David Hernandez’s poems “In California You Chew the Juice out of Grapes and Spit the Skin Away, a Real Luxury” and “It’s Only Vanishing Cream” appear in the autumn 2019 issue of The Southern Review. Here, he discusses finding inspiration for his work in the visual arts, honoring the dangerous yet vital labor performed by immigrants, and the powers and limitations of language that can impact each of us differently.
Preety Sidhu: How did you choose the title “In California You Chew the Juice out of Grapes and Spit the Skin Away, a Real Luxury” for your first poem in this issue? What effect were you hoping the title would have on readers before they continue on to see how the poem builds out the metaphor?
David Hernandez: “In California You Chew the Juice out of Grapes and Spit the Skin Away, a Real Luxury” is from a series of poems inspired by Ed Ruscha, an American artist who places language on the same level as pigment. Simply put, Ruscha is a writer’s artist. Around five years ago I began what I’d dubbed “my Ruscha poems” by cataloging the titles that sparked my interest, that carry that glitter of possibility, and “In California” did just that for me. It’s tactile and imagistic. It also has this whiff of whimsy—a tone I knew beforehand that I wanted to push against, given the times we’re living in now.
As I was writing the poem, I suspected readers would have the same reaction to the title that I did: I’m intrigued. What’s the deal with eating a grape like this? The poem doesn’t answer that question, but hopefully it asks a more complicated one.
PS: What was your creation process like for this particular poem? Did it start with an image of grapes, or a desire to explore attitudes toward agricultural laborers, or something else entirely? Did you know what you were trying to say when you started, or did you arrive at that through the process of revision?
DH: It definitely began with the image of grapes. I was actually thinking of another artist, in terms of setting: David Hockney’s swimming pools and manicured lawns, spacious rooms bright with colors and patterns, the sun-washed lives of others.
I began “In California” without knowing what I was going to say—or rather, what the poem was going to tell me what to say. This is ideal for me, and the only way I know how to write. The analogy I give to my students is this: You are walking at night through a forest with a flashlight, lighting the way toward a clearing—and the light stays on the ground wherever you’ve traveled. So the poem, when looking back, becomes this glowing path that winds through the dark. It’s all about discovery, really. I’m reminded of one of Lucille Clifton’s tenets on process: “I don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder.”
PS: The word “white” in the poem’s final line describes the color of a napkin, and yet in conjunction with the “skin” that is being spit away, it also invites readers to consider the role of race in the attitudes being investigated. How do you see questions of race, as well as class and privilege, playing out in this poem? What do you hope readers will take away from it?
DH: I’m hoping that readers will see how fundamental and vital immigrants are to our country and economy, and so obviously when it comes to the food we consume. To demonize these hard workers—or ignore them, as the speaker in this poem does—is a kind of hypocrisy. Historically speaking, farm workers are some of the poorest in our country, and the work they do is hazardous—extreme heat, inadequate drinking water, and pesticide-related illnesses come with the territory. All is not well for everyone in the shadow of capitalism.
So here’s the question that I was turning over in my mind while writing “In California”: How does a person who is fortunate enough to live lavishly dismiss those who are just scraping by? I believe the question has to do with the suffering of others, and a person’s willingness to feel empathy or not. To understand or avert one’s eyes. It’s easier to do the latter, I suppose. But what does that do to our humanity?
PS: Both this and your second poem in the issue, “It’s Only Vanishing Cream,” speak to the theme of erasure. Do you see them in conversation with each other in any way?
DH: Well, not until you pointed it out to me. They both stand under the larger umbrella that is my fifth collection of poems, Hello I Must Be Going (another Ruscha title). However, I wasn’t necessarily contemplating erasure during the writing process for any of these. I was thinking of willful ignorance with “In California,” and semantics in “It’s Only Vanishing Cream.”
PS: This second poem plays with the idea of rebranding “death” as “vanishing cream,” which sounds so much more whimsical and magical, and less threatening. In your mind, how much can changing what we call something change how it impacts us? What do you think are the powers and limitations of language in this regard?
DH: Language is our greatest invention. The tricky thing is that most words have a wide range of connotations, depending on who’s reading them or hears them being said aloud. Death, obviously, is one of these words. It’s going to mean something different to someone who’s lost a parent or not, lost a child or not, or a young person who has primarily lived a sheltered life. It will mean something different—this word death—to a heart surgeon, an atheist, a monk, a war veteran, a teenager at Yale or a teenager in Yemen. Our circumstances dictate how a word impacts us, and since our circumstances vary wildly, there’s going to be some miscommunication along the way. It’s all we’ve got, though—and the best way to understand each other in the deepest way possible.
David Hernandez‘s most recent book of poems is Dear, Sincerely.
Preety Sidhu is the editorial assistant for The Southern Review and an MFA candidate in fiction at Louisiana State University. Originally from the eastern shore of Maryland, she earned a BA in Astronomy at Swarthmore College before working as an independent school math teacher in the New York and Boston areas. She is currently hard at work on her thesis, a novel.
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