S. Brook Corfman Approaches the Blank Space

By Bea Mendoza

In their poem "I am trying not to research anything consciously, but this is also an excuse," S. Brook Corfman (they/them) contends with living in the digital age and in a climate disaster. They quote a friend who said "'the earth is in pain and we can feel it'" and reply themselves that they "worry we are talking about the impending ecological disaster instead of the current one. I worry we are talking about the impending ecological disaster instead of [   ]." In reading this, one must wonder what disaster this refers to, what fits into the square brackets. One could ascribe this to any amount or form of climate change-related incidents happening daily– the rising sea levels or endangered animals– or, one could consider this in relation to the identity politics that underlie all of Corfman's work.

S. Brook Corfman is a poet currently living in a turret in Pittsburgh. They have authored two poetry collections, Luxury, Blue Lace and My Daily Actions, or the Meteorites,  and three chapbooks: Frames, Meteorites, and The Anima: Four Closet Dramas. 

Corfman's most recent poetry collection, My Daily Actions, or the Meteorites, won Fordham University's 2019 Poets Out Loud Prize and was featured on The New York Times Best Poetry of 2020 list. The collection is partially composed of prose poems written daily, over a period of time. Due to this day-to-day practice, My Daily Actions feels deeply diaristic and intimate as the reader sees the world through Corfman's eyes. There is a deep underlying anxiety and fear in the poems as Corfman unpacks routine and ritual, and ruminates on inhabiting an authentic sense of self. Corfman brings the reader along their journey of self-discovery and actualization.

At the Poetic Justice Institute's Poetry Festival on April 7th, Corfman invited us into their poetry as they read the first prose poem from My Daily Actions ("If I focus on the window"). In this piece, they describe trying to find beauty in the cruel world of the present.

"That is, I recently imagined living for 900 years. So much cruelty. When even ten years ago I could barely imagine crossing twenty," they read. These lines may refer to the feeling of finally wanting to live, after a lifetime of wanting otherwise, but still not wanting to exist in this world for long, or, perhaps, not knowing how to, not knowing if one should. How does it feel to confront the world as a blank slate, after so long expecting it to be otherwise?  This is what the poem explores in lines such as "I create in my mind each next square, but it is so much effort." Existence as a blank slate is so fraught, and yet, to quote Corfman's poem once more, "that's wonderland, that's right now." 

At the festival, they shared images of black and white pixels, which they explained to be failed document scans. Through presenting them, Corfman seemed to question if they were truly 'failed' scans, if really they were only taking a different form than expected, something all things— humans included— seem to do at some point or another. 

When Corfman finished reading, they prompted participants to think of blankness and empty space, "to consider something that seems blank: an empty surface of wall or table; the material quality of the mirror; the dark screen; the frame of air that hangs in front of you when you space out. Begin to describe that space. What are its associations? What happens as you begin to give it detail? Follow that space if it takes you somewhere, but start with its flatness, or its seeming emptiness. If you are stuck, ask it a question: 'One question is…' If you are stuck again, tell it about a wish you had: 'I had wished (to become)...'"

This exercise emphasised that a blank or empty space should not be defined by what it lacks, but rather be appreciated for what it could be and what it is becoming. The unexpected life in front of us should be seen as a thing to be shaped and filled. To truly appreciate a blank space, one must leave expectation behind and trust whatever may happen next. 

The injustice of expectation is spoken to in the second prose poem of My Daily Actions ("It is as if a meteor is imminent"). This piece explores how Corfman's gender identity puts them at risk: "It is as if to walk out of a house in a pair of heels would make me someone's hero and also get me killed. It is as if this is not statistically unlikely."  When someone experiences gender outside of the binary, they are more likely to be violated. Corfman confronts that one's own self-expression can make them a target to heinous actions and hate crimes. "My sense of self was annihilated as a child," Corfman writes, noting that forced suppression of self-identity begins at a young age alongside a pressure to conform.

Corfman's poetry asks for a world without a pressure to be anything at all, and their guidance at the Poetic Justice Festival reflected this desire for a more open approach to existence. A more just world is that which can be shaped into whatever the individual needs it to be, without fear of judgment or discrimination. 

To read more about Corfman and their poetry, visit their website.