SHORT 'N SWEET: THE BOOK SPEAKS: Plat

How would you, Plat, describe yourself in two sentences or less? 

I am a series of poems that are trying to be a grid, and a grid that is trying to be a perfect city. I am also a house, haunted by the death of a close friend, trying to break the laws of physics in order to see her again.

Where would you go on your dream vacation? 

Somewhere theoretical, ideally a non-place. Can one vacation on a map? Or in an entryway?

What is your favorite color? 

Rose madder

What is your favorite movie? 

Maybe Last Year at Marienbad, or PlayTime. But if I’m being honest, it’s Ordet.

What advice would a therapist give you? 

Install an ad-blocking software, stop chasing ghosts, and touch real grass. And don’t worry, for now, about whether it was planted by a developer to sell condos.

What is your favorite smell? 

Ionones: the nullifying blast of a violet flower. These temporarily extinguish the scent receptors in the nose, and can only be re-detected when the nerves have recovered. This leads to the perception of a very strong smell, because it is not allowed to fade away slowly, desensitizing the nose to its presence over time; it reasserts itself anew every few moments. It is an insistent and recursive scent.

Do you collect anything? 

Pressed flowers and herbs, news of the stock market, pianos, firewood, ancestors, city plans (especially divine ones), doors, spirals and lattices, silos, manticores, coyotes. I pile these up and they speak among themselves. Maybe they’ll decide together how to mean.

What is your favorite snack? 

Roseate squash, tasteless plums, sprigs of rosemary, gum.

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why? 

I would love to have dinner with an angel, and ask them to pass the salt. What would they eat—sunlight?