“I really feel like the work I’m trying to do is from whatever grief I can hold that I can be with, that’s my journey. It’s just what I got told to do.”
– Sunday Blu
Gregg Yupanki Bautista: Sunday and I met at Flemington DIY’s open mic, and from the first go when I heard her reading I was like “this is awesome.” Just the ethereal-ness and the perspective… It’s like where you’re the observer, but an observer from a dream space or another space or another reality, because it’s not like you’re necessarily walking through everything but there’s like an intangible quality to what you’re describing which I think is really beautiful.
I’ve been reading your book [In Water Not Blood] from…
Sunday Blu: 2024.
GYB: Ah ok. So one of the things I mentioned before we started tonight was this idea of this other space and this connection to the dream space, and, you know, there’s space and time… If you don’t mind me reading one portion from a poem of yours called “Let the Hidden Things Be Lost”…
Just listen to how my body bleeds
Listen to how it has for centuries.
I know the only hidden thing worth seeking:
The document of my body–
And how it carries me.
How it sings.
How Stardust becomes a poem.
How Water becomes life,
And Blood becomes soul.
So I really like that because, tying back into what I was just saying, the interconnectedness of all these spaces, of tying in this scientific fact that we are all made of stardust. I was reading this section over and over and over again and I was split into two different trains of thought. The first one is… we have the star, and then the history of the star and its life, and then it dies and becomes our history. Then you as the author exists, live through your experiences, and you create the poem. So essentially you are the Stardust creating more things.
The other side of that is the star and the galaxy and the creation of everything that creates the planet and materiality and experience of all of the otherness that creates you… you create the poem, and then this is also made of stardust. So I think that duality is beautiful and I’m really interested in knowing what role you see the “other space” playing in your poetry.
SB: When you were talking about that, I think the first thing I thought about was that I always sort of felt that we’re all kind of born with a certain knowing, and I kind of look for it in other people. And I kind of know what mine is. And when you read that, I was remembering… I think I was born with this essential knowledge of non-otherness, so, that there was nothing that was outside of creation… I know I keep using that word, but whatever word you want to use for “everything.” I mean you couldn’t say that something was “not,” right? Because it was here. Does that make sense?
Read the entire interview on Echo Thread Books Website here! Read more about Echo Thread Projects here.