© Montana Ray , 2015 . Courtesy of the artist .
“ I was stalked by an ex-partner for four years . An education in paranoia : is this happening , or not happening ?” says Ray . “ I had to report each incident to cops , who had guns , who didn ’ t make me feel safe or protected . One time when I was making a report , the cop asked for my friend ’ s phone number . I mean you have to swim in that . That ’ s how you get everything documented .”
And therein lies much of the tension within the poem machines of ( guns & butter ). Guns can be sexy on the skin of love objects , but in the hands of
violent ex-lovers , or the hands of law enforcement when you ’ re the mother of a brown child , they horrify . “ My partner owned a gun ,” says Ray . “ The gun didn ’ t play a physical role [ in our relationship ] but in retrospect , it was present . Hauntingly so . I knew it was there but not where it was .”
A partner ’ s gun is very present in her poem “( soulville )”:
The poem ends with a “ doctor in my hot tub .” There ’ s a speaker here that ’ s victim and perp . A gun here that ’ s a threat then it ’ s not . A warning except when it ’ s not . There is more than a triangle here . There ’ s a square . And when that doctor lights his cigarette , you know he ’ s lighting a fuse .
We speak about ( guns & butter ) and poetry as advocacy in the world . “ For me , the book was about healing and discipline , the product of a very desperate time I survived ,” says Ray . I found this answer poignant , for poetry , even when crafted into loud , deadly machines , is still words on a page infused with insight and feeling . If it ’ s combat , it ’ s hand-to-hand . If it ’ s love , it ’ s touch-totouch . Even if this work is not plaintively political , it is still shifting hearts and thinking .
“ Poets and artists are my newsfeed and my friends ,” says Ray . “ Poetry offers me possible and better futures and calls me to task when I lack allegiance to life ’ s highest principle . Which is composition on and especially off the page : to make of this experience something you can live by , something worth living .”
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