Maggie Nelson: ‘I was overwhelmed with grief when Prince died’
Maggie Nelson: ‘The inspiration and companionship I’ve derived from other writers and artists means everything to me.’ Photograph: Dan Tuffs for Observer New Review/The Observer
Maggie Nelson was born in California in 1973, studied in Connecticut under the writer Annie Dillard, and now teaches and lives in Los Angeles with the artist Harry Dodge and their children. She is the author of numerous works of poetry and prose, in which she examines questions of desire, sexuality and family, often in a fragmentary, genre-blurring style. Her books include The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, The Red Parts, about the murder of her aunt Jane, and The Argonauts, a bestseller which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Bluets, a series of personal meditations themed on the colour blue, has recently been staged at the Royal Court theatre in London. Her most recent collection, Like Love, features conversations and essays going back to 2006 about writers and artists including Wayne Koestenbaum, Kara Walker, Jacqueline Rose and Björk, who told Nelson that “when I read your masterpiece The Argonauts, I absolutely beamed with hope”.
In a piece in the book, about the poet Alice Notley, from a decade ago you describe your energy as “exhilarated despair”. Is that still the case?I don’t really identify with that phrase as much as I used to (though I still think it applies well to Francis Bacon, and many other artists whom I love). Despair passes through me, of course, but I wouldn’t characterise it as my main station. The key for me is to see both hope and despair as moods that come and go, and to sense that underneath them there is something larger and more mysterious that remains unchanged by how we feel about it.
So often I find myself in the position of fielding anxiety or judgment from others that I don’t feel myself
I loved your essay about Prince, written after he died. Tell us a little about it.A lot of the pieces in Like Love were commissioned by a gallery or museum, or conducted at the request of an artist, but the piece on Prince I just wrote for myself on an aeroplane shortly after his death. Prince meant so much to me – he still does. The piece details how Purple Rain came out right around the time of my father’s untimely death [from a heart attack], and how my sister and I, in our adolescence, watched Purple Rain over and over in our basement, experimenting with identifying with Prince and Wendy & Lisa. For a long time, Prince kind of encapsulated my experience of sexuality – he shaped my sexual development in ways that I considered then (and now) as terrifically positive in a world in which there are a lot of not so great options. I was overwhelmed with grief when he died, and the piece came from the feeling that I needed to pay my respect, however paltry.
You’ve written a great deal about your own life. I was struck by your observation (in a conversation with artist Moyra Davey) that your work doesn’t sit easily in the matrix of shame, revelation, exposure – it’s not how you see things …If you work in autobiography, you find that a lot of people approach the genre via binaries of withholding-revealing, and/or shame-shamelessness, probably because they think there is something exhibitionist or meretricious at the heart of the endeavour. I’m not saying those terms never apply, but I don’t feel them to be the engine of the art for me, and they aren’t at the core of my emotional life. I think, for some people, the very idea of talking or writing about the self in public produces anxiety, but given that it’s been one of my native modes since I was a teenager, I don’t feel that anxiety so much. So often I find myself in the position of fielding anxiety or judgment from others that I don’t feel myself, which can be peculiar and a little tiresome. But at the same time, it may be a sign that the writing has taken a risk, which it needs to do. Revelation is, however, just one form of risk – there are others, such as trying out new aesthetic forms, working with volatile and complex ideas, and so on.
Poet and author Eileen Myles features a lot in the book, and the last piece is a very funny Zoom conversation with them. How important have they been to your work?Eileen has been very important to me, which is why they crop up in multiple essays in Like Love. The inspiration and companionship I’ve derived from other writers and artists, as apparent in this book, means everything to me. It keeps me going, makes me happy to live in the time I’m living, and gives me new ideas of things to try. Eileen has taught me something about nearly everything that matters. They’ve taught me how to live a life devoted to art, how a writing career is a spiritual expression, the value of sobriety, how to prognosticate rather than please an audience, how to age with ongoing bravery and unknowing and curiosity, how trees can keep you company. And that’s just a start.
Where do you write and what is your writing routine?I don’t really have a set place to write or a writing routine. It’s more of a “by any means possible” situation. I have a room that is called “an office” at home, but like so many others, I prefer to work at the kitchen table, provided no one else is at home.
What are you working on at the moment?I have a little book called Pathemata, Or, the Story of My Mouth coming out next year – a weird, dream-based piece I wrote in the pandemic studio. I’m excited about it.
Which book or author do you always return to?Roland Barthes seems to have a lot of staying power for me.
What do you plan to read next?Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 – late to the party. Maybe Virginie Despentes’ Dear Dickhead? Onward.
What else do you do?This question is a little broad! But in terms of distribution of my time, I parent, I teach, I travel, I move my body, I enjoy my friends, I listen to music, I think, I suffer, I try to be of service.
Like Love by Maggie Nelson is published by Vintage Publishing (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply