1a) How did your first book or chapbook change your life?
It established me in my own mind as a poet with a penchant for doing readings.
1b) How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
The Singing Bullets of Soft Secession: & Other DaySongs is an extension/refinement of earlier work. It’s headed to more open territory and has more clarity and is more grounded, but continues to be informed by Michael McClure’s take on Charles Olson’s Projective Verse with a dash of Bernadette Mayer, Pierre Joris and Brenda Hillman. I could go on with the poets from whom I’ve stolen fire.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Jack Spicer said: “A poet is a time mechanic, not an enbalmer.”
3a) How long does it take to start any particular writing project?
Usually very quickly. It is intuitive.
3b) Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process?
Usually very quickly.
3c) Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
I always carry a pocket journal, surround myself with books and pdfs and try not to mess with the poem too much after writing it. Denise Levertov said if you have to edit a poem extensively, it likely did not incubate long enough. That rings true for me. Editing that is consistent with the dharma position any poem comes from is tricky. Joanne Kyger said: “You accept what comes forth. You accept it. You're not trying to edit yourself. There are certain minimal standards of rewriting, like if I misspell something, which is frequently. I do a little tightening here and there, but I don't think you can really rewrite certain sentences or phrases. You lose the flow. You lose the spontaneity and syllables and inflections and vowels.”
4a) Where does a poem usually begin for you?
A phrase, a recognition of an inner state from which poetry often comes.
4b) 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?
I write short pieces and I write longer pieces, but I’d side with book consciousness.
5a) Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process?
Yes. I love public readings, if they are good. When it comes to “the private soul at any public wall” let’s just say that I don’t find that generative.
5b) Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
Yes.
6a) Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing?
Experience first, explanation afterwards. I have a whole page of essays from writers that shed light on the theoretical: https://paulenelson.com/poetics/ Olson said that the poem is an event, not the record of an event, which seems to boil theory down to its essence. Dōgen’s notions of Uji (being time) and Ju Hoi (dharma position) are also very helpful and allied with this poetics. “No poetry of distinction without formal invention.” William Carlos Williams.
6b) What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work?
What is happening now. What does this present moment feel like.
6c) What do you even think the current questions are?
What is happening now. What does this present moment feel like.
7a) What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture?
“Antennae of the race” said Ezra Pound. One who can transcend ego and poke around in the realms that reveal the prophetic.
7b) Do they even have one?
There are as many roles as there are writers.
7c) What do you think the role of the writer should be?
“Antennae of the race” said Ezra Pound. One who can transcend ego and poke around in the realms that reveal the prophetic.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Both. But a good editor and good proof-reader can save you from lots of trouble.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
“The worst thing that can happen to a writer is success.” Margareta Waterman. (She just died, bless her.) When a typical poet hits on success, they often want to crank out something similar, rather than come up with something fresh and original. This dictum gives me some solace.
10a & b) How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to essays)? What do you see as the appeal?
My two formats are poems and interviews and the interviews are then transcribed into a prose transcript. The only thing that complicates the transition between forms is creating enough psychic bandwidth to delve into someone else’s work well enough to conduct a good interview.
11a & b) What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
I journal every morning. I write one 17 syllable poem every day. I write 50 postcard poems (mostly) between July 4 to August 31. I generally write two daysongs a year, Feb 1 and Sep1 1 roughly.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Other writers.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Cedar boughs. Mugwort. My wife’s hair.
14 - 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?
Music informs my work at least as much as any writing does. Some folks can hear it in the rhythms of my work, the juxtapositions, my Cuban maternal ancestors and a lifelong love of Jazz and preference for improvised music. All my work is an improvisation. Also, I will be a resident fellow at the Clyfford Still Museum from July 1 to 31, 2026.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Many I have mentioned above. Sam Hamill. William Carlos Williams. Nate Mackey’s seriality, along with that of George Bowering, Daphne Marlatt, George Stanley and Barry McKinnon. Andrew Schelling. Sharon Thesen. Wanda Coleman. Dōgen. Diane di Prima. Lorine Niedecker. Jason Wirth. Roxi Power. José Kozer. Theodore Roethke. Stephen Collis. Frank Zappa. Gil Scott-Heron. Carla Bley. Robin Blaser. Robert Duncan.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Before I was awarded the residency fellowship at the Clyfford Still Museum, i started collecting coffee table books of many artists, hoping to create poems or chapbooks from the material inside: Susan Point; Matumi Oda; Paul Horiuchi; Kenneth Callahan; Jean Quick-to-See-Smith; 9th Street Women; Gaylen Hansen; Rick Bartow; Alfredo Arreguin and others.
I would like to take a group of poets on a literary/spiritual pilgrimage of Japan.
I would like to continue the serial poem which started as A Time Before Slaughter and continued with Pig War: & Other Songs of Cascadia.
I would like to publish at least three finished manuscripts: Sonetos de Cascadia, Evolutionary Letters and FLEXIBLE MIND. I’d like to record the FLEXIBLE MIND poems with a band. Oh and a chapbook written after Carla Bley’s death:
I would like to see a biography done on Sam Hamill and have all of his essays re-published.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
I was in radio for 26 years and could see myself doing that again, maybe as a community radio host, maybe as a weekly interviewer if I had a sponsor.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
My initials are PEN, so that was a good clue that I finally got when I was 32.
19a) What was the last great book you read?
Brenda Hillman’s new book Still House In the Desert: An Eco-Contemplation. There is much powerful work in an anthology I co-edited: Winter in America (Still.
19b) What was the last great film?
Broken English: A Moving Portrait of Marianne Faithfull
20 - What are you currently working on?
The 10th Cascadia Poetry Festival, prepping for my Clyfford Still Museum residency, Los Cerezos Literary Festival (2027), Poetry Postcards.
No comments:
Post a Comment