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May 14, 2019
David Ebenbach's Playlist for His Poetry Collection "Some Unimaginable Animal"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.
David Ebenbach's poetry collection Some Unimaginable Animal is enveloping and compassionate.
The Millions wrote of the book:
"A funny, tender, inviting collection, whose traits come from Ebenbach’s gifts of storytelling."
In his own words, here is David Ebenbach's Book Notes music playlist for his poetry collection Some Unimaginable Animal:
I think this Book Notes series is a great thing, a public service by Largehearted Boy, and not just for the reader who gets to discover music; it’s also a service for the writer who’s assembling the playlist. Books rotate around obsessions—for example, my new poetry collection Some Unimaginable Animal, with its poems upon poems about food and animals and aging and more food, poems about the physicality of existence—and making a playlist reminds me that I’m not alone in this. Songwriters and a lot of other people have been obsessed with these things, too.
And why shouldn’t we be? Physical interests and needs drive our lives. And instead of letting that be a disappointment (“Is this all life is? A bunch of meals and then we die?”), what I want to do, and what these songs invite us to do, is to celebrate these fleshy facts. To see our raw, animal bodies as access— possibly our only reliable access—to the sacred.
Cab Calloway, “Everybody Eats When They Come to My House”
My book begins with the poem “Basket and Kneading-Trough,” which is about the extremely food-centric approach to life that was passed down to me by my father. You come into his house and there’s food all over the place—probably a meal getting prepared, sure, but also a tray of snacks coming out and even just bowls of chocolates and nuts or whatever scattered around casually, as if to say, Don’t worry—the universe is very abundant. Or, in the words of my poem, “There should be food at the front door—/we deserve it—the house all support staff/for the cabinets, the fridge.” Or, as Cab Calloway says, “All of my friends are welcome. Don’t make me coax you, moax you—eat the tables, the chairs, the napkins—who cares? You gotta eat if it chokes ya!”
Cannonball Adderley, “To Life”
Adderley’s phenomenal jazz interpretation of “To Life” is instrumental, but I still hear the lyrics from The Fiddler on the Roof in my head: “Life has a way of confusing us,/Blessing and bruising us./Drink, l’chaim, to life!” I love the musical’s attitude (and it’s a very Jewish attitude, I think) that life is both difficult and worth celebrating. My book (and it’s a pretty Jewish book, I think) wholeheartedly agrees.
Kiev, “Animals in Garden”
As the chorus of this song-plea for species-wide humility goes, “How on earth can we believe we’re in charge here?/Throw all of our weight all you want/We are just animals in garden.” I felt that way when I wrote my poem “City of Wilderness”: “There are no cities. Just these/breaks in the trees, and all the animals—”
How to Destroy Angels, “Fur-Lined”
If there’s one take-home message in this book, it’s the words of lead singer Mariqueen Maandig from this track: “I am just an animal.” And, really, that’s a pretty miraculous thing to be.
Peter Gabriel, “Shock the Monkey”
There’s a monkey on the cover of Some Unimaginable Animal because, if ever there was proof that we’re members of the animal kingdom, it’s in a monkey’s face. I love the knowledge that we’re part of that enormous family. My poem “The First Primate” encourages us to think about where we all came from. “The first primate clung to bark/knowing that all it took/was one loose grip, and it was back/to the forest floor.”
Cake on Cake, “Animals and Humans”
This strange song almost seems to be describing Some Unimaginable Animal: “There is a book,” it says, “with stories about animals and humans.” And, as if that weren’t enough, the name of the band (a Swedish experimental group) is food—a pile of food. Not just cake, but cake on cake.
A Tribe Called Quest, “Ham ’N’ Eggs”
This is probably the first (only?) popular song to address the dangers of high-cholesterol food, so there was never any doubt that I would include this track in the playlist.
Ferron, “I Am Hungry”
“I am hungry. How are you?” Ferron sounds hungry in this song. Actually, she sounds hungry in most of her songs, but especially in this one. And so I naturally thought of it when looking at my poem “Hunger.” What I’m talking about is “not the temporary hunger,/the blood-sugar plummet/…/instead the long hunger,/the hunger of the march/and the door that won’t lock—/…/Real hunger, with a jaw of its own—”
Bright Eyes, “First Day of My Life”
Some Unimaginable Animal is very interested in first days: The poem “The First Debate” imagines the moments that began the universe’s existence; the poems “The First Insect,” “The First Mammal,” and “The First Primate” contemplate how those taxonomic lineages might have started out. Beginning is not easy, of course, as this song reminds us: “I don't know where I am, I don't know where I've been.” But hopefully “I know where I want to go.”
Kaleo, “Glass House”
One of the recurring themes of Some Unimaginable Animal is the fragility of physical existence. The poems “Sukkot” and “Dwelling” reference the Jewish fall holiday that’s all about impermanence and the fact that none of our houses (literal or metaphorical) will stand forever. Poems like “Age,” “The Meadow Burns,” and “Our Memory for a Blessing Right Now” are about our bodies, those equally impermanent homes.
Deadmau5, “Ghosts ‘n’ stuff”
I added this Deadmau5 song (5ong?) because of my poem “Ghost Stories,” in which I declare my intention to write a Jewish ghost story. Ghost stories usually suggest that bad things happen for a reason (you built your house on what?!?), whereas I want to write one “for the people/who know to expect the worst regardless,” one that includes “the haunting/of the innocent.” That’s Jewish horror—not to mention a fair amount of Jewish history.
Jose Gonzalez, “Storm”
The world regularly reminds us of our physical limitations and fragility, and weather is one of its main tools. In “Snowstorm” I write about a blizzard that will “cover what was here before us. It’ll pull under what we’ve left in place.”
Craig Taubman, “Hayom”
And then the book ends with a poem called “This Happened to Me.” Does it make the poem sound dumb if I admit that it’s basically about a very nice, pleasant, springlike day? “The forecasters/were predicting a half a foot overnight,/but during this day dogs were/at the distant ends of their leashes, dogs everywhere.” Well, the song “Hayom” (“Today”), which is actually a prayer from the Jewish High Holy Days liturgy set to music by Craig Taubman, is a reminder: a single day, a single, physical episode in this physical universe of ours, can be staggeringly, life-changingly important.
David Ebenbach and Some Unimaginable Animal links:
Largehearted Boy playlist by the author for The Guy We Didn't Invite to the Orgy
also at Largehearted Boy:
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