Meet Matt Hanson - dipity Community Spotlight Q&A Interview no. 19
learn more about writer and editor Matt Hanson's work through dipity's global interview monthly spotlight feature
Introduction
Matt A. Hanson is a word-painter from Massachusetts. Based in Istanbul since 2016, he is an art writer, freelance journalist, and editor for an eclectic range of political and cultural organizations. He founded the literary arts publishing platform FictiveMag.com and currently contributes to such magazines as ArtAsiaPacific, World Literature Today, Asymptote Journal, History News Network, and many others. He wrote his poem, “Blue Voyage” while sailing in the Aegean Sea, as an homage to late author Azra Erhat, an early, pioneering translator of classical Greek literature into modern Turkish, and a peerless voice in Mediterranean multiculturalism.
Q: What is the backstory of this poem?
I wrote several poems while sailing in southwestern Turkey to honor the late Azra Erhat, among the first translators of classical Greek literature into modern Turkish. In the mid-20th century, Erhat embarked on intellectually inspired ventures by sailboat along the coast of the Aegean Sea in search of the muses of antiquity, steeped in the ecological poetics and archaeological remains of these overlapping, intertwining geographies.
Ecological integration, or disintegration, is a key motif behind these lines, as they speak to the fragility of the Aegean shores as a single-use vacation space in which the biota is diminished by plastics and other waste that with each year disenfranchises locals of economic agency and environmental integrity, throwing a hard spotlight on the work of Erhat and her attention to the classical poetry that the land inspired as a provident source of connection. Her work emphasized how, since antiquity, these liquid territories flow into each other, not only from water to land, but in the bodies of those closest to its surroundings.
“Blue Voyage” is the result of a process that I liken to word-painting, comparable to a painter working in nature, as the presence of my body within the interpreted scene bears a certain weight on my flesh as I attempt to put the immediate landscape and myself in it, simultaneously, into words.
The Rabbitts - A Moment That I Can't Describe
Q: What were your most recent publications?
Washington Square Review, BarBar, In Parentheses, Gabby & Min’s Literary Review
Q: Where can others find more of your work?
“The Last Greeks of Literary Imbros” in World Literature Today
‘The Librarian’s Flame, or Alexandria” in Issue no. 8 of Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mattahanson
Q: What else do you do outside of the writing or poetry community? Any fun hobbies?
Cycling by the seaside. Multi-instrumental improvisations with fellow musicians from diverse backgrounds.
Q: When did you begin writing?
I began writing creatively on the cusp of adolescence, just prior to my teenage years. I could feel a wave of formative sensation move through my maturing mind, up through my body, and I began to set my private thoughts down into lines. I still have those early poems that muse on the redemptive endurance of pain, the power of listening to music and its psychic resonance as part of daily experience reminding us that no matter how humdrum life may all feel in the moment, we are intimately bound up with the loaded spring of all that is, and how riveting it is to be, to assume conscious existence before the avalanche of passing time and even add to the subconscious aggregation of collective history, to take part in the creation of the world. I was an avid reader, deeply immersed in novelized classic adventures, spun with anthropomorphic animals and gradually absorbed artistic works of literature that imbued social commentary with the life of voices spry and dynamic enough to speak to a young, searching mind. It was by that road that I felt I could form a connection to the world, and even hang on for the rest of my life.
Q: What advice would you give aspiring poets, authors, or fellow writers in the community?
Work hard and have fun!
Reach out to people who inspire you.
Build your community.
Take risks.
Q: What are you currently reading? AND What book(s) would you recommend to others right now?
Unspeakable Home (2024) by Ismet Prcic.
Q: What was the last movie or TV show you watched or recommend others see in the community?
Swimming Pool (2023) by François Ozon.
Q: Which poets, artists, or writers inspire you?
Walt Whitman, Arthur Rimbaud, Zadie Smith
Q: If you had the opportunity to portray any book character in the world and star in a movie adaptation of their life's story or another in a film who would you choose?
Raif from Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali.
Q: What's one of your favorite poems in existence?
“Gospel Noble Truths” by Allen Ginsberg
Goth Babe - Neon Trees
To Check Out More of Matt Hanson’s Work
Circle back to some of his work mentioned and linked throughout this Q&A.
Please Def Follow:
@ma.tt.han.son
on Instagram
Website: http://fictivemag.com/
Any other thoughts, comments, or shares after reading the interview?
[Interview Processed By VFORROW]
Thank you so much, Matt Hanson, for sharing and submitting to Dipity Lit Mag! ~ Jazz Marie Kaur (Vevna Forrow).
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