Interview with Saxon Cross-Peavler – Dagny’s First Friday Open Mic – September 6, 2024
By: Carla Joy Martin
We had a full house and many new faces interspersed with the old and familiar friends at Dagny’s – all gathered to honor Samuel Rain Benjamin, our featured performer and Kern County Poet Laureate. Samuel really wowed the crowd with poems expressing emotions from the heart.
The following persons also shared their verse: Savanah Bean, Shelley Evans, Beatrice H. Boswell, Penny Sheppard, Heidi Mensink, Saxon Cross-Peavler, Portia Choi, Christopher Robert Craddock, and Carla Joy Martin. We also heard original songs sung by Gabe the Guitarist.
Saxon Cross-Peavler was a newcomer who impressed us with his thoughtful, introspective works.
Here is an excerpt from the piece he read at the Open Mic:
“Primal Pyramid”
“And yet I don’t know any other way. I don’t know how to live without eating another living thing. I am not a plant. I don’t know how to connect to others without the space for misunderstanding and coercion that can lay beneath the surface. I am only barely an animal. I don’t know what any of this really means, why beauty requires some amount of suffering. I haven’t become God.
I think if I fully understood what was happening here, that might get in the way of enjoying it.”
Q. What inspired you to write your work/poem? What is its back story?
A. Your first question is what is the backstory of this work. Really, it is a many years-long journey towards self-acceptance and an acknowledgement of the spiritual part of myself. I was raised as an extremely conservative and fundamentalist Christian when I was a kid, due to my grandparents having a lot of influence on my life. My dad is pretty determined in his atheism but for some reason I ended up being indoctrinated under his nose by my grandparents. So over the course of my life I’ve always sort of bounced back and forth from extremes when it comes to faith and belief.
Lately I’ve been incorporating a spiritual outlook in my life and my writing as well. But not one rooted in anything specific and dogma-oriented like when I was a kid. It seems like no one really has any clear understanding of this insane mystery that is being alive. And that is almost the best part. It is like a playground for our imaginations.
Q, Do you like to read poetry/philosophy? If you do, what writers have influenced you? Who have messages you connect with, or styles you admire?
A. Your second question was on if I have any writers, poets or philosophers that have inspired me. I love this question. It is very thoughtful and considerate. Honestly, I don’t know very much about poetry. I have mainly read fiction my entire life. As a little child I knew I wanted to be a novelist. I’ve never written a book though, despite many efforts.
I really admire John Steinbeck because his writing is so tight and punchy but still has so much emotion behind it. He always found a way to take simple people and circumstances and project something truly sacred and grand onto them. This approach has influenced not just my writing but really my personal life philosophy. It’s so important to me to see and feel the profound nature of every little part of life. Honestly, the most mundane things have so much sacredness in them.
I do like philosophy as well! It’s harder to read than fiction for me but I find myself very drawn to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzche. I really like his idea of Amor Fati: If you had to live your life over and over again exactly how it happened the first time, would that be heaven or hell? It’s sort of a thought experiment to reframe how we feel about our life and our choices. We get to make a life for ourselves through our choices. We should strive to create one we can be proud of, and that is meaningful for us.
Q. What advice would you give to other folks wanting to create poems/thoughtful musings? How do you write? Do you have a special place you go to, or music you listen to, etc.? Give us a glimpse into your creative process.
A. And finally your third question dealt with my creative process. Lately I’ve been carrying around a big spiral bound journal and a pen so that I can strike while the iron is hot. You never know when something amazing will happen and you’ll need to write it down. I also try to make time for writing in the morning. I get a cup of black iced coffee at Dagny’s and sit on the patio outside and smoke a few cigarettes and write in essentially a stream of consciousness for about half an hour to an hour before I have to go to class at BC.
I’ve found that revisiting certain ideas or themes that get introduced in these morning rambling writings has been very productive. I might have three or four different pieces all iterating on the same concepts but with different approaches. It helps me practice specific skills with form, and find deeper places to explore with the themes.
