DAVID REMNICK
571
the thing still remains. I haven't been in church for twenty
years except for funerals! "Just make it out to Jesus." I thought
that was a great line.
Remnick:
A Willie Nelson country music line.
Wright:
Exactly.
Remnick:
Could you provide some background on #14 of the
"Tattoos"?
Wright:
It's interesting. That was a dream poem, dreamed
after having seen Diane Arbus's photographs of mentally
retarded people.
If
you go back and look at the pictures of them
dressed in sheets (it might have been Halloween), you can see
where the image comes from; but it
was
a dream.
Remnick:
Much of the beauty achieved in the "Tattoos" series
is a result of the connections made from section
to
section.
Generally, what is your attitude toward that technique of
making connections using numbered sections?
Wright:
Making connections is the impulse of all art, I
think. The artist's job is to try and keep the connections from
being made completely, so that the synapses can snap and
spark. That is where the real connections are, in the electricity
and energy that goes back and forth between the parts. When
Emily Dickinson said, in a note to her sister-in-law Sue, regard–
ing the unexpected and devastating death of little Gilbert,
Emily's nephew and Sue's son, "Our little Ajax now spans the
whole," she is pointing out a great synapse in her life and a
connection to all art. One wonders if she might not have sub–
consciously died of grief a few years later. Connections are
everything, but never perfect connections. Always the gap for
the electricity to arc.
Remnick:
I'd like
to
know a little about the composition of
"Virgo Descending." You appear to be a very meticulous
worker. Does improvisation enter your composition in the
sense that Ginsberg talks about it?
Wright:
No, there really isn't any improvisation. Doesn't he
say "first thought, best thought"? I don't agree with that. How
are you going to know what thought is best until you have
worked at it? It's funny you picked "Virgo Descending" be–
cause it didn ' t take that long.
It
came right out of a dream. My
dreams are usually very flashy and disjointed, as most people's
