“I have been a father for almost thirteen years and it’s a primary part of my identity. My poetry is me figuring myself out as much as it is figuring the world out for them.”
I met Jared online during a Hugo House workshop I taught in 2021 called the Five Stage of Ecological Grief. We have stayed in touch and I appreciate how his first book Who Will Cradle You Head investigates the space where ecological grief, climate change, and fatherhood overlap. Sasquatch also figures prominently! In our conversation, we talk about writing through parenthood and the power and limitations of ecopoetry. Thank you for listening!
Contextualizing a Forest Fire Continually Burning
after Erika Meitner's "Outside the Frame"
Outside the frame a toppled tree, a burning telephone pole, our wish to call our father who is reading headlines drinking coffee, steam rising from the rim to his face, a pleasant heat. Outside the frame melting asphalt, a sea of tar, friction and tires, a bus sinks into the road’s dark bed before pushing off for the day’s commute. Outside the frame particulate matter helixed in a window’s light, a wheezing refrigerator in an apartment that won’t cool down, a son teaching his mother what wet bulb temperatures are before she changes the subject to describe a new mask for sleep apnea. Outside the frame troubled sleep and orange skies. Outside the frame, brunch across from the park where children are playing, the stacking of spoons, cream gyres in refilled cups of coffee. Outside the frame a television’s light flickers against our walls, tourists running toward waves, aerial views of refugees carpeting boat decks until we are floating above flames to a panorama of char and embers, a ragged orange line across the horizon and we rise to the smoke’s dim curtain, the white sun that burns behind it and we lift higher still, through the thermosphere, sunset-singed clouds, contrails drawing new borders into a map of loss as we catch the sun along the earth’s curve and we realize all this time we’ve been burning together.
Published in ASP Bulletin.
Jared’s Bio:
Jared Beloff is the author of the Who Will Cradle Your Head (ELJ Editions, 2023).
He earned degrees at Rutgers University (BA in English) Johns Hopkins University (MA in English Literature, specializing in the novel and Romantic/18th Century Literature).
Jared has been an adjunct professor at Queensborough Community College, an English teacher and a teacher leader in NYC public schools for 17 years.
Jared is currently a poetry editor at The Weight Journal and Poets of Queens. His poetry can be found in AGNI, Baltimore Review, Rust & Moth, Crab Creek Review and elsewhere. His work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Queens, NY.
Her Deepest Ecologies is recorded at Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle, WA. Thanks to their Artist Support Program and studio engineer Ayesha Ubayatilaka. All episodes are available on Substack, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. This podcast is free and available to anyone. For more information or to be considered for a future episode, reach out via email at: jessicagigot@gmail.com.
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