Interview // The Place of Return: Talking Story with Noʻu Revilla
“The page, for me, is all about the power of return.”
“The page, for me, is all about the power of return.”
“The moment we give up showing a different way of being with language and the imagination, we have lost.”
“What are ways of looking deeply, at a photograph or other archival filament, that allow us in the present to re-enter the past?”
“The dark, for me, is always a place of brimming; even when it is anguishing and unbearable. . .”
“At times, forgetting is essential. In the poem, that refers to the way one person, a mother, a woman, part of a traditional family where roles and expectations are clearly cut, needs to forget about that part of hers in order to breathe, to tend to the little things that make her happy—like doing her nails—to keep it going. We are a multitude of things, after all.”
Conducted by Jennifer Elise Foerster
“Often, as I attempt to solve literary problems, I find my mind working not in language, but in music or in space.”
“It’s interesting to me how when we think of the dead and project their presence in our lives, the projections often point to events or milestones that the dead will not experience with us. Birthdays, holidays, first days of school, etc. There were so many events in 2020 that I’m glad Vivian never had to endure.”
Conducted by Shriram Sivaramakrishnan
On translating Green Mountain by Chinese Poet Yang Jian