Not the other one. Oh god, I hope no one thinks it's the other one. So, [00:50:00] you know, like, me and my friends were like, ah, it's crazy, beautiful words. And I bought the book, Crush, and I read it, and it was kind of the first time that I understood what poetry is, could be, and what potential there is. Louise Gluck's introduction is actually very impactful for me. The way it begins, just: this is a book about panic. And I was like, well, I'm always panicking. I'm always anxious. I'm always like, so just overwhelmed 99, 100 percent on edge. And to see panic interpolated in this way, I was like, wow. Maybe poetry is something that can help me. And so, a lot of my Tumblr friends, you know, we all tried to write our little Tumblr poetry. A lot of it was also just about supernatural,[00:51:00]
but eventually I wrote about myself. I did slam when I was in college. And so I think a lot of my kind of beginnings was twofold, was fandom, and how do you, engaging with poetry through TV, basically, and like, how can I understand this poem through an existing art? And then it was slam, so how do I write about myself in a way that is understandable to an audience in those three minutes that I am allowed on stage where no one can look anything up and they're going to judge me.
I come to it from this fandom space. I am trained in writing in a space in which, how do you [00:52:00] relate to a majority? And so the language of pop culture is just, it is my language. I feel very like, feel more girlsy in that way. That's mylittle poetic journey.
I was just gonna ask about kind of prose poems becoming the right container for these feelings of fandom or obsession, and also like frantic kind of panic vibe.
Summer Farah:
Yeah, I love prose poems. I love the way that it can join something that is scattered. I think that there's a rhythm of the container, the kind of way in which it is smushed together, can make those logical leaps feel really true and exciting.
I think that there's a [00:53:00] stream of consciousness that appeals a lot to me. And there's like a storytelling in that stream of consciousness. I don't want to say it's the easy way out because there is a skill to a prose poem. And not every poem should be one.
And I do like to play with form in other ways. And I do know kind of like the way in which form and content must care for each other. Right. But yeah, I just, I feel really excited when I read a really good prose poem, because I feel like it's a lot of feelings at once, kind of like thumped into me.
I like that sense of overwhelm. It's one of the things I gravitate towards in all types of writing, like in prose as well. Like, I love feeling like a cool wave is washing over me [00:54:00] as I am sitting with this work. And, yeah, I'm having a blast, I haven't written a non prose poem in like a year, but I should push myself.
Sanna Wani:
I mean, I think that there's something about, there's nothing more lovely, I think, as a reader than noticing that the writer is enjoying themselves. Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel that when I read, like, Noor Naga's book is coming to my brain, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, because there's just something very rich that happens when you can tell that somebody is invested in what they're touching, almost.
And I completely agree with you also that there's something about the prose poem form that, like, I'm making a square hand gesture. There's condensing that it allows, it pushes things really [00:55:00] close together. I think if you put poetry in a sentence, something weird happens. You know, we have this idea of poetry being one thing and prose being one thing, which to a certain lived extent is true.
Like, they are two different things. And then when they come together, it's like very powerful in that way. That's what form maybe dictates or changes. And that's why if you put any poem into a prose poem, it will change. It will change in that like, very eerie kind of weird cinematic way.
Jody Chan:
Yeah, I love prose poems too and this is making me want to go back to writing them. But yeah, I feel like I don't think of prose poems as not having line breaks, like it still has to end. I just think of it as having more edges. I'm making the same square shape, just has more edges to push up against. I feel one of my engines in my poetry [00:56:00] is definitely desire and longing and obsession and prose poems have also been a place for me to give form to that longing that feels like the right shape for it, sort of this desire that is always reaching beyond the constraints of the world, or like the form that it's been given, trying to extend beyond that and this kind of like restless, internally tense or contradictory kind of way. Yeah. And very overwhelming. Just yeah, like the sentences follow each other and almost contradicting the way that there's an expectation of linearity or that the associations aren't going to be too wild, but then when it transcends that, just like, yeah, everything that a prose poem can hold, yeah, it's really amazing.
Sanna Wani:
In talking about parasociality and especially [00:57:00] with you, Summer, there's something to be said about that connection between Richard Siken's work, and the way the Supernatural fandom took it up. There's something to, I think, the nexus where that happened, where Supernatural, in many different ways, took up Crush so deeply and then the back and forth Richard Siken had with the fandom, which I find so fascinating. The book is generally popular too in poetry and I feel like it has many poetic lineages. I just, I don't know. There's something to, we're talking about longing and we're talking about pain and loneliness, and I think many of those things come across in this book. Also like Sennah Yee's book, he's a kind of origin. And so I guess I was interested in that.
Summer Farah:
You know, I think it's interesting because of, you know, he's online, [00:58:00] he's tweeting and it's gotten to the point where he doesn't really tweet except to reply to people, which I think is cool.
I think the thing is there are more poets on Twitter than people realize. I have mutuals with, like, two Pulitzer Prize winners on Twitter.com, like it's not that crazy of a thing, they're just on the computer. Of course they are. But it was a really interesting kind of revelation to see how many people did not engage with his work outside of its reassigned context of fandom and there's their ships and things like that. Right. Um, never maybe picked up a copy of the book and just kind of looked on Goodreads for the quotes and things like that. And sort of, my own kind of shock at that [00:59:00] and thinking like, I don't know, not everyone has to be into poetry, but there is an interesting thing where it's like, are you not curious what is behind this quote?
Like, the poem that is quoted most often is a four page poem, you know? And I love Crush, and I love War of the Foxes. Sometimes I like War of the Foxes, his second book, more than I like Crush. I'm really excited for his next book, because it's gonna be fucking prose poems. It's gonna be some indie prose poems.
I'm so excited. You know, it's like sometimes, sometimes it felt like creating work in fandom was kind of like critical work. It was like, when you do a fan video, it's like a thesis statement about these characters in this music and you're creating an argument, and sometimes I would be like frustrated by like, well, that's just lazy.
There's dudes in a car, the emotional undercurrent isn't there. And there is a [01:00:00] huge parasocial aspect to that. I am obsessed with the way that everyone needs him to like the things that they like. there's kind of like two types of fandom, like transformational and affirmational.
And transformational, or transformative is like what I've normally been in, which is like, fanfiction, art, things like that. And then affirmational is more like, fan theories and going to the panels and kind of like relationship with the creator kind of things.
And a lot of affirmational fandom is like, tell me I'm right, tell me I'm right. and it's super fascinating to see people sort of projecting an affirmational fandom onto Richard Siken for things that he did not create. Like, you [01:01:00] don't need to ask him about like, NBC Hannibal, you can feel however you want about it.
He didn't make it. Like he can't tell you if you're right or wrong. He didn't make it. He's just the guy who watches TV. And it's so fascinating to me. I kind of love it. As an anthropological sort of distant witnessing. but yeah, I think Crush is a really interesting text in that it is both formative for the casual reader of poetry as well as the poet, and it is not often maligned in the way that other, maybe popular texts with the casual reader of poetry are.
Jody Chan:
Maligns like in this high art, low art kind of way. This is raising a question for me, for both of you. Maybe this [01:02:00] is just revealing my not on Tumblr, don't really know how Tumblr works. But how do you interact with the people on Tumblr who are sharing your work or quoting your work and maybe, I don't know, if it's misattributing or just attributing their own context or projecting a different context or projecting onto you, even, as the creator of that work. what kind of relationship do you have with those people?
Summer Farah:
I lurk so no one knows that my blog is me. Um, if they really wanted to find out, they probably could. But, uh, for the most part, I just, I search my name, and then I read all the reblog tags and see what people are saying. There's not a lot, but there's a lot of Palestinian poets kind of roundups that my work will be in.
There'll be poems shared in the context of resistance or you know, sharing this [01:03:00] poem is good kind of things, which I always think is fascinating. I love to read the tags on some of my more obvious Palestine poems when they're kind of like people who probably just like really diligent with their tagging or it's like Geopolitical issues.
I'm like, that's not true. It's simply not true. Thank you. No, it's not true. One thing that I did find super interesting was there was a blog that posted excerpts from my book. The Zelda book. But they didn't say the titles of the poems. They just said the title of the book. So it's a quote, like excerpt of a poem and then the title of the book.
And so I saw one of the excerpts reposted on Twitter and I was like, this is super interesting because I think that the person who's posting it on Twitter doesn't know that This title is not the name of this poem. This title is the name of the book and this [01:04:00] poem that they are sharing is a much larger poem that like I don't, you know, like the levels of decontextualization.
I don't mind, but it is really fascinating. But I do like it when people tag fictional characters in the columns. That's kind of what I write for. That's what I'm waiting for. There's so many characters I've never heard of in my whole life, but I'm so happy this person is so excited to attribute this to their favorite guy.
Sanna Wani:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel the same. I think I have different relationships depending. I feel very like this is the same about the decontextualized thing. I think there's one line of the end of one poem from my book that [01:05:00] went viral on Tumblr and then it just went out. like it was out.
It's not even about me anymore. not about my book, not about me. It's just about these two lines that people are taking in a totally different way. And it's very, it's again very anthropologically fascinating because it's almost not even about the words anymore. It's just that people are able to take something out of this that they found resonant.
Usually with Tumblr, I have a very affable disposition. Nostalgia for the whole platform. And I'm alslike a lurker, like I'm never wanting anyone to ever find my Tumblr and I'm very pleased with that. I hope nobody ever does, but then with Instagram, I think I get annoyed actually. So I have a very different relationship based on platform as well, when people like those fucking big ass poetry accounts. My thing is my name. Literally, I [01:06:00] just get a little bit irritated about what are like the politics of accreditation? What are you using this for? I think that matters to me.
I think when it's Tumblr poetry blogs, I'm like, go off. I love you guys. Have fun. When it's Instagram poetry accounts, I get annoyed.
Summer Farah:
There's no monetization on Tumblr.
Sanna Wani:
Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Maybe that's it. Somebody else monetizing themselves off of my poetry annoys me. Yeah.
Summer Farah:
Makes sense. My favorite way I've seen poems used in fandom is as like fan vids, fan edits. Like with a poem being read instead of a song. It's just like kind of one of the most beautiful engagements with poetry I've ever seen, actually, and it feels so meaningful in a way that, I don't know, I just love it when people find new ways to engage with [01:07:00] poetry and I think that's the other thing about it feeling better on Tumblr than Twitter or Instagram. Where I think that there's a consumptive relationship on Instagram. Yeah. On Twitter, it feels like I'm selling myself, because I'm like, look at me, look at me, look at me, I published a poem.
Instagram, it's like, someone is aestheticizing. but on Tumblr, it feels like, I'm feeling with this, I'm engaging with it, and then people are taking it, and creating these cross medium contexts and critical engagements. And I think it's cool.
Jody Chan:
Right. It's almost like the difference between like commodification and collaboration. Very different ways of engaging.
Sanna Wani:
So to close us off, Summer, would you like to read one of your poems from the Etel Adnan series and maybe share a bit about which [01:08:00] poem you chose?
Summer Farah:
Yeah. You know what, I'll read the Mitski poem because we've talked about her so much and I feel like it is indicative of the series at large, which is titled, I Tell Etel Adnan About Supernatural.
But yeah, here we go. I tell Etel Adnan about Mitski.
Your name in everyone's mouth, the everyone in question are those who look at me and when I look back, yes, there is recognition. How many do you know you made feel this way? You change me, the way I consider the fog, my attention to death, a desire for the surreal right where I stand.
I have loved so many prophetic women. At night, we dream any tomorrow that could mundanely be. Do you trust anxious intuition that looks in the future with a nervous throat? Sometimes, what looks back is as affirming as it is warning. You know what this path can [01:09:00] bring. And so, I listen to her sing. I am fulfilled by the knowing, another recognition.
It changes me, the way I consider pretty. My attention to sunlight and how it hits the trees. A desire for what you create to not consume you. A desire to create through the consumption. A desire to live past the consumption. A desire for death. A desire for desire. Desire. A desire. A desire.
Sanna Wani:
Beautiful.
Jody Chan:
Thank you so much. I'm also thinking about your poem and the transformational relationships and the, you changed me, and the repetition, transforming through the repetition and the burrowing through desire. I'm going to go back to it later.
Sanna Wani:
Yeah, just to say on that poem, it's about influences, but whenever I read it anywhere or [01:10:00] acknowledge it, you know, it's about, it's about Etel Adnan it's about Mitski, but it's also about Jess Rizkallah, who is one of the most formative poets on my life. One of the most formative people in my life, like my best friend, like dear sister friend.
And in all of the ways in which these artists who I'm distant from change me and impact me and create a sort of guide for me in my artistic path, Jess does that for me, both artistically and personally. and so I always like, just like to say that there's a secret third person in this lineage of influence in that way.
Sanna Wani:
That's so beautiful. Oh, I love that so much.
Jody Chan:
Yeah. The secret third person, my best friend. Yay![01:11:00]
Jody Chan:
Hey, thanks for listening to this episode on the parasocial with Summer Farah. If you liked this episode, I encourage you to share it with friends. Poet and non poet friends alike, and to please leave a review, comment, or rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening. Don't forget to click that follow button too, so you don't miss our next episode.
Sanna Wani:
Poet Talk is produced and created by me, Sanna Wani, and co hosted by me, Jody Chan. The show music includes songs from the album, Elise's Awesome Dance Adventure by Komiku, including Elise's theme as the intro, and a calm moment to remember before taking the dangerous road as the outro. The transitional music is an anarchist utopia and that weird feeling when you understand that you are alone and the only hope.
You can learn more about Komiku at loyaltyfreakmusic. com. For more information and to support Poet Talk, you can [01:12:00] visit our website, poettalk. buzzsprout. com or follow us on Instagram at @TalkPoet. Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for listening! Bye!
Jody Chan:
Bye bye!
Sanna Wani:
Bye bye!
