My Back Pages: Low Beasts Among the White Oaks
H.C. McEntire and falling back in love with the craft
‘My Back Pages’ is a new series I’m working on here at Tugboat about the links between music and literature. Check out the first post, reflections on Daisy Jones & the Six, right here. - AP
For this iteration of My Back Pages, I’m highlighting my recent interview with H.C. McEntire about her new album Every Acre, out today. This is a layered album that considers its subjects with frank, beautiful lines. The power dynamics of claiming and ownership, the nature of belonging, and the bald struggle of depression are held up to the light. So, too, is the writing process itself — Every Acre recounts McEntire’s journey of healing through creation, in her own words, the “power in naming your pain.”
I count myself lucky that the two of us spent some time talking about one of my favorite poems: “What It Looks Like to Us and the Words We Use,” by Ada Límon. McEntire references Límon in the album’s opener “New View,” alongside a mighty list of fellow authors: Wendell Berry, Sharon Olds, Meg Day, Dorianne Laux. The poem has similar themes, in my mind, to Every Acre — naming nature, describing kinship, discerning the holy — so I’ll pair it here.
It feels surreal in retrospect how nervous I was going into this interview. I’ve been a fan of H.C. McEntire since my dad uploaded Mount Moriah’s self-titled album to my iPod Nano in 2011, and I was terrified of trying to cover an artist who I hold so close. No one wants to be a punisher. But in the end, of course, this was a great conversation, and for me a meaningful illumination of an artist I deeply admire. I hope you enjoy.