Joe Gutesha: "Thank God I'm Here!"

Brooklyn Artist Feature

I’m truly honored and excited to introduce this Brooklyn Artist Feature! This is Joe Gutesha.

Joe Gutesha is a poet from Topanga Canyon, California. He is currently at work on his first book of poetry, keeps a blog called Jlaudio’s Extraordinary Café, and is hatching a novella, a play, and an epic narrative about the origin of passionfruit.

Joe is the person who explained the etymology of the word “amateur” to me, inspiring this very blog! He is worldly, creative, and a true friend. In our interview, he offered insights into what it’s like to become a writer.

Thank God I’m Here!

The other day, I was sitting with Joe on the couch. He stood up, sighed, and in the most reluctant, disgruntled tone he asserted, “I’m gonna do something really good for myself right now. I’m gonna finish this short story.”

In our interview, he confessed, “Writing isn’t always something I love doing. Sometimes it feels like work or some kind of labor I’ve committed myself to.”

He offered the following analogy:

It’s like when you make plans with a friend, and you do want to hang out with them, but the next day you’re like, ‘I really just don’t want to be with a person.’

And usually, I just cave in and do it.

And then I’m like, ‘Ah! Thank God I’m here! I’m so happy I’m not sitting by myself, or doing whatever the hell I thought I wanted to do instead!” 

And that’s what happens with writing.

I want to do it, but my desire isn’t even embodied. It’s kind of intellectual, but when I actually start doing it, the desire comes out to play.”

Having an Editor Helps

Joe’s friend Oleg serves as his editor and mentor in poetry. Joe shares his work with Oleg, Oleg gives Joe his honest thoughts, and together, they edit.

In their work together, Oleg encourages Joe to go further in his editing than he was when editing alone. Joe said, “Having an editor helps; the poems got better for it!”

This process was exemplified by their work on a poem entitled, “The Taste of Ants.” Joe said, “That poem had a much earlier form that I thought was complete, but it wasn’t, and so, I tried again, and maybe I will have to even try again.”

A Subjective View, of Course

Although having an editor helps, Joe also expressed the importance of not taking all critiques to heart. He stated:

The other thing that is actually very helpful in editing my own work is understanding that my editor, the person who is giving me this critique and feedback, will have a subjective view, of course.

It’s someone of different tastes, and a different background, and a different life reading it. 

Joe claims, “I also would be happy disagreeing with him,” adding that sometimes, “even if what he’s saying is true, I’m fine with that being in the poem or I’m fine with that being the effect.”

These subjective preferences were especially apparent one afternoon when Joe and Oleg were reading poetry written by other authors. Joe shared poems he described as “ethereal,” “hard to decipher,” and that “have no real syntax.” Joe celebrated these works saying, “I love that! I love the mystery in a poem!”

Oleg disagreed saying, “This sounds like something an AI wrote.”

So, the two took to reading some poems actually written by AI, some of which contained parts that Joe still enjoyed!  He reflected on the experience saying:

The fact that my editor said it sounds like an AI wrote it, it didn't decrease its value for me. I didn’t really mind that he thought that. I was still very connected to the poetry.

That also gave me confidence to edit my own work and be like, I wanna keep this because I want it in there— despite what anyone else might say.

A Writer Who’s Still Becoming a Writer

Joe concluded our interview by sharing his progress & growth as a writer. He said, “there’s been serious progress made. I’m posting things, without even readership. Just having them somewhere, something that can be read. That excites me.”

Although he’s officially adopted the title of “writer,” Joe expressed, ““I’m a writer who’s still becoming a writer.”

Green Tomato

This is one of Joe’s most recent works, “Green Tomato” read aloud by the poet himself.

Check out more of Joe’s writing through the links at the bottom!

GREEN TOMATO

Some nights, when our cackling from the bottom of the well
zings tête-à-tête
and there is zest in the very air,
subliminal messages simmer in the spines of books
where all the pages of the story touch.

The Point tingles up our own spines
when the cinematic screen honors both its meanings;
when the center holds to a paradox,
one where the novel is bound, where the truth inverts
like a tesseract.

‘Sublime’ means we’ve gotten underneath the surface,
and (!)
we’re still climbing toward it,
to scratch at the tablecloth of this realm;
it’s both at once, all at once,
our mantle full of tchotchkes that tell
these stories without saying anything at all.

We know there are advantages to being in the dark;
we stumble picking out the ripe fruit, more humble than last time.
When it comes to our eyes, we miss things:

Why the green tomato resembles the color of its bearings.
Why the truth was unfaithful
activates unseen conspirations,
reflections, even mistaken, are forever true,
arrows aim back,
your chest unlatched by the Conductor—
this,
the overture to a life-long revelation.

Joe’s Website: https://www.joegutesha.com/

Joe’s Blog: https://jlaudiosextraordinary.wordpress.com/