Home // July.4.2018 // Vlad Savich

"I write now as a compulsion": An Interview with Brittany Brown

Back in March of this year, to mark the occasion of World Poetry Day, our regular interviewer Vlad Savich decided to mark the occasion by interviewing a poet. He made a connection with Brittany Brown, an artist, poet, memer and feminist peach living outside of Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in publications including Philosophical Idiot, Quail Bell Magazine, Witch Zine and Rag Queen. Instagram is the best place to find out about her latest news, writing and art; she posts as @bluesforspacegirl.


Above: Poet Brittany Brown. Below: the poet's drawing of Nico.

Vlad Savich: Brittany, please, tell us about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do in your life? What kind of a child were you?

Brittany Brown: I live outside of Philadelphia, currently. I spend most of my free time reading and writing as much as my anxiety will allow. I draw, as well. I went to art school and did not graduate, I continue to do my own thing when my brain isn't sabotaging itself. Right now I am gluing fake rose stems into pentagrams and drawing bad celebrity portraits of Cardi B and Lana Del Rey. Honestly, just to make myself laugh. I also have a succulent collection which I consider my babies. I care about them more than most things.

VS: I think that you must have been an excellent pupil; you listened to your teachers, respected your parents, and went to church. Am I right or wrong?

BB: Ha! That is a funny question to me. No, I wouldn't say that I was a very “respectful” teenager, or rather an obedient teenager. Maybe I should have been but I'd probably be a very different person than who I am today. I did well in school, depending on the subject. As soon as anything remotely math-related was breached, I would fail miserably. I made it far in English and art, not terribly surprising. I had bright pink hair and didn't fit into any social group. I teetered between the goths and the punks and somehow created a new social group where my friends and I were simply referred to as “the Secrets.”

I skipped school a lot and went to shows and stole street cones and signs and graffitied probably every bare wall in my town. I was probably a difficult teenager, but I was endearing enough that I didn't land myself in jail or anything too serious. (Except for spray-chalking my car with expletives toward my school and principals after a Sonic Youth concert that almost caused me not to graduate. I love that memory.)

My mom was always supportive of me though, or at least tried to understand my motives and need for artistic solidarity; which I appreciate now because I am still the same defiant girl who dyes her hair odd colors and tries to give herself self-poke tattoos and jokes about death and dying with a concerning consistency. I tried the church thing, it was introduced later in my life by my stepdad and it never stuck. I went to CCD, which was like a weekly religious after-school soul-sucking retreat where bored and uninterested kids were forced to learn about Jesus. I got my confirmation and all the stuff that goes along with it and remember absolutely nothing. I couldn't name a single apostle if you asked me now. That sort of education was lost on me. However, my teachers in high school were very supportive of me. I made a ‘zine with my friend called The Donner Party , full of poetry, interviews and art, and I worked on the school literary magazine. I still have a lot of that stuff around. It's embarrassing looking back, but I appreciate my resilience to be weird.

VS: All I know about Philadelphia is this: “Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin' away/ On the streets of Philadelphia.” Do you like quiet streets of small towns or noisy avenues of big cities?

BB: I love Philadelphia! There's such a vibrant and bustling literary scene here. I don't really prefer one over the other. I like taking the train into the city for poetry events, like the Tire Fire readings hosted by Jaime Fountaine at Tattooed Moms and the book signings and events held by Ann Tetreault at the Spiral Bookcase. There's always something to do and see between the galleries, cafes, and events. There is also an amazing number of independent bookstores that are thriving. I love taking advantage of these places for new and unique books that I wouldn't find anywhere else. It's perfect for emerging writers and artists, and so many of my favorites live here and share the plethora of creative outlets that Philadelphia has to offer.

VS: Today is “World Poetry Day.” I would have liked to write a poem, but I'm not friends with rhyme! What about you, have you composed a poem to this day?

BB: I edited a bunch of stuff today; I think that should count? Also, I hate rhyming poetry! You could write something just about your day and break it up into a few lines. Well, play, it's not all hate—Yeats rhymed and I love him. Baudelaire, Sylvia Plath. I guess it just has to be done in a way that isn't too corny. Or I just have to like you already.

I think poetry has come a long way since the days of rhyming. I like that there are no rules. Except don't fucking rhyme near me.

VS: What are you writing right now?

BB: A lot of poetry and prose. Transcribing notes from my phone and notebook onto my computer, editing and submitting to journals and posting on my blog. Here's a recent poem for you and your readers:

Kill

Evening settles on temporal earth,
Of milky white and sacred howling. Eyelets
Singed into my sleeping silk. A moment ago
Maybe a year, I suffered through your crunching
Clouded memory, and your father was listening
Through the bottom of the door, breathing softly
Just enough so that you could hear it; you knew
He was there. In the bushes, again, in the concrete,
Again. Embedded as always, in an empty dream
Of blueberry blue, back turned between a carnival
And some grassy knoll that you placed there; to put
Him somewhere. To make him be something that
You recognize; a thing or a place you can give birth to
You imagine him blue blue
Blue. You allow disgust to turn belly up
In the cordial mousy way you speak, you grapple
With the idea that these images just exist
And do nothing more.
Investigate his death in the morning,
The blush petunia in funny-pink.
Bathe in it until that’s all you know.

VS: We all together come from our childhood. What is the brightest moment of your childhood?

BB: Probably this time when my dad was still alive and we walked from his house through the woods for several miles. We found a hundred-dollar bill and he took me to K-Mart and bought me a giant stuffed pink rabbit and I carried it the whole way home bumping into stuff while he laughed at me. That's a fond memory.

Such strange things stick out to me. I used to love dressing up like the Spice Girls with my friend Nicole, and we'd dance around my kitchen with such violent passion. Those were my favorite weekends.

VS: “… when my dad was still alive.” I am very sorry. What happened with your father?

BB: My dad died in 1998 from a heroin overdose, I was ten. We had a very good relationship though, throughout his addiction. I didn't see the signs until I was much older and was able to look back objectively. He was a very good, intelligent person. He has been dead for two decades now but it doesn't feel like it's been that long. I didn't fully understand his death because I was so young at the time, but when I first heard the song “Heroin” by the Velvet Underground, it put a lot of things into perspective for me and helped me compartmentalize my feelings of anger and abandonment. A lot of my writing stems from revelations about my dad that I've had and figured out as I've gotten older. Feelings that I've had to explore and come to terms with. It makes you grow up pretty fast. Many of my childhood memories are overshadowed by his death. Sometimes it's hard for me to think back to that time; to remember being innocent.

VS: When the writer Brittany Brown born?

BB: I was born on October 23, 1987. But I absolutely do not feel thirty. Age doesn't really make a difference to me; I'm a sad whiny child at heart.

VS: My daughter was born in the same year, same month, but on the 25th.

BB: (Ah, I love October babies.) The “writer” I am was born probably around the time my father passed away. I had been an avid reader from a young age, so it was an easy transition.

My friend and I used to make up screenplays and film them in her back yard, starting from around that time. Of course, they made no sense. We walked around the park near her house with a video camera and created dialogue and scenes minutes before filming. Soon after that, we together discovered Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton and that's when I really started to write poetry seriously. It was an outlet for me. I've gone through periods of not writing anything at all, for months and months, but it always comes back when I need it the most.

It's impulsive. I can't sit down and think about writing, it has to just come to me organically. I don't feel truly satisfied with my work if I set aside time to do it, there's something missing that makes me feel disingenuous. I write now as a compulsion, similar to when I first began writing. As a need.

VS: Screenplays and film? Very good. I've been in the theater since my childhood. In Montreal, I run my own Russian theater. I write plays and often act in them. Are you still interested in visual arts, cinema, theater?

BB: You have your own theater? That's cool as hell. I want to go to Montreal to get a tattoo by this artist I really like, Charline Bataille; if I ever make the road trip I'd love to come by to your set-up.

I wish that I would have been exposed to theater when I was younger. I am just now getting more into it and need recommendations both for performances to see and plays to read. I did stage crew for a little bit but I have crippling anxiety that inhibits me from performance. Though, that's getting better.

As for visual arts, I went to Moore in Philadelphia, an art school. I didn't complete that program, but I still draw and make art as much as I possibly can. I do a lot of pen and ink. I used to paint much more and sometimes bust out the watercolors, but it's mostly drawing, and as with the writing, its a compulsive thing.

My favorite drawing, actually, is one that I did of Nico from the Velvet Underground [above]. She's been an inspiration to me since I was a teenager. I've read several biographies about her, she had such a sad life.

I do love cinema. A few of my favorite films are Paris, Texas; Breathless; and Blue Velvet. I love Wim Wenders, Les Blank, Godard, Dario Argento, David Lynch, Fellini, Antonioni, Buñuel. Many more. I'm a Criterion film junkie.

VS: I'm watching a movie right now, Loving Vincent, about Vincent Van Gogh. Very beautiful, a real work of art. Van Gogh is a tragic figure, a hero for a great novel. Maybe for your new novel?

BB: Ha! Maybe, but my attention span right now only allows for short stories. I have always wanted to write a book about Candy Darling, the transgender actress who worked with Andy Warhol. She absolutely fascinates me. The pictures of her on her deathbed give me chills, there is such a mesmerizing look of calm in her eyes.

I should also mention I run a blog about the artist Vali Myers. She owns my heart. She was an Australian artist. A beautifully wild witch woman who lived in an old temple in Positano, Italy. (Amongst other places.) She created the most magical and intricate paintings and drawings. She was also an incredible dancer. You should definitely check out her work and if you enjoy artist documentaries, you'd love Vali: The Witch of Positano by Flame Schon.

VS: The theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. Did you have such events?

BB: This is a complex answer for me, but I love this question. Moments like that have occurred quite a few times in my life, causing me to be a nervous and cautious person as an adult. Of course, my father's death was one. The biggest moment of hindsight reflection for me was probably within the last year months, I don't want to go into too much detail (in order to keep some lightness here!) other than saying that my mental health took a catastrophic plummet. It was very unexpected. The repercussions were illuminated by signs and struggles that could have been prevented.

The hindsight is very difficult for me. It takes time to come to terms with. However, there is always something to learn from these events and choosing to approach things with positivity has been a long and arduous road for me, but I am glad that I've come through; slipping up and bumping into things through the course to reach a place of contentment. I'm always available to talk with anyone who has had similarly impactful experiences or just needs someone to listen.

VS: When I was a child, my fictional heroes were Tom Sawyer and Arthur Burton from The Gadfly by Irish author Ethel Voynich. As I've gotten older, the se protagonists have been somewhat displaced as my role models, and now I look to Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea , and to characters in the novels of Dostoyevsky and Gogol. Who are the fictional literary heroes of your childhood?

BB: A lot of the books that we were made to read in school had a male protagonist. This was something I never fully related to until I ventured off and discovered books on my own. I remember all of the characters from those books who should have been heroes for me, just didn't resonate: The Old Man and the Sea, Dickens, Siddhartha, The Great Gatsby, etc. I can't actually think of a single book I had to read in English that had a female protagonist.

So instead, my heroes were usually animals in movies. This is a strange revelation for me! And truth be told, my current and childhood hero was probably Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. I try to mirror my lifestyle around what she would do.

I did relate to Holden Caulfield, being the angst-ridden teen that I was. I felt close to Franny in Franny and Zooey , although Seymour was the most fleshed-out and idiosyncratic character to me.

In my life as an adult, I've chosen to read a lot more women. Some of the literature that changed my way of reading are Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls and Tampa by Alissa Nutting; everything by Chelsea Martin; The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender; the poetry of Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz; Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill; and so many female-driven fairy tales. The characters in these works were conducive to me finding my own voice as a writer and relating to styles and offbeat characters that I had always dreamed of reading about and relating to.

Working in bookstores for the majority of my adult years had its impact, too. Recommendations from the owner of the Spiral Bookcase, Ann Tetreault, really helped shape my reading preferences; as well as my encounters with the customers I engaged with every day. I truly don't know where I'd be as a reader without Ann.

VS: Moving on from childhood heroes, let's look ahead to when you're older. I'm thinking about “When I'm Sixty-Four” by the Beatles, written and composed by Lennon-McCartney and released in 1967 on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. What do you think your life will be like when you're 64?

BB: I wish I had some inkling of what my life would be then, but things seem to constantly change for me all the time. I would love someday to open my own independent bookstore; that has been a dream of mine for a long time.

Possibly I'll relocate to Savannah, Georgia or Asheville, North Carolina, and open a quiet little bookstore that hosts author events and readings. A place to feature art and music. I hope to be able to relax by then, sit on my porch and read in the sun with tea and good friends. A simple life.

VS: Now, my last question. The stars in the night sky seem to me to be holes through which the light passes to get to Earth. What do you think about this?

BB: I think that's an interesting concept. I enjoy the folklore behind the meaning of the stars and sky. One of my favorites is the story of Nah-Gah and the North Star, told by the ancient nomadic people called the Paiute. It tells of a mountain sheep named Nah-Gah who finds the highest peak in the mountains and decides he must climb it to challenge himself.

He tries over and over but the summit is too smooth for him to grip and he becomes frustrated. He then finds a crevice that leads downward and he follows it through a tunnel heavily crowded with rocks and debris. As he climbs through, the rocks fall behind him. He decides the trek is too rigorous and frightening and tries to turn around but the opening is sealed by the fallen rocks. He goes onward and makes it to the top of the peak knowing he will not be able to get down, being far too high up and blocked from the tunnel. His father calls for him and he answers at the top and sees that his son will not be able to make it down. He will have to die there.

The father transforms Nah-Gah into the North Star to act as a beacon of light for lost travelers in the night. The other sheep who followed in Nah-Gah's footsteps were transformed into other stars, thus creating the Big Dipper and Little Dipper.

VS: Thank you for the story, Brittany, and for the interview. What do you want to wish our readers in parting?

BB: Of course, thank you Vlad. I wish the readers a Happy Poetry Month and a fruitful brain for concocting dope poetry.

Banner graphic: A scan (cropped) of the "Portrait of Leonilla, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, nee Baryatinsky" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, oil on canvas, 56 x 83.5 cm, 1843. In the public domain. The digital image, sourced from Wikimedia Commons, is taken from the Getty Research Institute's Open Content Program.

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