“My Own Personal Wild Kingdom”: Introducing Venus Thrash

An Interview with the Author of "CAT: A Narrative"

by Yohanca Delgado

“The silver stray cat with sporadic black stripes over its back and tail is crouched in Henry’s backyard again, howling for feline reasons no human heart will ever know.” This is the opening line of Venus Thrash’s contribution to the Grace in Darkness anthology. “CAT: A Narrative” is a poignant short story that weaves together mental illness, animal longing, music, and the reverberating power of emotional memory.
 
Thrash’s short story follows Henry, who has retired from years of singing in the musical CATS. To capture the unique musicality of Henry’s inner voice, Thrash constructed sentences that vibrate with rhythm, assonance, and lyric—sentences like, “In the flash of a year, Henry’s burnt sugar tenor bubbles and thickens into a silky baritone, infusing soulful sweetness into a choir just a hair off-pitch.”
 
It is hard to read this story without thinking of poetry, and it is unsurprising that Thrash is an accomplished poet. She is the author of The Fateful Apple, which was a finalist for the 2012 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, the 2009 Arktoi Books Poetry Prize and nominated for the 2015 PEN Open Book Award. Thrash’s poetry has appeared in Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Split This Rock, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Torch, Gargoyle and The Arkansas Review. Her work has been anthologized in Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky, Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC and Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade. She is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a Summer Literary Seminar in Kenya and Fire and Ink scholar. She is co-editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly and co-director of the Joaquin Miller Poetry Series.  
 
I was fortunate enough to talk to the author Thrash about the ways in which her work meld poetry and prose and the creative process behind “CAT: A Narrative.”
 
Your short story “CAT: A Narrative,” echoes one of the last poems in your poetry collection The Fateful Apple, “Rincon, Georgia III.” Both pieces center on cats and on the comforting ritual of seeking them out and caring for them— though they each take the subject in a different direction. Would you say the two pieces are in conversation with each other? Is there something about cats that interests you thematically? 
 
I'm severely allergic to cats but they've found a way to enter my work perhaps because they're banned from my life or because they've always been a mystery to me. As a child, I spent my summers in Rincon, GA living with my grandmother. Now, my grandmother wasn't a cat owner either but I was amazed at how dozens of cats suddenly emerged from those dense Georgia woods, their tails erect in the air, and came running up to the back door whenever she called. My grandmother fed them leftovers twice a day. Because of that she had quite a command over them which is an image and moment I wanted to capture in the poem. The story, CAT, emerged from similar observations in that a family of stray cats hang out in my back yard and I've watched them birth several generations. They're resilient, resourceful, bloodthirsty and merciless when it comes to hunting down mama birds and rats. It's my own personal wild kingdom.

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Where did you find the first spark of inspiration for “CAT: A Narrative”? In the story, the reader witnesses your main character, Henry, undergoing a strange and fascinating psychological transformation. Did you imagine Henry first, or did you think first of the transformation?
 
CAT is an homage to the first Broadway production I saw, Cats. It was colorful and confusing but when Grizabella sings “Memories,” it's quite emotional. CAT is also a tribute to some family folklore about a distant relative who had a volatile relationship with his wife's cat that didn't end well for him. I included that tidbit in the story.
 
Henry, the main character, is special to me. He's my gay brother in spirit and in real-life who I love fiercely. He is inspired by a culmination of all the talented and vibrant black gay men I know and love. While I knew I wanted to write a story about mental illness in a way that isn't typical, I didn't anticipate it would take shape in the form of Henry. I only knew that I wanted the character's mental decline to be transformative in a spectacular and fabulous way and I knew that with all there was lost I wanted the connection to music to remain. Henry was born out of that.
 
I notice a poetic lyricism in your lines, particularly when you write about music. How does your background in poetry affect your prose? How do you know when to shape an idea into a poem—or when it is best written as prose?
 
I lean towards lyricism, euphony, consonance and rhythm when writing poetry and prose. Some alliteration. It's important to me that the words I write have a certain sound and musicality. This helps me achieve a sense of form and eloquence of expression. This is what I had in mind and set out to accomplish in CAT.
 
I knew right away that it would be a short story and I believe that kind of knowing is instinctual to me. It's the same with poetry. Is this a story or a poem is not a question I've ever had to ask myself until recently. I'm working on a historically-based story about the 1968 sanitation workers strike in Memphis. The rapport between the two main characters is intriguing. I'd like to see them as they move through life together and how they adjust to our evolving nation. 
 
Part of the literary power of Henry’s transformation lies in your use of present tense and the subtle way in which you set up the transition. How did you decide how to structure and pace the story? Did you apply the structure in revision or did you write the narrative as an organic chronology? 
 
I wish I could say that CAT was one of those stories that naturally flowed from me. I had very specific ideas in mind when I set off to write it. I wanted to write a story in which the main character is a black gay man. I wanted him to be Southern. I wanted him to have his roots in the church. I also wanted to write a story that asked, what if dementia isn't a downward spiral but a transitioning from one mind to another? A form of evolution. I wanted to write a story with little to no dialogue that was forced to stand on the strength of its narration. Finally, I wanted to write a story that captures my love of music not merely with words or lyrics but by using language to create rhythm and musicality as the story unfolds. So CAT took five or six years to write because one of my main goals in writing the story was to create this bluesy, jazzy ambiance throughout. Part of that was achieved through tone and pacing. Still, there are parts of the story I find to be moving too fast and so I continue to tinker with it and revise it. Originally, it was 23 pages and I managed to cut that in half, leaving out some of what I believe to be some compelling and strongly-written parts I'll have to hold onto for another story.
 
Are you currently working on a new project? 
 
I've started work on a sophomore poetry collection. I'm in awe of the subtle, quiet strength of these new poems. I believe they represent my continuing evolution as a poet. I sense a growth and maturity in the crafting of these poems and I'm excited to see where they lead. I have about six stories written toward a short-story collection that I've been writing off and on for several years. CAT is one of them. That's why I'm hyped about its full publication in the "Grace and Gravity" series. With the anthology's publication, I have an opportunity to gather whether the ideas I had come together well in the story and whether the story works a whole.
 
You attended AU's MFA program, where you studied both fiction and poetry. Who were your favorite mentors and influences at AU? Any classes you still remember loving? 
 
When I was a student at AU, craft was a topic that arose often. Those were some of the toughest discussions I've been party to but they stick with me in a good way like most of my time there. My years at AU were some of the most productive and creative years I've had and I wouldn't trade them in. I was fortunate to have stellar teachers and mentors the whole time and completely stoked to be returning to my Alma Mater for this occasion. 

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Yohanca Delgado is a Creative Writing MFA candidate at American University.