The Habitual Poet: Barbara Louise Ungar

Installment #38

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The Habitual Poet is an ongoing series of contributor interviews. If you are a Poemeleon contributor and would like to participate copy & paste the Q's from below and e-mail your answers to: editor@poemeleon.org. 

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Reading

Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?

A: At independent used bookstores. Though I often use Alibris and Amazon.

Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?

A: Approximately 300, and 80%.

Q: When, where and how do you usually read? (i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)

A: Whenever, wherever. On the couch, the beach, at the table, in bed. Cover to cover, usually.

Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?

A: Japanese Death Poems.

Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?

A: The Great Gatsby. The Blithedale Romance. The House of the Seven Gables. The New Yorker. Harpers.

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Writing

Q: When, where, how do you write, and why?(i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)

A: Whenever, wherever, as best I can. Why not?

Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?

A: 1-2 per week; 4-8 per month?

Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?

A: I don’t.

Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?

A: I don’t. But when I can’t improve it, and my friends can’t, I assume it is.

Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?

A:  Yes, though not very often. I don’t get many invitations.

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Publishing

Q: What is your system for sending out work?

A: Erratic.

Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?

A: A bit of both: sent out a sequence, got 2 accepted. I expect nothing.

Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?

 A: A mix. Prefer print, as I prefer to read print.

Q: What is the worst (or weirdest, or best) experience you’ve had with a journal/magazine/press & its editor(s)? (No names, please!)

A: Worst or weirdest was after I finally won a poetry book prize, and tried to make a suggestion about the cover, and got completely shut down by the editor (not realizing his boyfriend was the designer).

Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?

 A: Just a bit. Weird.

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Practical considerations

Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?

A: Professor of English. Sometimes inspires, often gets in the way (timewise).

Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?

A: He’s a poet-professor, too; we are each other’s first readers.

Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?

A: Not really.

Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?

 A: No. What is that?

Q: Have you ever suffered (or made someone else suffer) in the name of your art? (i.e. picked up your kids late from school so you could finish a poem, forgone lunch to buy a book, left a relationship because the other person just didn't understand, etc.)

A: No doubt.

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Random nonsense

Q: Do you have any superhuman abilities? (i.e. can you tie a cherry stem in a knot with your tongue, or write a double sestina with both hands tied behind your back?)

A: I am a single working mother. This is impossible, yet I do it, and somehow manages to write and publish at the same time.

Q: You write a scathing poem about your mother and she learns about it. You:

a.) Move to South America and leave no forwarding address

b.) Delete the poem and insist it never existed

c.) Show it to her (she’s already written you out of the will anyway)

A: d.) Do none of the above; instead you tell her about poetic license, hyperbole, and fiction.

Q: If the best medical specialists in the world told you that if you didn’t give up your poetry habit today you would die in six months, would you get your affairs in order or would you leave that up to your family?

A: Get affairs in order, and head for the ocean.

Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?

A: A. No idea. It just came first. I have lots of them in my name. Sound of appreciation and awe.

Q: Finally, what piece of advice would you most like to share with our readers? (This can be on writing, the writing life, or anything else...)

 A: Worry less, write more. 

Barbara Louise Ungar’s latest book, Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life, is forthcoming in January 2011 from The Word Works. It can be advance ordered now at: www.wordworksdc.com (or http://www.wordworksdc.com/books.html#charlotte). She is the author of two previous collections of poetry, Thrift and The Origin of the Milky Way. The latter won the 2006 Gival Press Poetry Award, a Silver IPPY (Independent Publishers’ Book Award), an Eric J. Hoffer Notable for Poetry Award, and the Adirondack Center for Writing Award for Best Book of Poetry 2007 (co-winner). She is an English professor at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.