Circus

Alice Nora

Circus, haiku
Interview by L. Valena
January 24, 2023

Can you start by describing the prompt that you responded to?

I responded to a visual piece that was very reminiscent of horror movies and spooky things. It was a multi-limbed creature with eyes down the front and in the palms of its digits, along with a black and white spiral background kind of like those red and white spiral candies. It was all in black and white. Initially it was very reminiscent of my partner, who is a creator and an actor along with myself. I'm a writer, but I digress. He specifically is a creature performer, so he embodies these horror monsters and creatures. I thought, “What better person to bestow this gift upon?” When I noodled on that, I thought that it could be a play or short story, but my brain kept going back to haiku. Clearly there was some imparting of “Big Magic” that snapped into my synapses.

The image was just so intricate and detailed. Whenever I zoomed in or out, I noticed something new, but it always came back to the multi-eyed and multi-limbed imagery to me. So my first initial impression was “monster.” When you see it, you're just like, “Oh, it is Monster!” It's a beautiful monster.

And where did you go from there?

From there, I had a lot of spider-based haiku situations. There's this horror movie called “Arachnid” and my brain said, “Let's focus on this.” The prompt is not inherently spooky; that's just where my brain lived when I was revisiting this. Overall, I knew it was going to live in this weird notion to me. I'm also a big fan of “American Horror Story: Freak Show” so I kept going there too. Spiral. The big top. Let's focus on the spiral backdrop. So my brain had placed this creature and then the setting inspired the next section.

Tell me about your relationship with spookiness.

Oh, I don't really have one per se. I'm definitely more of a sketch comedy fan and performer in funny things. I do enjoy a good horror movie and a good spook, but it's my partner who is the monster, wants to play the monster, enjoys a good monstery situation. Spookiness in everyday life is inherent, as we live in a crumbling capitalist society, which is itself spooky.

And not in the cute way.

Not in the cute way. It's more of a horrific spooky.

We’re finding the limits of the word. I do sometimes use the word “spooky” to describe something that is legitimately terrifying.

Exactly. “Dainty horror” of all things can be considered spooky.

Oh for sure. So you went with this haiku. Is that something that you've explored in the past?

I have. A while back, I wrote a small journal of poetry, musings, stuff like that. And I have been a published poet in the past. The form of the haiku is always so interesting to me because you have to figure it out within the limits of the structure, which isn’t something you do with most creative writing. You don't usually have to adhere to anything. So it's always nice to challenge yourself and put that in perspective. “All right, let's take on this thing we haven't addressed in a while.”

Can you talk a little bit about the way that you're using capitalization?

Sure. I felt that the capitalization of the letter D embodied the notion of the eyes that were looking upon you through the text. So that was my other precursor to tie it all together. It’s a little spot-on, but there are a lot of D’s and D’s are almondy in shape. Yeah, we can go with that.

Cool! The form of haiku presents such specific limitations, it does seem like you're stretching those by employing this alternative capitalization and stuff. I think that's really interesting.

Thanks! With that form, there's limits but there's no limits. And with the limitless punctuation, the periods and things can live how they want on the page. I don’t know… the D's stand out to me.

So in the narrative of this poem, the sideshow escaped. Do you have more of a narrative of what's going on in this scenario?

Oh yeah! My brain goes to a “Fantastic Beasts” sort of situation (not to give credit to JK Rowling by any means). In my mind, a circus is always a circus. If this was to be interpreted into a full short story, it would be that this poor creature has been captured, but it figures out a way with its digits to escape and wreaks havoc upon the unassuming and unbeknownst crowds that are within it. But some people don't want that part of the circus in their life. So it's also reminiscent of what people really want in their own day-to-day lives. “Oh, I don't want that circus in my life.” So it's like a double entendre kind of situation.

It reminds me of a saying that I love, which is “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” [both laugh]

Yes, exactly. Just wash your hands of it and call it a day.

What haven’t we talked about yet? What would you ask you next if you were interviewing yourself?

That's a very good question! I don't believe I have an answer. That's a big noodle question.

I like a big noodle question.

Because your brain is your noodle. [both laugh]

Well, what advice would you give to another artist or writer participating in this project for the first time?

Don't be afraid of what imparts itself initially to your brain. I'm a very big believer in Elizabeth Gilbert's “Big Magic”. Sometimes something goes in there and you think it doesn't fit what you normally do or it's not how you would normally ride the wave, because you don't know what's going to come of it. If you entertain that, you're going to come out with something really interesting and really nuanced that might not have initially been in your wheelhouse or you wouldn’t have wanted to nurture.

I'm a big believer in that too. It's so easy to discount things that come in like that. And she says in her book that you can tell, because those ideas have a little signature to them. I totally feel that. That's so right on the money. Is there anything else that you want to say?

Thank you so much for this challenge, this really fun experiment. It was so much fun to process and work on something different that's not usually my go-to writing craft.

Call Number: M66VA | M68PP.noCi

Alice Nora is a NYC based actor, writer and comedic genius. Alice is a self described nurturer of the creative process and strives to do so with joy, positivity and possibility. Alice holds a BFA in Theater Arts & Creative Writing and is a Member of the Dramatist Guild.