Interview with Brian Turner

Hugo House:  You'll be debuting a brand-new piece at Hugo House-have you started working on it yet?

Brian Turner:  I’ve begun researching for the project…When I was in Uganda this summer, I met a man named Mele (he was acted as my guide for the time I was there).  His brother was in a bus which was ambushed four years ago by the LRA (Lords of Resistance Army) in northern Uganda.  Mele went investigate for himself—Was his brother one of the four who were killed or the others who were kidnapped?  He tracked down the hospitals were the injured and dying were taken.  He then went to the cemeteries (there were 3 different ones) where the dead had been taken.  In the last one, he had to ask permission from the local mayor for permission to dig up the body for identification.  This is after the dead man had been buried for about two months time. He had no one to help him; he had to dig the body up himself.  Can you imagine that moment?

HH:  What were your first thoughts on receiving an invitation to write to an assigned theme?  Any regrets on saying yes?

BT:  It’s a challenge.  Of course, I may well fall flat on my face and have eggs thrown at me, but if I’m really, really lucky—the poems might just rise to the occasion.  That’s always the hope, right?

HH:  Can you give us a hint of how you're approaching the theme of "We Might Be Heroes?"  Literally?  Figuratively?  Prose?  Poetry?  Interpretive Dance?  None of the Above?

BT:  It’s looking like poetry now.  It might look like guacamole by next week.  I’m hoping it’ll look and sound like poetry by the time it takes to the air in Seattle.  I can promise you it won’t be interpretive dance—if any of you have seen me dance, I’m sure you’re sighing in relief.

HH:  Could you tell us a little bit about your process-how you approach writing something new?

BT:  I often like to do a lot of research on a subject.  For example, I once started to write a poem about the bottle of hot sauce sitting on my kitchen table.  I then started researching hot sauce as a subject.  How did they create a heat index for hot sauce?  How do they measure it?  What are the hot sauces made of?  How do they actually make it?  What are the names of some of the more obscure brands?  For me, I like doing this because it partially satisfies my inner curiosity about a given subject.  For the poem, I think it helps shine the light a little brighter on the subject.

HH:  Tell us 3 non-literary things we don't know about you.

BT:  I’m currently forming up a new band—Dog Rocket—and we practice twice a week, honing down about 30 original songs.  (I play electric bass in the band and help write some of the songs.) 

I can speak a little bit of Russian—and hope to one day be fluent in it.

And…This summer: I played in a drum circle in South Africa; I drank banana gin from a still off a creek in Uganda, the sounds of colobus monkeys nearby; and, I visited the chimp sanctuary on Ngambo Island—an island out on the waters of Lake Victoria.  It was an incredible summer.