Interviewing Charles Simic with a Broken Recorder

By Emily Schultz

The words, mangled and digital,
hide beneath a hiss. This is
why you shouldn’t meet heroes, I realize.

Not because they’ll fail you,
but you’ll fail them.

The recorder was connected, yet all I have
are his whispers. I cup the machine—
press it into my temple to save this surveillance.

He repeats. A tight gait. Good, good. I strain, I hear
cadences. Wet footprints that disappear.

I transcribe, I translate, hope, betray.
Am I writing an interview with a man?
Or a tree? One whose branches lift, shift.

I have asked too much of the past.
Love doesn’t translate well. Gawky
questions on index cards, held up by push-pins.

When we meet later, he’ll sign his name, peer
with curiosity—my voice doesn’t match up either.

Emily Schultz

released her novel, Little Threats (Putnam Books), during the pandemic. It was an Apple Books Best Book of November 2020 pick. She wrote The Blondes, which was named a Best Book of 2015 by NPR and Kirkus. Schultz is the original founder of Joyland Magazine. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Rust & Moth, Minola Review, Taddle Creek, The Walrus, and the anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis. Her forthcoming novel, Sleeping with Friends, is due out from Thomas & Mercer in October 2023.