12 or 20 (second series) questions with Bruce Smith

Bruce Smith is the author of six books of poems, The Common Wages, Silver and Information, Mercy Seat, The Other Lover which was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Songs for Two Voices, Devotions, a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times Book Award, Spill, and most recently, Hungry Ghost from Arrowsmith Press.  He lives in Syracuse, NY.

rob mclennan: How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

Bruce Smith: Poetry first through the grid of the AM/FM radio: songs from Philadelphia’s WHAT and WDAS where Georgie Woods, The Man with the Goods, played “Cry Baby” by Garnet Mims and The Enchanters, The Miracles, The Orlons, Marvin Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas.  Those songs had the necromantic power to raise the dead and set the feet in motion and rip you up and question any notions you had about being comfortably in your body in America.  So, poetry through poetry’s sexy cousin, song.

rm: How long does it take to start any particular writing project?  Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process?  Are you the author of short pieces that end up combining in a larger project, or are you working on a “book” from the very beginning?

BS: Writing project suggests something planned or devised or schemed.  I’m interested in the next poem.  Did Dickinson have a book project?  Or a career for that matter?  Or did she move from one blank, ecstatic moment to the next?  I move slowly, an ox not a cat, a crane not a hummingbird.  I like the notion of “book” in quotes since I usually feel skeptical about the endeavor if not ironic about the author.

rm: Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?  Are you the sort of writer that enjoys doing readings?

BS: I dislike public readings, all those eyes, and so judgy.  And those questions about your “process” and your book cover.  Plus, I get anxious, apprehensive, worried, irritated: the Four Muses.

rm: Do you have theoretical concerns behind your writing?  What kind of questions are you trying to answer with your work? 

BS:  I have concerns, maybe not theories. Skepticism toward power and authority, “mastery”.  The acoustics of poetry and associative modes as another kind of logic.  James Baldwin memorably remarked: “I know I can’t drive a truck. And I can’t run a bank. And I can’t count. And I can’t lead a movement. But I can fuck up your mind.” 

rm: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve heard [not necessarily given to you directly]?

BS:  "First you learn the instrument, then you learn the music, then you forget all that and just play." A quote attributed to Charlie Parker.

rm: When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for [for lack of a better word] inspiration?

BS: I give the I Ching a ring.  I turn to Buddhist books, sutras, and books of art criticism, books that try to translate an aesthetic experience of color, shape, an ethical experience, a political experience into words.  I walk the dog: that kind of instinctual intelligence I wish I had.

rm: What fragrance reminds you of home:

BS: Good question: that metallic, chlorinated, clean, sharp, electrical spark that is ozone from the El mixed with Freihofer’s bread smell and gingkoes dropping their fragrance along the Roosevelt Boulevard in October.  Philadelphia, mon amour.   

rm: What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

BS: I’m looking at the books on the floor: Dickinson’s letters; Balakian’s New York Trilogy; Clarice Lispector; Heather Cox Richardson, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America; Anne Carson’s Grief Lessons: Four Play by Euripedes; Gayl Jones, Corregidora; poetry by Alice Notley, Linda Norton, Askold Melnyczuk, Hala Alyan, Inger Christensen, Joyelle McSweeney, Wanda Coleman, Tom Sleigh, D Smith, P Smith.  The Oresteia.  Peter Schjeldahl’s art reviews, James Marcus on Emerson.  Minima Moralia.  Awakening of the Heart: Essential Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries, Thich Nhat Hanh, Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.

rm: What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? What do you think the role of the writer should be? 

Our new poet laureate says poetry resists all forms of coercion.  And maybe the writer creates a kind of intellectual, cultural turbulence that resists Donald Trump and his assaults on America and American universities and American education.  Poetry resists the tactics that resemble extortion and are violations of the First Amendment. Critical thinking and especially that strange kind of knowledge that is poetry and art are important antidotes in our democratic structures. Without that culture and our systems of learning, we would not have a democracy.

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