Mapping the Artist: Briony James

Briony James and Kathabela Wilson.

An Interview with Briony James, a sparkling poet, artist, musician, and resident of Altadena.

We talk about her enchanting, unusual stories of poetic beginnings and her unique way of sharing her deep feelings for humanity and world cultures.

By Kathabela Wilson

A telescope on the poet

Briony James at Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden Bridge.

How do you see the poet, artist in the world, and how do you see yourself in this way?

I see the poet as the soothsayer of the modern world–the artist who speaks the truth without reservation or fear of being correct. I also see the poet as the one artist who can use words and language to put forth a vision of humanity and spirituality unlinked to dogma or ideology in the purest manner. I find I speak from my inner soul and heart in poetry, with honesty and depth.

A microscope on the poet

Briony James

How did your life lead you to being a poet and artist, what were the things that inspired and do inspire?

I started writing when I was about four, making up stories for my dolls. Mom used to ask me why I had lined them up in the driveway and was running them over with the baby carriage–with typical childlike candor, I explained that I wanted to play hospital but they needed to be injured. I added art to words soon after, and have been trying to sort out my own spirituality and beliefs and thoughts in verse for the past six decades. I have poems from elementary school, art from high school, stories from college and all three from my entire adult life, addressing my place in the universe, the confusion of belief versus reality, love in practice as opposed to love as a concept. All change and reflect flux and growth but always go back to their origins. One of my most powerful memories that prompted my first serious poetry was when I was about six. I hid under the stairs in the stairwell leading down to the choir robing area after services before Easter.  After hours I was found and explained I wanted to see the tomb open. Like any child, I took the story seriously and at face value and applied that practically, so a concrete stairwell seemed a perfectly reasonable place to seek Angels to my six year old mind.

Mapping the poet

How have the places of your life influenced your work?

Nature called to me from the beginning…whether it was dawn in December, in my childhood on Long Island, with the blue light reflecting off the snow, or lilac hedges leftover from a robber baron garden on the North Shore in May perfuming the air. My place as a child was an apple tree all pink blossom in spring and those branches were everything from a pirate ship to a space ship of imagination. Later I spent hours on a log in a bird sanctuary called Shu Swamp down a violet-lined lane writing my first real poems and finding inspiration in the flow of a streams and the sound of wind in the trees.

A pulse on the poet

Briony James with Kathabela at Poetry Group, Caltech.

How does art, music and poetry work together in your life?

Without art, there is no life for me. I have moved from theatre to art history, from graphic arts to tattooing, in each finding a way to express myself with line and verse, not always successfully, but always honestly. The piano and classical music is always at my fingertips too, and teaching children to play is one of my continuous passions. Currently, writing poetry, especially tanka, has become a passion, a road by which I can say, succinctly, what resides in my soul.

A microphone to the poet and teacher

I know you teach and have a strong sense of community, tell us about that.

My work as a docent at the USC Pacific Asia Museum gives me a chance to share cultures to young students. It brings me back to the way my mind was opened by my mother in frequent trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other places of wonder in NYC.

A sense of history and community is essential to me in comprehending humanity and our long journey on this planet. Our local poetry workshops, readings and salons bring us together as poets and artists. We owe it to each other and to ourselves to reach out to one another. Through history, we begin to see how we are the fruit of ages past and the kernels of the future.

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