The second section of Jenny Boully’s second book is titled “He Wrote in Code.” Much the same could be said of Boully. Her pioneering first book, The Body¸ was written entirely in footnotes and its blend of vision and experimentation rendered it among the only books by contemporary young writers that can be deemed a collectors item—a used copy currently fetches about $100 on Amazon. Her experimental spirit and romantic largesse were continued, perhaps emboldened in her second book, [one love affair]*, among the best and most challenging must-owns published in 2006. With a third title on tap for 2007 and a reissue of The Body in the works, Boully here addresses her love affair with the footnote, the complexity of relationships, getting by as a poet, finding meaning among remains or fragments of a fallen something¸ and the layer cake that is [one love affair]*.
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JD: What to you is the most difficult thing about writing and publishing poetry in the 21st century?
JB: I think that ultimately, no matter what, you wake up most mornings and feel like a failure. To write and publish poetry in the 21st century is to oftentimes feel that you've given your life to something that isn't giving you much or anything in return, to realize that you, in this relationship, are the one who loves more. Poetry seems to love you less. You start to get older, and the youth of your twenties starts to slough and you look around and your friends are doing things with their lives. They're traveling to Europe, they're getting married, they're having children, they're buying houses, they're sitting on nice couches while you scour your neighborhood on trash days for ironing boards and bowls. Poverty and uncertainty are the most difficult things about writing and publishing poetry in the 21st century. The challenge is to fine-tune your imagination, to make-believe that life isn't as dreadful as it might seem. Luckily I live in a city full of museums and bizarre occurrences, and I've always been an avid daydreamer. The challenge is to surround yourself with metaphor and beauty, to not succumb to feelings of failure and dread. If you are a poet, it's very easy for you to be perfectly surprised and happy to see a perfectly cooked egg-over-easy. The rewards are small and few and far between. I had a poetry professor once tell me that in this business, you had better be enough for yourself. That's always stuck, and it's always what draws me to my desk to write--that, and the promise of make-believe, the thought that perhaps today I could write a perfectly cooked something.
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