David White is one of the poets of Renga: A Collaborative Poem (Brick
Books). In 1994, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario
with the dissertation, “A Territory Not
Yet On The Map:” Relocating Gay Aestheticism In The Age of AIDS. He is a
professor of Theatre History and Writing at Fanshawe College and lives in
London, Ontario. The Lark Ascending
is his first (solo) collection poetry, published by Pedlar Press (2017).
1 - How did your first book change your
life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel
different?
Publishing
your first book at the age of 62 doesn’t really change all that much. Putting The Lark Ascending together was in part
sorting through manuscripts. There’s still a lot to sort through going back to
the 1980s. But the one thing that happened when I sent The Lark off, even before the offer of publication, was I set out
on a completely different project. I wrote pieces about LGBTQ composers,
musicians, performers based on recordings. People like Tyckowsky, Noel Coward, Aaron
Copeland, Samuel Barber, Billy Strayhorn. I’d listen to the recordings while
writing the piece, letting the music inform the work.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as
opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
Actually
it’s more of a return to poetry. Doesn’t everyone start with poetry in
adolescence? After I finished my Ph.D. dissertation in 1994, I worked on
fiction, short stories and novels. But when I moved in with Judy and Shen (the
subject of The Lark Ascending) I
didn’t have any time for that. I started writing a poem here and there. Over
the course of 20 years they accumulated into the book.
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?
There’s no
one way. Sometimes things come quite quickly, and sometimes I’ve waited decades
for the right word to come along.
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?
With The Lark Ascending, I knew when we went
to China and started writing about the trip that it was a book, and I’d be
writing it as I lived it. Now, while there may be projects, I’m gradually
assembling things together, things written before, during, and after the
writing of The Lark.
5 - Are public readings part of or
counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing
readings?
I do enjoy
readings, but my first degree was in Theatre, and I teach Theatre History. I
think of a reading as a performance and
I try not to spend too much time explaining things and aim towards a certain
emotional impact.
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?
Obviously,
as a Gay man, LGBTQ issues are of concern to me. When I first began writing in
the late 1970s, I did think I could or would be allowed to write about my
experience. What I wrote was fairly difficult; a friend at the time said it
seemed as if I didn’t care if anyone was listening. There were love poems that
used the wrong pronoun. When I finally got around to changing the pronouns,
they were much better poems.
7 – What do you see the current role of
the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think
the role of the writer should be?
Being a true
witness of/to your times.
8 - Do you find the process of working
with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
So far my
experience has been working with Stan Dragland as an editor! So that experience
was essential not in the least difficult. Nobody’s going to read your book more
closely or carefully. It’s a wonderful dialogue.
9 - What is the best piece of advice
you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
Rilke’s
advice in Letters to a Young Poet:
write what you know.
10 - How easy has it been for you to
move between genres (poetry to collaboration to academic writing)? What do you
see as the appeal?
Don’t do
much academic writing now. I’ve pretty much dabbled in everything. Poetry feels
like home now.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you
tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
No routine
to speak of. Even with teaching, the
schedule is varied and changes every 14 weeks. Poems come when they come and
when you can find the time.
12 - When your writing gets stalled,
where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Learn
something new, research; that’s where the inspiration comes from
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Baking bread,
and Lilly of the Valley.
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 and
the visual arts. I’ll often choose a specific piece of music to listen to and
write about; that happens a couple of times in The Lark Ascending, not just in
the title piece.
15 - What other writers or writings are
important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
I have to
make a choice?
16 - What would you like to do that you
haven't yet done?
Publish a
second book.
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?
Maybe an
actor.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to
doing something else?
I couldn’t
do anything else.
19 - What was the last great book you
read? What was the last great film?
20 - What are you currently working on?
One of the
things I’ve started is a sequence of poems I’m calling Apologies (as in with
apologies to…). Individual poems that recall, allude to, rewrite other poems. So
far I’ve some based on Catullus, Cavafy, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay,
R.E.M.
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