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August 10, 2020
Madeleine Barnes' Playlist for Her Poetry Collection "You Do Not Have To Be Good"
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, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Madeleine Barnes' debut poetry collection You Do Not Have To Be Good is profound and ambitious.
Wayne Koestenbaum wrote of the book:
"Madeleine Barnes generously reaches toward painful places that many poets are afraid to touch. Organizing her book around a sequence of absolving principals, she enacts a forgiveness journey, without false consolation; instead, she speaks in praise of tenacious embroidery, steadfast retrieval, destinationless self-assemblage, and a pleasing neutrality, as if she were looking at disaster, or daily life, through a scrim…the book, an artfully composed act of ambiguous witness, addresses a ‘you’—a compassionate reader who will feel, as I do, grateful to Barnes for her high level of craft, wisdom, and emotional resourcefulness."
In her own words, here is Madeleine Barnes' Book Notes music playlist for her debut poetry collection You Do Not Have To Be Good:
Written over the span of a decade, You Do Not Have To Be Good is a collection of poems that deal with society’s gendered concept of goodness and pushes back against the idea that “goodness” is something uncomplicated and praiseworthy that women and nonbinary folks should aspire to. In addition to “goodness,” these poems resist capitalism, ableism, and the stigma surrounding mental health, working to imagine a different, more authentic way of living and connecting with others. They address trauma, grief, and our society’s discomfort with death through the lenses of vulnerability and tenderness, heartbreak and love. Threaded throughout is an element of mischief, detachment, and a reverence for outer space. My cousin is an astronaut, and his recent journey through space affected how I began to view the events and people I was writing about. When I think about the music that accompanied the process of writing this book and the music that informs the spirit of individual poems within the collection, the songs on this playlist stand out. Though I’ve selected twenty-eight songs in total, I chose to write about the first eleven.
“Silent Shout” by The Knife
This song has a frightening intensity that submerges in you in a kind of ghostly electric mystery and eccentricity. You Do Not Have To Be Good opens with a poem about a speaker helping to usher a matriarchal figure from life into death; she imagines building armor that will protect her grandmother as she runs to her mother and the women who came before them and hopefully await them in the afterlife. “Forty Black Ships” is a reference to the fleets that accompany soldiers in times of war in Homer’s Iliad. For me, this song by The Knife enacts an unfurling and shimmering that is both mesmerizing and foreboding—a kind of shield or streaming banner. More broadly, this song captures a tone or chord that I associate with writing this book. It reminds me of the electronic music shows held in Pittsburgh’s abandoned warehouses, a staple of my early 20’s; these shows changed my relationship to sound and poetry. The lyrics of this song, delivered by somewhat grotesque vocals, stay with me: “I never knew this could happen to me / I know now fragility / I know there’s people who I haven’t told / I know of people who are getting old.”
“Leave Earth” by Clarence Clarity
The space-related elements of this book were inspired by my cousin’s recent journey through space as a NASA astronaut. This dissonance and experimentation in Clarence Clarity’s song reminds me of a rocket launching, inessential pieces falling away as we head toward a different atmosphere. I love how the words “never leave me” are repeated over and over, eventually fading out, creating a kind of Doppler effect. Listening to “Leave Earth” feels like hurdling through space in a tiny rocket ship—it has focus and momentum, but you don’t know where you’re headed. “You’re on my mind,” we hear repeated over what sounds like helicopter blades hitting the vortices combined with tambourine and synth. Clarence Clarity’s work has been described as textured and maximalist, and I love how its experimental nature speaks to a desire to know what’s out there and a desire to be reassured that everything’s okay. This song continually pushes outwards and scatters your attention—there’s so much beauty to take in.
“Indestructible” by Robyn
I need at least one Robyn song on this playlist! “Indestructible” speaks to a refusal to conform and the rejection of norms, depicting the kind of rebellion and resilience that I hope readers will take away from my book. If the collection empowers or speaks to just one person, I’m happy. “Indestructible” embraces recklessness, openness, wildness, and resilience. Vulnerability can cause a lot of pain, but vulnerability is also strength and armor. Openness and authenticity increase the chance that the right people will connect with you. Robyn sings, “I’m gonna love you like I’ve never been hurt before / I’m gonna love you like I’m indestructible.” What I want the most is for people to close this book and think about writing their own stories and taking more risks in their own art. This is a very tough world to live and create in. James Baldwin once said in an interview that “loving anybody and being loved by anybody is a tremendous danger, a tremendous responsibility.” The characters in this book take risks in the realm of love, tenderness, and self-love despite conditions that render them vulnerable.
“Sparks” by The Dø
This song by the French/Finish duo, The Dø, echoes “Silent Shout” with its percussive, upbeat urgency; I love the defined, triumphant sounds of the organ and the melody that sweeps around like a searchlight. Olivia Merilahti sings, “It glows at night, it’s just the start / I’m not surprised, it shook us up / We like to keep some places wild / Like battlefields, where no one fights.” Chris Chafin writes that this band’s sound is eerie and forlorn, and describes Merilahti’s voice as having “a sort of wounded aloneness that is affectingly childlike, especially during the chorus when it’s laid on top of itself over and over, forming a virtual chorus.” This book has a lot of fire in it—“the ashes of love, the signals of hate,” as Merilahti sings. This song captures a sort of distorted innocence borne out of trauma that, to me, exists on the same emotional plane as this book where one can hold space for struggle and hope.
“Jupiter 4” by Sharon Van Etten
In the poems “Perennials,” “Forms of Suspension,” and “Sleep Phase,” the speaker’s witnessing of others is mitigated by synethesia: secondhand static, cymbals, churchbells, and sirens overlap with white gloves and the colors of irises—particles drift around, tethers to earth are cut, and new softness generates as the speaker desires to connect with whom she encounters. The sensations and observations in many of these poems are mirrored by Sharon Van Etten’s stormy, mercurial “Jupiter 4,” a song that echoes Clarence Clarity’s maximal sounds and the feeling of simultaneously being propelled and dragged backwards. The singer searches for love, singing, “Touching your face / How’d it take a long, long time / To be here? / Turning the wheel on my street / My heart still skips a beat / It’s echoing, echoing, echoing, echoing, echoing.”
“Risk It” by Austra
“I feel ashamed / It feels insane to seek you endlessly / Late night remedy / But girl, I just can’t let you know.” I love the distressed, effervescent sounds in this song. It’s both beachy and turbulent. Many of the poems in this book are about expressing fear and taking risks by telling people what they mean to you and expressing tenderness, even if the results aren’t what you hoped for. This song has parallels to “Surround Her With Colors,” a poem that breaks down potential steps you could take in telling someone you love them indirectly. “I’m too afraid to risk it,” Austra repeats. But there’s a kind of thrill in this song that captures falling in love and trying to keep it yourself, or making romantic gestures that either too subtle or not subtle at all. The stakes are even higher when you’re queer. This song reminds me of the charged silences and sometimes unspeakable excitement that accompanies falling for someone.
“circle the drain” by Soccer Mommy
“It’s a feeling that boils in my brain / I would dial back the flame / But I’m not sure I’m able. / I’m wobbling out on the wire / And the lights could go out / With the break of a cable.” This song, with its gorgeous sounds and lyrical authenticity, really gets to me—vulnerability can be terrifying. I love how Soccer Mommy addresses mental health, especially in relation to spiraling--something I write about in this book. The concept of circling applies—the poems return to certain themes, turning them over and examining details to see what happened. I think of Terrance Hayes telling me that it’s good to have obsessions and to let them play out in one’s work. I also think of the circular nature of trauma and how sometimes, to deal with trauma, it’s necessary to go over details again and again until you can put them to rest. I write candidly about disability and mental health in this book, which I believe is necessary and holds the possibly to empower other people to share their experiences, too.
“Extreme Love” by Holly Herndon, Lily Anna Haynes, Jenna Sutela
This song has such a multidimensional ambience. The language layered over the sound embodies chaos and order to me and becomes otherworldy. A voice tells us: “We are completely outside ourselves, and the world is completely inside us. Is this how it feels to become the mother of the next species? To love them more than we love ourselves, like an extremophile?” My mother is also a poet, and her book was released in April—so our poems are entering the world at the same time, which feels magical and strange. Because of her, I think about motherhood a lot. She’s a strong presence in my poems and this song reflects the intricacies of motherhood and a mother’s relationship to daughters and to nature. The poem “Dreamscape With Embryo” is a poem to a potential child I could have one day, health permitting. I think the title of this song, “Extreme Love,” is in communication with this poem and speaks to both the wonderment and barriers that women face when considering motherhood and/or mothering.
“A Taste” by Two People
This song is like a summery caffeine kick. I love the silky harmonies and the way it builds around the lyrics, “I’m just here for the taste, I’m just here for the chase.” The people in these poems dance, buy plane tickets, put on their sparkly dresses, rid themselves of names, climb fences, take pictures, have vivid dreams, crash into life blazing like meteors. They want to be remembered and forgotten. This song feels like being jolted awake and realizing that you have to take action. A change is in order. This song is what it feels like to impulsively take a bus across the country, or to feel a plane land in country you’ve never visited before. At times it is necessary to cut ties and start over, and it requires a certain kind of courage.
“Lost in Yesterday” by Tame Impala
“Eventually, terrible memories turn into great ones,” Kevin Parker sings in this song that tackles the slow burn of losing faith and letting go. We surf through warm, powerful vocals: “It hurts to be lost in yesterday.” A playful staccato carries throughout. What do we do with the past? Do you greet your past selves when you see them? It seems normal to long for the past, but nostalgia can be extremely dangerous: “You’re gonna have to let it go someday / You’ve been diggin’ it up like Groundhog day.” There’s a circuity to memory; trauma creates fissures, and the poems in this book serve as miniscule time capsules that can be opened in some future time. When writing, I try to capture the incredible, vibrant energy that exists between two people. This song is a strong reminder to find the joy in memory’s snakes and ladders, and moving forward as best you can instead of focusing on the past.
“You Know I’m No Good” by Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse is one of my favorite artists of all time and one of my creative heroes, and her music and bold spirit have influenced my writing since I first listened to her album Back to Black. This particular song connects with the book’s title and its wrestling with the society’s gendered expectations of goodness. It also speaks to the way we can internalize and identify with goodness or badness. “I told you I was trouble,” she sings. “You know that I’m no good.” In relation to this, I often think of the assertion “you do not have to be good,” which was originally made by my queer woman poet hero Mary Oliver, with whom this book is in conversation. I think that women and nonbinary folks especially have to deal with the demand to be “good” on a regular basis, and I love women and nonbinary musicians and writers and artists who deal with this directly and say, actually, I’m done killing myself trying to fit into other people’s definition of “goodness,” and instead I’m going to make art, take care of myself, and live authentically. The processes of making mistakes and owning the chaos in oneself are essential to being an authentic person and creator, and ultimately I hope that this book helps people rethink what they’ve been told they “have to” do in order to survive.
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