“Every night, I got to lift a glass to your honesty.”
—Bill Callahan
I’m standing in a large room in Detroit, Michigan—city of my birth—and something is happening to my brain. I’ve been here in this room before, some thirty or so years ago. The room is a music venue (over a bowling alley) called The Magic Stick and on this night in 2026, I’m here with an old buddy named Josh and we’re here to see the singer-songwriter, Bill Callahan (formerly known under the moniker Smog). Thirty-some years ago, when I was in this room, I was attending a Yo La Tengo show—or was it Luna? The Magnetic Fields? It doesn’t matter now. I’m standing in The Magic Stick, listening to Bill Callahan, and he and his band are having a visceral effect on me.
I’m also thinking about my friend, the poet Jason Irwin, back in Pittsburgh. Over dinner before the Callahan show, I was talking with my buddy Josh about Irwin and his new book—a gorgeous, tender memoir that is a love letter to his mother. I was trying to articulate how Irwin’s book, These Fragments I Have Shored, is the kind of literature I most admire, the kind that is the most important to me as a reader. In his memoir, Irwin tells a very personal story—one you can feel that he isn’t sure he should tell, or else one that he isn’t sure he wants to tell. A story that is difficult to put into words because it is so private and so felt.
Irwin pops into my head again at the Callahan show because I notice a connection between what Callahan is doing up there on the stage and what Irwin pulls off in his memoir. Six songs into his set, Callahan plays a new tune called “Empathy” and it is so moving, I don’t feel the need to hear another song—I’m sated. It’s a raw, very honest song about being a son and being a father. About how difficult and heart-breaking and beautiful those kinds of relationships can be. Which is also something that is found in the Irwin memoir. It’s an astoundingly touching capture of the complexity of familial bonds and the great storm of emotions our closest relationships can create in us.
The past couple of Mondays before my Detroit trip, I stopped over to Jason Irwin’s apartment in Edgewood to talk with him about his memoir, his poems, and his life as a writer. The first of the two Mondays was a cool April evening and when Irwin ushered me into his place, the strains of Link Wray’s guitar were pouring out of his stereo and into the stairwell of his apartment building. Almost immediately, we two proceeded into the kitchen, where Irwin brought down cartoon glasses from his cupboard and we broke into a box of red wine. “Boris or Rocky?” Irwin asked me. “Boris,” I said. And Irwin said, “I knew it!”
Irwin had fixed us a simple but flavorful dinner—white rice, mixed veggies, tofu. And while we ate, I talked to him about the collection of jazz tapes and CDs that had recently made its way into my workplace. I showed off some of the ones I had skimmed off the top, giving him a small selection to check out. Once the Link Wray disc ended, our dinner was finished, and our cartoon glasses topped-off, Irwin put on the CD I’d brought him called Money Jungle (by Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach) and I turned on my tape recorder.
session 1
Jason Irwin: What’s that?
Scott Silsbe: My recording device.
JI: Oh my god.
SS: You are being recorded.
JI: Fuck off!
[laughter]
SS: I have questions.
JI: Uh oh…I plead the fifth.
SS: …Alright, are you ready for some questions?
JI: I guess I am.
SS: Ok, good. Question one…
JI: Very formal.
SS: Yes, it is. It’s very formal.
JI: Ok.
SS: The focus of your memoir is primarily on your relationship with your mother. It feels to me that family has always been a subject in your writing, going back 20 years to your first chapbook, Some Days It’s a Love Story. I’m thinking of poems like “April, 1989” or “Sundays.” Why do you think it is that stories about family inspire you to write?
JI: I find them very interesting—family history and that. And also, probably a lot of the poetry and other memoirs that I’ve read, authors do that a lot and it’s what I love.
SS: So you’re inspired by the work of others who write about family.
JI: Yeah. And I think I have people in my family who have interesting stories.
SS:: I find that even before reading your memoir, which is obviously very personal subject matter, your poetry was very personal—very steeped in your own life. Which is not true for all poetry. Take a poet like, say, James Tate. I don’t have the sense that his work is highly autobiographical, or personal. I really admire the honesty, the openness of your work. The willingness to own up to the kinds of things we don’t always talk about outside of creative work. How do you think about your work in terms of what is personal or private and, as follow-up, did you struggle with what to keep in or leave out of your memoir because of how deeply personal it is?
JI: I think I struggled more with what was deeply personal, but it felt like I needed to say everything because I thought I’d probably never write a book like that again—and I might not. But as far as the personal—like with the birth defects and all that—I shied away from that for a long time. And then…Blister of Stars, I did more. But I think the memoir is even more, being more vulnerable and it’s frightening.
SS: Yes.
JI: I’m still wondering if I should have done it…because I was so frightened, my whole life, of showing people, well, not showing people—not like a flasher. But being very guarded in that way. What was the other part of your question, sir?
SS: Just like, did you struggle with what to keep in our leave out of the memoir?
JI: Yeah, there were a lot of I guess anecdotes or different things…I know Jenny would say a lot of times, “Does this really serve the story?” And that was difficult. And I think from the first draft, I probably cut 20,000 words. And it was difficult in that way.
SS: One thing that I think you and I have bonded over for years now—besides alcohol—is our mutual passion for books and reading. I remember a passage in your memoir where you talk about how there was a pretty precise moment where this love of books really took hold for you. Could you talk a bit further about that and talk about some of the books and/or authors that were foundational or influential for you?
JI: Yeah, I was never a reader until community college—I hated reading. In high school, I don’t know if I…I remember one book that I know I finished was A Separate Peace. Do you know that?
SS: Yeah. John Knowles.
JI: Yeah! But even …Cuckoo’s Nest—we were supposed to read that in high school and I didn’t actually read that until many years later. Wonderful book!
SS: Kesey.
JI: Yeah. But I read books my mother gave me, like young adult biographies of JFK and Martin Luther King. And books on the ‘60s—like music/counter-culture because I loved The Beatles and that. And I read her books, some of her books—Gibran and Hemingway and her weirdo religious books she made me read. But it wasn’t until community college when I found Emerson and Thoreau—Thoreau is still one of my favorite authors. Nietzsche, even though I never understood him—but that was more inspired by The Doors movie.
SS: Oh yeah? Ok.
JI: Because Morrison was a big Nietzsche fan. And then, James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was huge—I remember reading that the week my mother and I moved into the house she bought in ‘92. And then, Henry Miller was huge in my early 20s. And then Thomas Wolfe.
SS: Right. You talk about Thomas Wolfe in the memoir.
JI: Yeah. Look Homeward, Angel. Now, I tried to read it in the past five years and I cringe.
SS: Really?
JI: With all the “n-words.”
SS: Oh. Yeah. That’ll do it.
JI: But it’s a beautiful book. And probably because it’s his relationship with his mom and she was maybe overbearing and he tried to escape her to live his own life and move away. So there’s a similarity there. Not that my mother was overbearing, ‘cause she wasn’t. But poetry didn’t really, I don’t know—my mother had Emily Dickinson and a “Song of Myself” version that had photographs accompanying it. And then she bought me a copy of Dylan Thomas at some point. Those are probably the first poets I was into.
SS: You mentioned The Beatles. Another thing we seem to talk about a lot is music. It’s not surprising to me that your love of music comes through in your memoir—for example your fandom of Led Zeppelin and The Who when you were a kid. I know that you are a fan of a lot of different kinds of music—Charles Mingus, Bruce Springsteen, Vic Chestnutt, the Irish band Fontaines D.C.
JI: Ha! Thanks to you!
SS: I remember you saying that you listened to Springsteen’s Nebraska on repeat when you were writing one of your books—Watering the Dead, I think it was? Do you have a sense of what role music plays in inspiring you or how it interacts with your own work?
JI: I try to think of, when I’m writing a book as an album. Kind of.
SS: Oh yeah?
JI: But I don’t know if it’s as thematically succinct as something like Nebraska. But that one he writes a lot about his childhood and growing up in New Jersey and that.
SS: And so, in that way, it kind of influenced you writing Watering the Dead and writing about Dunkirk, would you say?
JI: Yeah. Very much. And my mother always listened to music. I don’t remember it—actually, only one instance when my father lived with us and that. But after he moved out, there was music blasting all the time. She always played it really loud. It was always there. And she liked everything from weirdo Jesus folk music to Johnny Cash and The Beatles and, of course, Elvis.
SS: I recently interviewed Judy Vollmer about her new book The Pavese Stone and I asked her about travel and its impact on her work. That new book of hers feels greatly influenced by Italian culture and her travels through Italy. I know that travel is something that also inspires you—case in point, some of your newer, yet uncollected poems, about travelling through Ireland. You talk about your earlier Irish adventures in your memoir as well. What do you think travel means to a writer? And where do you want to go on your next journey?
JI: Ha. I want to go to Italy—to Calabria, where my grandfather’s father came from. But of course, there’s so many places to go. Where do you want to go next?
SS: Haha. Where do I want to go next? I think I want to go to Montana.
JI: Really?
SS: Yes. I have a friend out there in Whitefish. And I’ve never been to that part of the country…So you want to go to Italy next. But yeah, talk a little bit about travel.
JI: I think at least when I went to Ireland for the first time it was a big thing because I’d never been away from home and, with all my medical problems, it was probably a…if anything happened to me—I mean, no cell phones then, nothing. And you know, I went there—a round trip to London with no other plans. I just knew where I wanted to go. And then years later, when I moved to Pittsburgh, I went to a couple meetings to an amputee support group and this guy showed a film and talked about him and his wife going on a cruise ship. And they said, “We had to think about all the different kinds of socks we had to wear”—he had to wear for his stump. He was a double-amputee. For the pressure and how he would do all that. And I just thought, “What the fuck?” I mean, I would never think of that stuff. But I think, just traveling in general, whether you’re a writer or not—even if you don’t go out of the country, if you just go across the United States—it just shows you how small you are. Because there are people in every community in the United States alone who are just like you in some way. They’re living their lives and want to do whatever they want to do. It’s weird.
SS: It is crazy how it does really expand your mind to see how large the world is.
JI: And you may think that your group of friends or whatever are amazing, and they do too, and they don’t know you and they could give a shit…not out of malice. And it’s also, I think I try to mention it in my memoir in one part where it’s also like, people today think that this time is the most important time in the history of the world, but everyone thinks that, right?
SS: Yes.
JI: …Travel is amazing. And everyone should do it if they can. And it breaks down fear or hatred of people you don’t even know. You could hate a group of people and not even know them.
When I visit a week later, it’s Led Zep’s Houses of the Holy echoing down Irwin’s apartment stairwell. After dinner and more box-wine, Irwin puts on a Fela Kuti CD and I hit the record button again.
session 2
SS: Alright, are you ready to get to work?
JI: I guess.
SS: And you’ll be worked hard.
JI: Uh oh. First time in years.
[laughter]
SS: Round two…
JI: Ding!
SS: I’m gonna hit you with a fastball, low and inside. You might not know the answer to this question. Why do you write? And as follow-up, why do birds sing?
JI: [looks confused]
SS: That’s just a joke.
JI: Oh…they have to!
SS: Well, yeah. Part of my question is—do you know why you write? Or is it just kind of like a compulsion?
JI: I don’t feel like it’s a compulsion lately. But, I guess it is—I don’t know. I wanted to be a painter and a musician and I failed at them both. And I don’t know if I’ve succeeded at writing, but…
SS: Seems like you have.
JI: I don’t know. I think I felt compelled to write for many years. And writing this memoir, too. But now, no. I don’t know—why do you write?
SS: [laughs] Um. I think I write to remember things. To, like, hold on to memories of certain things.
JI: Yeah. I think both of our poems are kind of like—maybe all poems are—snapshots of moments.
SS: Which leads me to my next question…
JI: It wasn’t a very good answer, was it?
SS: Good enough…You and I met many years ago at a reading at Modern Formations art gallery in Garfield. I feel like one of the reasons you and I have bonded is that we have a similar aesthetic in our poetry. And I’d be willing to assert that a reason for that similarity or overlap, if you will, is that we share some of the same influences. When I read your poems, I sometimes see or hear traces of some of my favorite poets—I get hints of Phil Levine, say, in a poem, like “Nowhere” from Watering the Dead. Or hints of James Wright in a poem like “Hospital Room” from your Blister of Stars. Do you think that’s accurate?
JI: Yeah!
SS: That those poets are part of your poetic DNA as influences?
JI: More Levine than Wright, but, yeah, he is. And I think you’re right—we do have a lot of…probably moreso over the years…what reading did we meet at? Was it your book launch?
SS: Ah, maybe…but I think it was possibly like a TNY Presents. Before you read at one, I think you attended one.
JI: Yeah, I attended several.
SS: Yeah, so I think it was probably a New Yinzer reading.
JI: I remember being very intoxicated and the room was red…
SS: Ooh!
JI: Or appeared to be. And I was standing there next to Nathan, who I had just met, and he just was doing that laugh. And I thought, “Oh, this guy’s weird.”
[laughter]
SS: You moved to Pittsburgh in 2006, I believe.
JI: Yeah.
SS: Which is 20 years ago now. Could you talk about Pittsburgh a little bit? Do you feel at home here? Do you consider yourself a Pittsburgh writer? What are your thoughts on the literary scene in Pittsburgh?
JI: I guess I consider myself a Pittsburgh writer, but not a Pittsburgher.
SS: Interesting.
JI: And, I mean, I moved here because it was cheaper than New York City and it was closer to my mother and my first wife’s mother. But, I remember that one of the first things I loved about Pittsburgh was at the Main Library, when they had the poetry room.
SS: Yes.
JI: I had only seen something like that at The Poet’s House. And that was amazing. And the whole library to me was kind of amazing.
SS: Yeah, I remember the International Poetry Forum room was big for me, too. Like during my MFA years.
JI: Yeah. I wish they didn’t take it out.
SS: Um…thoughts on the Pittsburgh literary scene?
JI: I mean I think that’s become the best thing for me—besides the people I’ve met, mostly through that. But there’s a great scene and everyone is really supportive of everyone else. And sometimes it can be an overload, as far as readings ‘cause it’s such a small town…small city. But yeah, it’s great…It’s also, besides the New Yinzer readings…I mean, that kind of, like, saves someone in the city when you don’t know a lot of people.
SS: Before the publication of These Fragments I Have Shored, your output has been primarily poetry. I’m curious what other memoirs (or perhaps novels) shaped your idea to write your memoir. You already mentioned in this conversation Joyce’s Portrait… and Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel as influences. But I’m wondering if there were maybe some memoirs that worked as specific inspiration for your book? I know we both love the Harry Crews memoir A Childhood.
JI: Yeah, um…Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. Nick Flynn’s This Is the Year Our House Will Catch Fire. And John Burnside’s A Lie About My Father.
SS: Ok.
JI: And anything by Frank McCourt.
SS: Nice.
JI: And I mean, as with you—so many influences. There’s a lot more, as far as memoir.
SS: I’d say that one of the successes of your memoir is the structure—the way you’re able to jump around in time. It’s really striking how you are bouncing from your childhood, where your mother was taking care of you, to the end of your mother’s life, where you were taking care of her. But what’s most impressive to me is that you have leaps to other times from the past 55 years incorporated as well. Do you feel that time is fluid, in a sense, because of memory?
JI: Yeah. I think…since I’ve spent too many years writing this, I feel like I’m always in the past of my life. Like when you reconnect with people on Facebook, who you’ve not seen, and you may not even communicate with them ever. But there are, like, people who I write about in the memoir who I’ve not seen in like 30 or 40 years, but I feel like I’m still in that moment. They probably don’t. They probably think I should go get a job or something. But I feel like the past and the present are together as one.
SS: Not a linear line.
JI: No. And I also thought that it would not be good if I wrote this in chronological order because the main focus was my mother’s illness and how we switched roles and if I saved that for the end, I think it wouldn’t be worth…I wouldn’t say the ending wouldn’t be earned, ‘cause that’s dissing myself, but I think it’s more impactful this way.
SS: I agree. That makes sense to me. Alright. You have two book launches coming up—one at Brillobox and one at White Whale. Are you looking forward to them?
JI: God, no! I mean…
[laughter]
SS: Well…as follow-up, do you enjoy or dread doing readings? Or do you enjoy and dread doing readings.
JI: I enjoy and dread.
SS: It’s kind of a mix, huh?
JI: And sometimes I take things beforehand to soothe me and sometimes they backfire, like at Stay Gold, and you started to laugh at something I said wrong and then I forgot where I was…What was the question?
SS: Just…are you looking forward to your book launches?
JI: Oh. Yeah.
SS: Cool. I think that’s all I got.
JI: Cheers.
SS: Cheers.
JI: You need more wine, sir.
SS: Oh, my.
Jason Irwin’s memoir These Fragments I Have Shored was published by Apprentice House Press on May 5, 2026. The two Pittsburgh launches of the book will take place at Brillobox on Sunday, May 17 at 7pm and at White Whale Bookstore on Saturday, May 23 at 7pm.
