Marwa Helal is the author of Invasive species (Nightboat Books, 2019). She has been awarded fellowships from Poets House, Brooklyn Poets, Cave Canem, and is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. Born in Al Mansurah, Egypt, she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her poem “beast of no omissions” can be found here. It appears in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue of the Kenyon Review.
What was your original impetus for writing “beast of no omissions”?
I wanted to begin an epic (listing) of everything I felt I had to omit in the making of other works. What would it be like if we told the absolute full truth and story? To capture it would be a kind of madness. Which narrative would you want to or be compelled to follow? I turned to poetry because journalism wasn’t and still isn’t true enough. The book that gets closest to truth telling, which I am so excited for, is Justin Phillip Reed’s The Malevolent Volume—it helps me believe that this project of “no omissions” is achievable. And I am holding it as a talisman as I continue.
There’s a remarkable amount of negative space in this poem. How did you decide on these line breaks?
The line breaks tell on me—tell that the poem is incomplete or in progress. They become an extension of the “omissions” mentioned in the title. Pointing directly to the impossibility of the project.
Like a camera lens, the narrator of this poem zooms out and then in, from “the earth / how it is held together” to discounts and debt. It feels as though the reader and speaker are moving together through space. Is there more you can share about writing this way, or the idea of a “triathlete of sea, land, and sky”?
Not sure. I think this is the normal overwhelm of being human. You have to narrow down in order to function within the incredible gift of existence. The idea of “triathlete of sea, land, and sky” is for my fellow immigrants who know what it means to cross great distances physically and psychically. Who know what it means to have left. To have left loved ones behind. Loved ones and lives you will never (or hardly, if you’re lucky) know, but often imagine. This ought to be considered some kind of athleticism of heart and mind.
Which non-writing-related aspect of your life most influences your writing?
Probably sleep. Dreams and incubation are a really important part of my process. Not to mention the incredible benefits of rest.
What is either the best or the worst piece of writing advice you’ve received or given?
The best: “Don’t be so precious about it!”—Tracie Morris
There is no worst—even that becomes content or inspiration, if you’re smart.