Julia Fleeman

WHEN JULIA FLEEMAN first moved to Arizona in the 1990s, she took a Jeep tour in the desert with her daughter. “The guide was a pistol-packing cowboy, and he drove a group of doctors and their spouses and us and told us about the various things we saw.”  Julia has been writing poetry since childhood, so it was a natural progression for her to put her impressions of this new scenery down on paper. “I wanted to talk about the experience of living in a modern city on a desert landscape, and the history and mythos of the West.”

Raised in Miami Beach, Florida, Julia received a degree in comparative literature and studied film production and history. She struggled in the film and television industry, deciding to return to school to become a librarian. “I thought while I couldn’t make movies by myself, no one could stop me from writing.” Her love of film, art and photography was never far behind. She worked as a curatorial assistant in a film library, and as a volunteer at the Phoenix Art Museum.

This overlap of art and literature extends into Julia’s writing. She has written many ekphrastic poems, which are poetic responses to visual works of art. She also became interested in hybrid forms, specifically ways to integrate text and illustration. “I took a couple of online courses on doing so. In one I had to write a poem inspired by an image, so I took a photo I made and wrote a poem. I then cut up the poem and attached the pieces to the photo.” This led to her making mixed-media assemblages of words and images. Learning about many art media and poetic forms has opened new ways of comprehending art. “I think that understanding the history and technique of any art form aids you in interpreting and appreciating it, even if you never create work in that particular medium.”

A few years ago Julia joined a group of women writers who meet monthly to create and share their writing. “We often work in different forms — flash essay, flash memoir, poems, etc. I got interested in Japanese forms and even wrote a haibun using a fragment from the class.” Here too visual art continues to influence her poetry. “Many of the lessons I have learned from painting have transferred to my writing: just start out, even if you don't know where you are going, try to introduce contrasting elements, find unexpected harmonies, and don't be afraid to change it; if you don't like it, you can change it again.”

Julia has published in a number of journals and shares her poems at open mics in the Phoenix area. “Years ago I realized that nobody was going to break down my door demanding to publish my work, so I started reading it locally. I see poetry as both a literary and a performative art. When I was young I went to a summer youth-theatre program, and for the diction class we read poems. This has definitely influenced my reading style.” 

In discussing the following poems, Julia shares, “These poems date from my earliest days in Arizona. I am interested in the building of a civilization on a distinctive site without taking into account the history or unique qualities of the environment.” Both poems hold a mirror up to Arizona transplants who interpret the land and the language to suit their needs, regardless of the damage they do or the facts they twist. 

For Julia poetry is a continuous flow of creative expression. “I care about layering history, memory and immediate experience. I like surprises and juxtapositions of unexpected elements. I take as my mantra a quote from an art-history professor I studied with: “Art is a continuum, not a progression.” Older art isn't invalidated by newer forms. Shakespeare isn't invalidated by Keats, Keats by Elliot or Elliot by Ginsberg. Poetry can capture experience and perception and present it to the reader. I can connect with another consciousness, often from a different background, and find a shared experience or something startling.”

Contact Julia at juliafleeman@cox.net.

Dream House

They called their winter home
“Casa de Suenos,”
though no Spaniard ever dreamed there.
Clean lined Deco, a new sort of desert dove,
it rested among saguaros, javelinas
and petroglyphs left by Hohokam canal builders.
The next owner changed the name to
Ahwatukee — “house of dreams” in Crow —
though no Crow ever dreamed there.
The caretaker’s family lived on the site until the seventies,
the children meeting the school bus
where the dirt road bumped into the mountain.
Finally, developers tore down
the abandoned house
but kept the name.
Now in stucco-lined street
named for Plains nations
Nebraskans dream of year-round golf.

Desert Jeep Tour — Saguaro

Yes, it does look like it’s waving at you.
That’s a saguaro, ma’am,
native to the Sonoran desert.
The blossom is our state flower.
That one? Oh I’d say about one hundred and fifty —
they don’t branch out before fifty.
See those large, dark holes?
There’s a bird, the cactus wren, that
builds its nest inside the body
of the saguaro.
The cactus builds up callus
around the nest.
Native people used them to make boots.
A state law protects saguaros,
but people still try to come out here
and dig them up.
Worse, they try to shoot them.
A couple years back, a fellow come out
to the desert and shot one up
but when he went in close to see how he’d done
the thing toppled over and killed him.
Yeah, I thought so, too.

Poems previously published in Write On Downtown

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