1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
My first published book was Partisans (O Books, 1999), though, a previous manuscript, The Disparities, had been accepted by Green Integer. That was published two years later. Partisans represented for me further validation of my growing reputation among several avant garde milieus. But basically, it was just a box of books that was handed to me by Leslie Scalapino (editor) on a noisy street corner in the Mission District in San Francisco. I gave some copies to local poetry friends and mailed a few to poets in NYC who I admired.
My most recent manuscript is a book of 100 sonnets. Each line is 10 syllables exactly. Like my recent five books, this future book blends philosophical, critical-ideological, and street-level existentialist thought into a quirky demotic that’s (hopefully) fit enough to confront the times we live in.
I suppose my earlier work was decidedly more haute in its approach to diction. Partisans is more Susan Howe than say, Frank O’Hara, though the book is clearly on its way towards formalizing Toscanoese as my lingua franca.
How does it feel to be fluent in Toscanoese? It’s an odd fit at union or environmentalist work meetings, but it’s been quite the political mating call over the years. Aren’t all poets erotics?
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I seem to have a great deal of word-stick. Like on flypaper, words get stuck in my head, before plot lines of any kind. I mouth them, ruminate over them. I toss words around like beach balls into unexpecting social gatherings. Words act rather reserved at first, until they discover their native crazed inner cores. Bach is my greatest poetic influence. I’m happiest when cracking open single words and spinning variations on their energies.
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 either writing poetry, or I am not. I don’t fiddle-faddle in the between zone. Once I strike a tone, or historical perspective, or angle of inquiry, I don’t stop till I have a whole book. My desire is to be a contemporary and write like one. I got this overall aesthetic, I think, from the Roman poets. Zeroing in on contemporaries, to me, is the highest form of poetry. Maybe that’s why I’ve never spent a single second in the Rilke cult, or the Oppen cult for that matter. I’ll surely catch flak for this, but I’m generally put off by too much ellipticality in meaning-making.
In terms of my process, I’m a notepad hand scribbler. I don’t think left-to-right, nor the opposite, but diagonally right to left, then loop around in swirls. It’s very hard to decipher afterwards, even for me. I also like to keep argumentation real loose for as long as possible, until I smush together strange bed fellows, and tighten up the whole deal with titanium bolts.
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?
I’m miniaturist. I chip away at medium-small stellae. I don’t have long velvety lines like a Jorie Graham, which I greatly admire. I pop out Monk-like cluster chords seemingly from nowhere. My poetics seems to be a balance of improvisation and fugal development.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I always imagine any poem of mine as being read in public, yeah. The ideal settings for each poem, however, vary. Some are dim-lighted lounge poems to be read quietly and received even more quietly, others are hammerhead sharks thrashing in the face of dismayed audiences.
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’m an ardent student of archeology, philosophy, history, economics, political and social movements, and aesthetics. I’m also hot on to people’s weird-think wherever I can find it.
In my opinion, the most pressing question for a U.S. poet (and the frayed citoyens of nations the U.S. is dragging with it to the gutter) is, what might be the Geo-Political GPS of current culture-making (poetics being a subset of culture-making). That’s it. Location first, subjective babble, second. My new book, WHITMAN. CANNONBALL. PUEBLA. (Omnidawn, 2025) is largely about that.
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?
I can’t prescribe anything for other writers, but for me, it’s important to be as historically aware as possible, taking into account the dialectical relationships between classes, nations, and empires; that is, to be maximally mindful of all that goes into the creation of cultures and attitudes of one’s time.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
I’ve had very liberal and generous press editors for the most part, editors, who bend “my way.” On some occasions they’ve contested my pieces, or parts of my pieces. I push back when necessary, but I also cede to their recommendations quite a bit. If you look at my home webpage, it reads Poet, Rhetor. Those two archetypes contest each other on a daily level.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
“At all costs, write”— something like that (I forget who said it). I works for me, I think, but again, only if and when I’m in writing mode. Come to think of it, I disagree with that advice. I would actually encourage most young poets to always keep the option of quitting very close to them, especially American poets. If they’re just writing out of sheer egotism, and little else, then the poetry is likely to be deficient of all that goes might to into Public Address. Langston Hughes is a master of avoiding needless egotism.
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?
I write best between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. submerged
in warm tub water, a towel over the lamp above me to dim the lights just right.
11 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I stop writing. I respect stalls. My default thinking is that I have nothing to say, that’s for a reason, a reason that goes quite beyond me. I have to be completely empty of anything to say, before firing up another round of something to say.
12 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Laurel Sumac (native to Southern California / Northern Baja California). Eucalyptus bark. Sea salt in the mouth.
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?
Noting people’s speech rhythms and intonations is key for me. Musical principals, techniques, and harmonic effects, are foremost in my mind.
14 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Man, I don’t want to get into this writer idols thing. I’ll say that right now, I pay closest attention to the poets of the Baton Rouge and New Orleans scenes. That’s plenty a barometer in order gauge what’s going down. There’s some rip-roarin’ poets down here, let me tell you.
15 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
What I really want right now is to have my latest manuscript of 100 sonnets published! I really do think that the collection will make a significant contribution to the art of sonnet writing in the U.S.
16 - 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?
Wait. I do have another occupation. I’ve worked in labor movements, environmental and public health for over thirty years. But if I were to click my heals and pop into another reality, I would have loved to be a composer of music, maybe in a band). But honestly too, I often daydream, “wouldn’t it be cool to be a public poet!”
17 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Poetics is the discipline of the between of all disciplines. Who couldn’t be madly enthralled by that?
18 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
Henry Goldkamp’s Joy Buzzer and Dylan Krieger’s upcoming No One Is Daddy are two books I really love. Edgar Garcia’s Cantares too. There’s so many.
I’ll admit, I was very moved by Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour movie. I went to a matinee in the early winter of 2023, and I literally was the only one in the theater for about half of it.
19 - What are you currently working on?
I’m currently working on a new round of dialogues on poetry. People can check out The Dialogues I’ve done so far, with people like Julie Carr, Paisley Rekdal, Roberto Tejada and others.
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