Diane Glancy: A Hunger for Many Voices

Abstract

American culture with authority and ease. I thought she would be a tall, imposing force that would rigidly structure the space in a room, like a mountain or tree. I thought she would be a mythic or ritual force. But I was wrong. Unlike her poetry, drama, or fiction, Diane Glancy the person is an unstructured energy. In her speech she establishes "myth" through a youthful curiosity, always surprised and excited by what is right in front ofher. She pursues the unseen potential in everything. As she often says ofher work, she too seems to move in the dream world. Instead ofdictating what is there, she waits for something to show itself, to tell her. I met her in the lobby of her hotel, and on the walk from the hotel to the Red Cedar Review office, where I would interview her, I told her about a dream I had the night before: that she had come to my house and given me a puppy and that we spent a long time trying to name it. During the five-block walk from the hotel to the office we stopped twice so she could write down the dream and scraps of our conversation. Even in five blocks, her myth or logic was revealing itself, and she respected it. She wrote it down.