Former Flame Fridays - Eleanor Ball

5/30/25

You were featured in volume 4, what has happened since?

My god, I can't believe it's been a year and a half since volume 4. Since then, I've started and nearly finished an M.A. in Library & Information Science, and I guest-edited a volume of queer SFF for fifth wheel press. I've been relating a lot to this column by Claire Polders on "writing wildly:" I write a lot, but none of it is cohesive or towards a collection. My Google Drive is full of totally unconnected bits and bobs and funky experiments. And I love it that way.

the times after the after times

like i’ve been saying. some churches aren’t churches. we’ve been 
bamboozled. time for the tower of babel in reverse. sorry to say
i can’t share what comes next. we’ve reached the end of the ladder
because someone’s been sawing it short. look: here are my hands;
here’s left and here’s right, and there’s the north star.
giving the service of my lips to these thoughts opens up
a new can of worms. the question: is it lying or storytelling? the answer: it is both.
pledge, turn, prestige. worms, assemble. women, pour out 
the wedding wine. dance in the streams on the stones. just like eating 
infinite jest: cut the words in half before they cut you.

What/who inspired the times after the after times? How does it fit into your style/body of work?

This poem was initially called "5/2/2022," because it was the second in a series I wrote in response to the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization opinion. I was nearly immobilized with COVID, so I couldn't march with my mother and friends. Even when I felt better, I was still testing positive, so all I could do was stay locked in my bedroom and write.

I just looked back at my initial drafts. My god, Davi! I had to write them to get my emotions out, but I can't believe I sent them to magazines and made editors read them. Well, as Trixie Mattel would say, if you never cringe at your old work, you're never growing. Those early poems are pulsing with anger and fear, but they're missing nuance and depth. No wonder they didn't get anywhere.

My approach to political writing completely transformed when I listened to Kaveh Akbar's Between the Covers interview. On the subject of "revolutionary poetics," he said, "One thing that I think about a lot is that a revolution comes in two parts; there’s the overthrow and the rebuild. Without either of those parts, it’s not a revolution. There has to be something being turned over and then there has to be something being set up in its place. It’s very easy to inhabit the carapace of revolutionary rhetoric without advancing something new." And that was the problem with those early poems. I was advancing nothing new. I began revising with this question at the front of my mind: What happens in the times after the after times? What would rebuilding look like?

Well, as the poem says, I can't tell you for sure, not least because the powerful have made it all but impossible to imagine another world. Someone once said it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. But I can offer some ideas. It will involve us reaching out to one another with trust and faith, listening to the earth, embracing our joy, and leaving behind the institutions and norms that oppress the most vulnerable. If we start that work now, who knows what might follow?

I'm honored to say that the other 5/2/2022 poems have been picked up as well: "Buried Gospel" in Carmen et Error (nominated for Best of the Net) and "New Year Same Shit." in BRUISER.

Why Troublemaker Firestarter? What compels you to submit your work? Why be a writer at the end of the world?

When I go more than a few days without writing, I get irritable, antsy, and nauseous. I feel like crawling out of my own skin. Writing is fundamental to who I am and how I live. If I stop writing, I stop living. If we stop living, they win.

On good days, I'll tell you I submit my work to connect with other creatives and push myself to improve my craft. On bad days, because I'm a glutton for punishment.

Who are your current favorite writers?

Kaveh Akbar, Chen Chen, Terry Pratchett, Richard Siken, Shakespeare, and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Are you a troublemaker, a firestarter, a heartbreaker, a lucky duck, a devil, a terror, or sad and horny?

Well, I'm currently applying for jobs, so I do not feel like a lucky duck. Let's say a terror.

Where can people find you?

@eleanorball.bsky.social, @aneleanorball on Twitter (for now).

What would you want the lovely readers of Substack to do?

Something that makes them happy. Sounds cheesy, but for real: Log off and go journal for five minutes, talk to a friend, stick your head outside and take a few deep breaths, read a poem. One of my poems if you want, but there are plenty of others. I'm a big fan of this one, which is---more or less---about capybara