Phoebe 2002 (Turtle Point Press, New York, NY, 2003, 640pp, $21.95) subtitled 'an
essay in verse,' is an epic poetic collaboration between poets David Trinidad,
Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie. The three poets turned their focus to the classic
1950 movie All About Eve, its stars (Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, Marilyn
Monroe, George Sanders and others), and the impact the movie has had on
contemporary culture. They also work in references to numerous other movies, to
characters in Greek mythology, to television and music, and many other surprising
subjects. I recently sat down with David Trinidad, in his office at Columbia College in
Chicago, to speak with him about Phoebe 2002.
Gregg Shapiro: The last time we spoke, you were just about to assume your role as
poet-in-residence at Columbia College. How are things going so far?
David Trinidad: Things are going well. This is the beginning of my second year here.
There was a lot of change during the first year. I started as the poet-in-residence. I'm
still that, but I'm also the acting coordinator of the new graduate poetry program.
Some staff left and it left a vacancy and I was promoted—if there is such a thing as a
promotion in academia. Ariel Greenberg, from Boston, has moved here and is now
a full-time poetry faculty member. With Ariel and Tony Trigilio, who is another poet
on-staff, we are starting a new literary magazine called Court Green, which is the
name of the property where Sylvia Plath wrote her great poems. The first issue will
be out in February and it will be faculty edited.
GS: Now to Phoebe 2002. Why did you choose All About Eve for your subject matter?
DT: It's a movie that I've always been interested in. I don't know if I would say
obsessed with, but it is one of the few films that really registered with and has
stayed with me all my life. Because of that, it's something that I wanted to explore in
depth. I'm friends with Jeffery Crosbie and Lynn Conway, and the movie had the
same kind of importance for both of them, and we knew that about each other.
GS: I was going to ask you how you were able to find collaborators with a common
interest in All About Eve. Had you seen something that one or the other of them had
written where they made reference to it or was it something that came up in
conversation?
DT: Lynn has a poem from a few books ago called 'All About Eve.' But I think it was
from conversation. I remember once, Lynn, who is in Toronto, came to visit me when
I was living in New York and we watched All About Eve together. I have a vivid
memory of that, and the scene where Eve is caught holding the dress up to herself
in front of the mirror—we froze it and watched her culpable expression as she
clutches it to herself. What happened was about four years ago I broke up with my
partner of many years. To make myself feel less lonely I suggested that the three of
us (Conway and Crosbie) do a renga chain, which is a Japanese party poem in
essence. We worked on one for about three months at the end of '99 and did a
hundred stanzas. It was published as a chapbook called Chain, Chain, Chain. We
had so much fun that we thought we would do another one. Lynn suggested a poem
in rhymed couplets analyzing All About Eve. It was Lynn's idea, and of course the
rhymed couplets would have been too hard, so we started out on Phoebe, not
knowing it would grow into such a huge monster (laughs).
GS: Why didn't you just do a collaborative essay? What was the drive to keep in a
poetic form?
DT: I think because all three of us are poets. Although there is quite a bit of prose in
the piece, it never would have occurred to me to write it in prose. It started in stanzas
and it seemed right. It's such an expansive work that it enabled us to experiment
with different forms and stanza techniques or shapes.
GS: That is one of the things that I think will draw the reader into the book. There are
poems within poems, songs sung to the tunes of other songs, there's a recipe,
David Trinidad is a character, and there are math equations. Was one of you better
at re-writing song lyrics than the others?
DT: It's more like we would incite each other. Lynn would do something and then
Jeffery and I would respond to it or try it ourselves. She's the one I think who did the
first 'song sung to the tune of.' It was so cool that Jeffery and I had to do it.
GS: Would each of you do that? If someone did something that the others liked?
DT: Often, but not always. We would trigger things in each other. Jeffery's and my
voice are closer to each other in tenor. Lynn's voice is more distinct. It's more critical
or academic sounding. Throughout, Jeffery and I were reacting to her language.
Often parodying it or trying to rise to it. It created this interesting tension.
GS: Are you able to pick out each of the collaborators' individual contributions?
DT: Yes. It's all in my head. I'm the one who typed it all and kept the master copy. I
know it quite well. In fact, I want to take a copy (of Phoebe 2002) and mark up whose
passage is whose. (Regarding the title of the book) I would have been happy if the
book had been called Phoebe 2002, but the publisher felt that it needed a sub-title
so that it wouldn't end up in the film section. He requested that we name it, say what
it is. The best we could come up with is, 'an essay in verse.' I guess it is, but I would
rather let people decide what it is on their own.
GS: To me, it's an epic poem. It's also a veritable encyclopedia of pop culture
references and it's full of allusions to Greek mythology. You have a reputation for
having a remarkable knowledge of pop culture, was that your specific area of
expertise?
DT: Lynn has dealt with pop culture a lot in her work and so has Jeffery. I think it's
something we shared. It was very easy to draw that out of each other, to bask in it
and even go further than we might go in our own work.
GS: The book also has a gay sensibility —how could it not given the subject
matter—are all three collaborators openly gay?
DT: No. Just Jeffery and myself. Lynn is a straight woman. I think at one point we
dub her an honorary gay man in the book.
GS: Are there other classic movies or actresses ripe for this kind of elaborate
deconstruction?
DT: No (laughs). I'd hate to have to repeat it again. It was like the song from
Gilligan's Island. I thought it was going to be a three-hour tour and it ended up that
we were stranded on this island.
GS: Gilligan's Island is actually referred to in the book.
DT: Maybe that's why that came in.
GS: It's a 'three-person tour.'
DT: (Laughs) I thought it might be 50 pages long and it might take us a few months
to write. It ended up being a three-year commitment. PicturedFROM LEFT: David
Trinidad, Lynn Crosbie, and Jeffery Conway
Once I was in it I wanted to see it through. But I had no idea at the onset what a huge
project it would be. I wouldn't want to do this again, not in the same way. And I think
it would be difficult to do it alone. There was something about doing it with two other
people. It was like a conversation between us. I can remember being a kid and
watching a movie and the way that you really want to live in a movie. Then the movie
is over and you're sad because you have to go back to real life. (Working on the
book) really enabled me to live in that movie for three years and it was so satisfying.
I was recently re-watching The Boys In The Band and it got to the end and I had that
same feeling of 'Oh God, now I have to go back to reality.' There are certain movies
that you enter so completely. I think that was part of the appeal to do this kind of
thing.
GS: To sort of have your name in the credits of All About Eve?
DT: (Laughs) Right. Like that Woody Allen movie The Purple Rose of Cairo, where
real people go into the movie or vice versa. Yes, we sort of got to experience that.
