1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
self-portrait of joseph cornell was the result of reconnecting to poetry after about a 25-30 year hiatus and into a community that welcomed me (in Durham, NC). It was published when I was in my 50's by Pressed Wafer, which was run by the late Bill Corbett. Being published by Bill also connected me to a larger poetry community that revolved around New York City and New England. variations in the dream of X (just released by Black Square Editions) was actually started before my first book. It's the result of two different projects that had floundered over a couple of decades that seemed to find a way to work once I combined them. When I wasn't writing poetry all those years, I was writing plays and even a couple of screenplays. This book borrows elements from both. The writing feels the same to me. The first was using a sonnet structure without having to think about form. The last was organizing different voices.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or nonfiction?
From what I can remember, I missed the bus one day in highschool and had to walk. I started to make up a song about being alone on a highway based on the rhythm of my breathing and strides. I didn't start out to compose something. It just happened.
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?
I'm constantly taking notes which I eventually collage. I seem to have many false starts, but something sparks and then I see where I'd like to head. Some first drafts don't change much , but most do, some much more than others, or get put in a folder I've labeled "scrap exchange."
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 poems start with a spark. I've written three chapbooks and three books. The first two chapbooks were more or less individual pieces that eventually were corralled under a title. The last chapbook and the full-length books have all been thought of as books from the beginning. That final form of what that book becomes has invariably changed from my initial take on the project.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I don't do a lot of readings, but I like doing them. It also helps me edit the poems. If I can't speak them easily, then something needs adjusting.
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?
I can't really think in those terms without writing something that's crap. I am however fascinated with some theoretical and scientific writing as well as with philosophy. And while I may not have the capacity to fully grasp what I'm reading, I find language that is useful to or excites me.
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?
Perspective? Presence? Articulating Questions?
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
It depends on the editor. I'm open to going with the best idea.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
"Never let a day go by." Jerry Jeff Walker
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (solo work to collaboration, poetry to photography)? What do you see as the appeal?
I gravitate to things I like. And that feels easy. And this is certainly not an original idea, but I think all work is collaborative.
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?
I don't support myself with what I write, so I find time around work. Sometimes that's just taking notes all during the day. The weekends are typically more focused on writing. I feel I am at my writing best in the mornings.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
My writing doesn't seem to ever get stalled for too long, so I don't worry about it. I'm constantly reading other poets as well as other kinds of writing. Watching movies. Going to see art. To the theatre. Going on long walks that typically spark something.
13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
I was an Air Force brat. So my physical home changed. Both sides of my family are from Alabama (where I was born) and so I'd say honeysuckle and scuppernong conjure Alabama for me .
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?
Books, art, music, science, movies, theatre, menus, signs, overheard conversations, the Voyager spacecrafts, cooking instructions, repair manuals, powerpoint presentations—you name it.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Too many to list. Ready go tos are folks from the Durham, NC community —Fred Moten, Nate Mackey, Joe Donahue, Pete Moore, Maggie Zurawski. Maggie Nelson always inspires me and her writing points me to many other writers. I also find inspiration from Susan Howe, Fanny Howe, Alice Notley, Ed Roberson, John Yau, Robert Duncan, Gertrude Stein, Eileen Myles, Robert Creeley, Amiri Baraka, John Ashbery, Anne Carson, and a bunch more folks.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Win Wimbledon. Act in a Coen Brothers' movie. Bowl 300. Play washboard in a zydeco band.
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?
Like I said, I don't support myself as a writer. Even at my age, I feel like there are still opportunities open to me. I'm learning more about photography. Would like to collaborate with musicians. Painters. Filmmakers.
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
It's a compelling way for me to express myself.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
I read a bunch of things at the same time. But what's been exciting to me lately is Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, by Timothy Morton (an author/book I learned about from Maggie Nelson's On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint.) Collected Works by Lorine Niedecker. Movies: Dogtooth, directed by Yorgos Lanithoms. Written by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou. Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
20 - What are you currently working on?
Collage prose poems that all have the title wyoming.
12 or 20 (second series) questions;
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