Exclusive Channel Sounds Interview with Van Thomas on Poetry, Growth, & the Beautiful Lows
Here is a divergence from our usual programming of music and songwriting; however, not too far off. Today, I have the pleasure of sharing an interview I had with an old friend whom I’ve known for a while now, more specifically since our middle school & high school days. Evan “Van Thomas” Cummings is someone I always knew to have a beautiful grasp of the English language. I won’t deny that it did surprise me though when he would read aloud some of his assignments to the class, and I would hear such raw and honest emotion, intertwined in such well-constructed, eloquent structures of poetry, but he did it every time. He had an undeniable knack for it.
His writing is something that I sometimes have a hard time explaining, mostly because it’s usually a collection of feelings. It’s like looking through a microscope and realizing that the words Van put on this paper are a reflection of a moment you have endured. It’s one of those “a ha!” episodes, while also taking form of a long-winded sigh. He sheds light on the stories that we usually have a hard time admitting to ourselves. They’re ultimately the thoughts and conversations we always have in our own heads that never have a chance at seeing the light of day only to get pushed into the back of our minds. Van allows the reader to open up, remember, ponder, and daydream. He lets you find the beauty in the madness and the light in the dark. All of these descriptions are the emotions I’ve felt in reading his poetry, and though I know him, his writing is a stranger to you who reminds you that in the end we’re not really strangers.
Fast forward 5 or 6 years, we unexpectedly bumped into each other in Los Angeles, California at an emerging artist showcase. Definitely a pleasant surprised, I was elated to find out that he continued & continues to pursue the art form as well as explored writing books and songwriting. Poetry certainly serves as a wonderful channel of sound for this individual, and I am happy to know that our interests in the creative realms allowed us to reconnect so that I could share a glimpse of his story and his work with you through our platform today. Below is a sample of his poetic work “Which Way Do Your Windows Face”:
Here is our interview:
Neelu Mohaghegh [NM]: When did you realize you loved poetry?
Van Thomas [VT]: “It’s honestly tough to magnify it down into one crystalline moment. I’m not sure it’s a realization or conclusion I’ve ever deliberately come to either. Poetry kind of happened to me the way a birthday does. It was always coming whether I wanted to acknowledge it or not and it certainly came bearing some pleasant gifts as well. But if I were to look back at when poetry became a real and legitimate entity to me it would probably be in the form of a time-lapse between my sophomore and junior years of college. My dad had just died, I had fucked up a relationship in signature fashion, and I was having a major crises of identity. I switched from an education to a writing major during all of that & tested the waters on pretty much everything; fiction, non-fiction, journalism, screen-writing, and of course poetry. I still have a lot of reverence for all of those forms & I can’t say I remember ever consciously deciding poetry over the rest, but it certainly may have decided that on my behalf.”
[NM]: Who are some of your favorite poets?
[VT]: “This is always a tough question for me. I spent a lot of time in the past immersing myself in poets I was compared to which is likely some form or practice of narcissism. I’ve received a lot of comparisons to Bukowski, which I used to love, but it frustrates me a little bit now. He’s certainly not a role model and I think our styles are much different, but I suppose we share a similar temperament from an interpersonal perspective. I think I tend to be more drawn to writers who operate outside of poetry. I have an incredibly deep admiration for Joan Didion and the way she made her living with really relevant cultural commentary. She also wrote my roadmap for grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, which is a great read for any secular person who has some experience with loss. In a lot of ways I’d say she’s the mother of my California dream.”
[NM]: How have you continued to stay creative during this year, especially during the quarantine moments?
[VT]: “Truth be told I’ve actually really struggled with it. I like using a narrative style that’s set in the daily pulse of a social world that prioritizes all the mundanities therein. There have certainly been moments— visceral ones at that— that are really rich emotionally, but I can’t sit here and say I haven’t experienced some degree of psychological and creative fatigue via cabin fever. I also find myself in the midst of a redefining of id and ego through cultivating the foundations of my sobriety. In a lot of ways my identity was intertwined with my impulses, so by removing those impulses there’s a really enveloping process of rediscovery that gets introduced. It’s a positive thing, but it’s not without its growing pains.”
[NM]: How has poetry acted/served as your channel to or your way of expressing yourself?
[VT]: “I like to say poetry has afforded me the opportunity to make my lowest moments beautiful. That’s really the long and the short of it for me. I find poetry to be a redemptive art form and I think that shows throughout its history. There’s been an observable shift lately, at least in terms what is marketed, to a more “Urban-Outfitters” style of poetics, but the Los Angeles scene has shown me that people still indelibly flock to more nuanced and original exhibits of the art as well. LA is teeming with really incredible writers, a lot of whom I admire.”
[NM]: What's your detour? (Something outside of your usual routine that you do, might be a side project/passion project, a hobby, a fun fact, something people didn't know about you...)
[VT]: “My detour is more so just a lane change in that I really like editing other people’s work. I think it helps me to remove myself from the emotionality of the writing process and I get to approach it as more of a practitioner. It becomes more calculated and technical at that point and more puzzle than painting. I’m a perfectionist with a poor sense of self in a way that can cast a lot of doubt on my own process, so editing the work of others can be a really welcome change of pace sometimes.”
[NM]: What are some of your goals for the year and the new year coming? And do you have any projects coming up that we should be on the lookout for?
[VT]: “The primary goal is to finish my manuscript. I’m currently enrolled in a local Los Angeles publishing course with an organization called the Community Literature Initiative who, once the manuscript is finished and I make some design focused decisions, will provide me with the guidance and resources needed to get that final draft in the hands of a publishing house. Getting accepted into that program has probably been the most important development in my writing career. I know and have edited for people who have gone the self-publish route which I have a lot of respect for too, but I think this course will be to the benefit of my final product. It’s still way too early to tell exactly, but that book should be ready to go in mid-to-late 2021.”
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Thanks for sharing all of this, Van. It has been a pleasure to re-connect and hear the amazing work you’re doing!