In 2011
Keith O’Shaughnessy’s first book of poems,
Incommunicado, won the
inaugural Grolier Discovery Award, sponsored by the legendary Cambridge
bookshop of the same name. His second,
Last Call for Ganymede,
followed in 2014 from Ilora Press. At long last, his magnum opus,
Petrushka,
was released by Ragged Sky Press in March of 2026. Along the way he also
authored three chapbooks—
Carnaval,
The Devil’s Party, and
Snegurochka—all
with Pudding House Publications. A near-lifelong resident of Princeton, he
teaches English at Camden County College in southern New Jersey.
1 - How did your first
book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to
your previous? How does it feel different?
The origin story (of
sorts) for the publication of my first book strikes me now as well nigh
mythical in character. Suffice to say, it involved being serendipitously
“discovered”—straight-up plucked from artistic oblivion—by the proprietor of
the legendary Grolier bookshop on Harvard Square (a delightful poet in his own
right) and selected as the recipient of the then-new press’s inaugural poetry
award created in its name, which, in professional terms, had the effect of
conferring at least a modicum of legitimacy on the enterprise. This, in turn,
led to a series of modest but still appreciable honors and opportunities, none
of which precipitated a total reputational metamorphosis, to be sure, but
nonetheless proved a boon to little old me and my nascent career aspirations.
Just the same, I’d already long regarded the collection in question as a smashing
success (despite being alone in doing so), insofar as it had achieved, at least
by my estimate, the complete realization of a distinctly singular aesthetic
vision, however distorted or hallucinatory it might appear to any onlooker
possessed of even passable taste and judgment. Which is to say, whatever the
world might have made of that book—and Lord knows it didn’t make much—its
author was tickled pink with it. So there! Ha.
The same holds true for my
most recent release, Petrushka, starring the notorious jester anti-hero
of Russian puppet theater, renowned for his aggressive belligerence and
subversive vulgarity—not to mention his signature slapstick, with which to
thwack, each in his turn, his various adversaries batty. The book itself serves
as a veritable compendium of the perverse and grotesque—ugly and nasty to the
max, I grant you, but with more than a little pep in its step, equal parts
puckish, jaunty, and gruesome. Or so say I. Again, I am positively thrilled
with the accursed thing, despite my remaining relegated to perhaps
well-deserved (not to mention almost total) obscurity. The fact that most
anyone of sufficient constitutional fortitude to make it even a quarter-way
through so forbiddingly hefty and dense a volume will likely find much of it
repugnant, whether by standards of general etiquette or common competence, irks
me not a jot. In rebuttal I can offer only the age-old
“the-muses-made-me-do-it” defense. It just so happens that this time round the
sacred sister assigned to my case was of a decidedly diabolical bent. Hey, I’m
just taking dictation! Not exactly holy writ chiseled on a tablet, I concede,
but one takes what one can get. Besides, you can’t blame Moses if the burning
bush happens to start a forest fire.
2 - How did you come to
poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I have come to conceive of
every expression in words as the verbal equivalent of the instinctive emission
of an inarticulate moan, coo, sob, or shriek, such as is released automatically
by a forceful physical stimulus. In fact, somewhere in my last book I found
myself reducing the entirety of its contents to a cross between the twin
interjections Ew and Ow, to my mind the only response possible to
the state of affairs obtaining in our age. Hence the omnipresent, and
incoherent, squeak of the Petrushka puppet’s reedy pennywhistle, and no less
speechless screech of the leashed monkey, resounding throughout, as if in
derision of their hominid counterparts, persisting, as is ever their wont, in
the naïve belief that the words they converse in convey anything whatever in
the way of real meaning.
All of this is to say that
I am inclined towards the lyric largely because its is the vehicle that best
conduces to the speaking of what I have come to term “the language of tongue”
(one maximally in touch with utterance)—as well as, in the same vein, making
the sense of sensation, denotative relevance be damned. Not for me the pensive
reflection or versified position-piece. By my lights, a lyric poem should be
not an after-the-fact description—however graceful its phrasing or wise its
insights—of something that already happened, but rather the something itself
happening then and there.
Not uncoincidentally, I
seem to lack whatever the faculty is that organizes experience into narrative
patterns (as distinct from systems of imagery or sound), so I suppose that,
like more than a few of our cohort before me, I have ingeniously devised a philosophy
to accommodate my faults.
3 - How long does it take
to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come
quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their
final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
My first and third books,
expounded upon below, both sprung unbidden into existence. In both cases, I can
recall with vividness and distinction the precise instant inspiration struck.
Highly particularized phrases, images, and cadences spewed forth in a single
rush, all of them evocative of a radically peculiar atmosphere. None of the
above was ever arrived at deliberately. I myself (always the last to know!)
rarely have the faintest idea why I’m writing what I’m writing while I’m
writing it. Only much later, looking back as one might on an especially
perplexing reverie, am I able to decipher the hieroglyphics. As with a chemical
reaction, certain elements are simultaneously present in my deranged brain, and
when the right catalyzing agent is introduced, a new compound is formed.
As to individual poems, on
occasion one may make its way extemporaneously into being, but more often than
not they are the product of excruciating, virtually interminable toil—and not
only my own. (Just ask my production designer, who’s been trudging along
grudgingly beside me all the while, adding and subtracting the same freaking
punctuation mark for eons on end.)
4 - Where does a poem
usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining
into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very
beginning?
My second book, not
unconventionally, features a series of individual pieces associated vaguely by
a dominant sensibility—in this case traditionally formal dramatic monologues in
the voices of literary eminences past—while in my first and third releases,
conceived of initially as complementary companion volumes (one set in Mexico,
the other Russia), the poems act rather as movements in a larger symphonic
arrangement of interacting characters, themes, and motifs, together forming a
more or less unified whole. In neither case did I set out from the get-go to
fashion some grand magnum opus on that plan. Like a medium channeling voices
from the beyond (or, better yet, within), I just call ‘em as I hear ‘em.
5 - Are public readings
part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who
enjoys doing readings?
This is an easy one! I
hereby declare myself, with great passion and emphasis, an inveterate ham in
just about every measurable respect. Needless to say, this tendency extends to
the dais in any literary venue fool enough have me. In fact, I would love
nothing more than to go on tour like a seventies rock star, trashing hotel
rooms the world over. In the meantime I’ll just keep doing my level best to eke
out a few stray, slenderly attended gigs hosted by what might euphemistically
be dubbed the humbler forums in the same catch-as-catch-can manner as ever.
Needless to say, my dance card is, shall we say, somewhat less than full.
6 - Do you have any
theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you
trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions
are?
For whatever reason, due
to some strange primal imperative, people seem obstinately intent on dividing
every subject into two, precisely inverted sides, and never the twain shall
meet. This is disappointingly true in the case of literary theory, in that the
preponderance of modern scholars seem either adamantly fanatical proselytizers,
zealously spreading the good word, or harumphing, retrograde contrarians
decrying the entire field of inquiry as top-to-bottom balderdash. For me the
defining problem with theory is not that it’s wrong, but rather that its
proponents too often treat it as, well, theoretical. As though they were merely
rearranging pieces on a gameboard in outer space. If they truly believed what
they were saying—about language, meaning, and so on—they wouldn’t be up there
at the podium delivering their abstruse and convoluted conference papers with
such poised equanimity, but rather wailing in agony from the fevered strain on
their brains. Most of theory’s claims seem to me to be self-evidently the
case—not hypothetical truths, but manifest facts of the “no duh” variety. But
they describe phenomena, not ideas. Hence, in the case of my latest,
extravagant feats of linguistic gamesmanship are all ineluctably drawn back to
one and the same primordial howl. Analogously, the menagerie of caged,
emasculated animals on hand are all struggling futilely to summon forth their
long-muffled roars.
7 – What do you see the
current role of the writer being in larger culture? Do they even have one? What
do you think the role of the writer should be?
As I’m sure you know all
too well, many writers in our time never weary of bemoaning their woes as
practitioners of an effectively moribund art form. Alas, here we teeter on the
precipice, an endangered species on the brink of extinction! I, by contrast,
consider the discipline’s near-complete anonymity a godsend. When you watch a
movie, what you are really witnessing is a series of debilitating compromises
on the part of the filmmaker to the exigences of a market. Day after day, for
the sake of viability, the dutiful auteur is made to capitulate to the demands
of a commercial concern, as though manufacturing merchandise for a mass
audience of passive consumers whose tastes must be gratified at every turn.
Conversely, the fact that the poetaster’s pastime is fundamentally
non-remunerative leaves us free to carry on much as we wish, enjoying all the
while the almost absolute impunity total irrelevance affords (excepting,
naturally, that tiny cadre of true po-biz celebs, who do have their various
demographics to pander to). All of this is to say that at present the writer plays
an at-best-negligible role in the larger culture, and this one at least likes
it just fine that way, thank you very much.
To address the second part
of your question, while I can offer no workable alternative of my own, I can
tell you that most of the highfalutin fiddle-faddle (apologies for the saucy
talk…) about writers serving as as courageous truth-tellers or purveyors of
empathy—much less chroniclers of “what it means to be human”—strikes me as just
so much mawkish claptrap, embarrassingly inadequate to the task at hand. (Is it
any wonder the humanities are on the wane when the cases they make for
themselves so often rely on the tritest of bromides?) After all, literature, at
heart, is just good stories well told. And who doesn’t love a good story? As if
in answer to some primeval impetus, individual families ritualistically recount
the same set of representative anecdotes about themselves around the dinner
table every holiday to preserve the legacy of the clan. Cultures do much the
same with their identifying tales. The same goes for chants to dance to and
verses to pray in—that is, all that falls squarely within the lyric’s purview.
8 - Do you find the
process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I, ever the uncompromising
anti-pragmatist, categorically abjure all forms of outside intervention.
Preposterous, I know, but for me the whole point of writing a book is writing a
book. If you don’t like mine, write your own. Collaborations are for Hollywood.
Indeed, so thoroughgoing am I in this quixotic purism that I (improvidently,
most like) even insisted on painting the cover image for my last book, and
likewise eschewed all the usual extraliterary accoutrements ornamentally
adorning most published tomes—banal blurbs, puffed-up “about the author” squib,
stagey head shot, e.g. It vexes me no end to see so many supposed devotees of
the form, upon making their purchase, excitedly flipping the book over to
peruse the generic plaudits tastefully arranged on the back flap, then checking
the requisite litany of wowing credentials below, and probably leaving it at
that. Relatedly, it always dashes my already flagging spirits to see how, at
readings, the interstitial chit-chat—as in all that vapid backstory patter in
between poems—have long since become such events’ main attraction.
9 - What is the best piece
of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Once
at a conference a poet-friend, when asked to account for her penchant for
winking zingers using religious iconography with ribald suggestiveness
(devotional erotica, call it), quipped tartly, ‘When you’re good at something,
keep doing it.’ I, for my part, abide by the corollary (of my own coinage): If
that’s your thing, that’s your thing. Plainly, mine might be wildly inadvisable
in any other context, but whatever integrity the work can claim inheres in its
mulish refusal to play along. Better to indulge your writerly vices with
abandon than, in a show of good party manners, repress them decorously in front
of company.
Indeed,
as I’m sure you’ve already observed (with some consternation), even now I am
failing to curb my characteristic tic of contorting the most straightforward of
statements into tortured stylistic flourishes. So long have I labored (vainly)
to restrain this impulse that I have resolved—at least in my most recent
mischief-making—to yield to it in toto. Surely the world already has its
fill of pretty faces, as it were, so why not go with the jolie-laide
every once in awhile. Which is to say, there is no paucity of proficiently
written verse. Why bother with a poem that will turn out as merely a better or
worse version of a preexisting one. Accordingly, as it stands every line of Petrushka
feels like one more thwack of the slapstick—on both of our baleful pates.
Among
other things, my latest book is a case study in precisely this kind of
self-license. I wantonly succumb to my various proclivities in a straight-up
bacchanalia of flagrant fouls against standard practice, as if I’d set out with
the express aim of violating every last tenet of the time-serving workshopper’s
creed. In doing so, sad to say, I’ve wound up flouting the soundest counsel
I’ve ever personally received, this time from my erstwhile mentor, Rachel Hadas
(and it came in the imperative case)—to wit, “Cut, cut, cut!” Naturally, the
admonition was both valid and apt, but nonetheless has gone unheeded, if not to
the very edge of self-destruction.
10 - What kind of writing
routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day
(for you) begin?
Erratic in the extreme,
I’m afraid. Often, for vast expanses of time I inscribe nary a character, then
suddenly find myself in the grips of a kind of fit, which, once it’s got hold
of me, won’t let up until the fever breaks. There are days I rise with the sun
and punch in for a double shift in my home office chair, then remain on duty
long past closing time. Other times I find myself leaping out of the pool at my
gym and fiendishly scribbling the myriad turns of phrase that occurred to me
during my laps on a spare swim class flier so they can be entered into the
official record upon my return home. All very haphazard, no doubt, but it’s not
like I have any choice in the matter.
11 - When your
writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better
word) inspiration?
A pithy Yeats poem once
posited that “lust and rage” are all we’ve got to “spur (us) into song.” In the
same spirit, I would contend that, during the protracted span of Petrushka’s
composition, my muses were, above all, spite and disgust (not excluding, I
should add, the “self” kind). Needless to say, inspiration abounded. Look
around you. The world is forever generating new material for satire, the
blacker the better. Yes, never a lean season when it comes to fit objects for
our mockery and scorn. So, impolitic as it surely sounds, whenever my stamina
lags, I have only to seek out a reading—preferably by a feted contemporary in
the “I-am-victim-hear-me-whine” line, bewailing aggrandized travails, making
testament of ever-so-precious sentiments—and sure enough, within moments I’m
seething with ire, ready to pick up the slapstick and leap reinvigorated back
into the breach.
13 - David W.
McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms
that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
As anyone who’s ever met
me would happily attest, I am an unregenerate museum junkie. I was once friends
with a fervent connoisseur of the American automobile, who, when asked why he
attended so many (to the uninitiated at least, stultifyingly dull) car shows,
replied, “I love cars. In fact, I love cars so much that I even love bad cars
because I’m interested in what’s bad about them.” That’s precisely my attitude
towards visual art. In the realm of belles lettres, I can be impossibly
captious and exacting, but perambulating the galleries of my beloved Met or
Barnes, I am suddenly indiscriminately promiscuous. I cannot claim any direct
connection to the content or style of my writing, but I am always uplifted by
the collective effort of artists to lend at least a smidgeon of dignity to the
drab and dreary proceedings of quotidian human life. I don’t know the first
thing about ballet, say, but find myself moved to tears at the spectacle of an
entire company of principled, committed masters of their craft striving so
mightily to make the human frame, if only momentarily, appear at least somewhat
less ungainly and maladroit, as if, should the dancer manage to leap high
enough, she might simply float off like an angel into the ether. But alas, a
few minutes gazing on any number of fellow members of our species shuffling
glumly around the local strip mall food court in elastic waistband slacks and
Velcro-strap sneakers has a way bringing us all back down to earth, and right
quick.
14 - What other writers or
writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
The brute magnitude of
Shakespeare’s plays, taken en masse, always leaves me feeling a combination of
awe and gratitude. A joy merely to contemplate.
18 - What was the
last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Outlandish as it may
sound, I don’t really read. Somehow I just up and lost the knack of it a couple
of decades back. I suppose I’ve now taught literature in the classroom for so
long that I’ve come to conceive of it as a communal activity. Perusing a volume
on my own at home feels tantamount to poring over sheet music in reverential
silence in lieu of hearing it performed orchestrally.
The last classic I had any
transaction with in my off-duty hours was the original creature feature, Frankenstein,
which I hadn’t so much as glanced at in decades. After all these years of
ardently reiterating to my creative writing students that every work of art,
before anything else, represents a sequence of choices, each one of which with
its own intended consequences—decisions, decisions, decisions!—there I was
confronted with a book that made some of the most befuddling judgment calls in
the annals of literary history. The fact that, for example, the scene in which
disinterred anatomical remains get magically reanimated is, beyond
anticlimactically, dispensed with early on in a couple of cursory paragraphs
left me gobsmacked. I had forgotten, too, about the decidedly odd and cumbrous
epistolary framing device, which presents the entire novel as an excerpt from
some barely even extraneous Northern explorer’s correspondence home. All of
this I found marvelously disorienting.
19 - What are you
currently working on?
As it happens, there’s a
sequel to Petrushka, called Snegurochka (after the snow maiden of Russian
folklore), already well in the works. In fact, the bulk of it was composed
contemporaneously with its predecessor. I must say, however, that thus far what
few forays have been made would be charitably characterized as lackadaisical
and sporadic. Truth is, I think I’ve had just about enough of the whole poetry
rigamarole for now. Something tells me the reading public will find a way to
carry on…
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
