Cole Swensen on Her Series of Walks

Cole Swensen spoke to The Rumpus about walking and her recent travels: "My focus is on the rhythmic relationship between body and ground and the visual relationships among the elements of the always-changing scene," says Swensen to Maria Anderson. More:

[Swensen:]...But yes, sometimes I do have rules, or rather constraints. One I’ve been working with lately, for instance—and it only works in urban spaces—is the single constraint of turning left whenever I encounter an obstacle, something that makes me stop, such as a traffic light or a T intersection or crowd congestion. I’ve been doing a series of these walks this fall, always starting from the same place and always for the same length of time, to see how differently the walk develops. I end up in very different places.

Rumpus: This is a fascinating constraint. Have you ever looked at these walks visually? Drawn them up on a map to see the shapes?

Swensen: Yes! Exactly! I’m so glad that comes to mind! I do draw them out on a map, and in that way, the kinetic experience becomes a visual work, and the perspective that has been linear and time-based suddenly becomes bird’s-eye-view spatialized. I have also then retraced the lines on a separate sheet of paper, thus removing the map and turning the lines into an abstract drawing.

Rumpus: In an essay for The Rumpus, the poet Ocean Vuong talks about walking as a formative experience. He was seventeen and had just moved to New York:

I love going on walks by myself. No pressure to keep up conversation. And there is something about movement that helps me think. To charge an idea with the body’s inertia. To carry a feeling through the distance and watch it grow.

Do you often walk by yourself, or with others?

Swensen: Thanks for directing me to Ocean Vuong’s piece. I found it so striking! And I love that part that you quote—the idea of “carrying a feeling through distance”—very different from carrying a feeling through space, for instance. I usually walk alone. I walk to my writing. At the end of every day, I walk for thirty minutes to an hour to one of a number of cafés and write for about an hour, then walk back. I also walk simply for transportation, in which case, I frequently walk with someone else—whoever is going my way.

Please find the full interview at The Rumpus.