Installment #24
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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: Usually from bookstores -- I'm fortunate to live in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a plethora of bookstores. City Lights is amazing. My favorite is Diesel on College Avenue in Oakland. I also like buying books at readings, and from publishers I want to support.
Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?
A: About 750 (maybe 100 inherited from my parents.) I've read about 75%, though my tendency is to reread some of them over and over.
Q: When, where and how do you usually read?(i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)
A: Usually in a comfortable chair in my study, or in cafes. I love cafes because there are people around, but our interaction is in parallel.
Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?
A: I reread Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Also Strange Attractors, a book of poems related to mathematics, ed. Sarah Glaz & JoAnne Growney; Carta Marina by Anne Fisher-Wirth, Blue Shadow Behind Everything Dazzling by Gail Wronsky; and The True Keeps Calm Biding Its Story by Rusty Morrison.
Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?
A:"The New Scientist" I read most of the issue which arrives at my door four times a month; most days I read parts of The New York Times; I've been obsessed with KenKen puzzles this month. I'm reading Joan Didion's nonfiction book Where I Was From, a personal history of California.
Writing:
Q: When, where, how do you write, and why? (i.e. at dusk on a dock, longhand in a notebook, because...)
A: I usually start in a notebook. I do some writing very early in the morning at home; then often write in cafes. Sometimes, I'm able to write a bit at in-between times like waiting to pick up my daughter from an activity.
Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?
A: This is hard to answer because in a good month there could be 15; in a bad month two. A number of the first drafts end up being abandoned over the course of a year.
Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?
A: Anywhere between a week and a year.
Q: When do you know a poem is “done”? Is it ever done?
A: Sometimes when I'm putting a manuscript together, I revise poems that have already been published, but I try not to change poems that were written more than 5 years ago.
Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?
A: Yes. Sometimes I need to send my family out and about so I can have time to write.
Publishing:
Q: What is your system for sending out work?
A: Chaos. But if people I'm acquainted with put out a call, I'm more likely to send work out. I'm trying to become more organized and systematic about sending out work.
I do keep a list of what's out there, so if something is accepted I can withdraw it from other publications.
Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?
A: A rejection. Do you ever expect rejection? I always have high hopes. Luckily it arrived at the same time that a publication launched, so it was balanced out.
Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?
A: Both. I like publishing online because it is more accessible to most readers. I like the physicality of a print magazine.
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: Accepted poems that never appeared; and a number of notes saying the poems were coming out in the "next issue" before I finally withdrew them.
Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?
A: Yes. I assume you mean a note from someone I didn't know. The experience was a little strange, but nice -- it was verification that someone had read my work. What really surprised me was when someone told me they had read my Master's thesis.
Practical considerations:
Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?
A: Teaching math. Contradictory -- provides material, and eats up all my time.
Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?
A: Not sure. It probably makes me more interested in politics, and urban form.
Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?
A: Not long periods, but by the second half of the school year, my writing drops off because I run out of steam. Then I get going again the next summer.
Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?
A: Hard to say. I only go to one workshop a summer. I spend money on magazines and books, though at times there are things I postpone buying (like when we run out of money...).
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: I don't know if my child suffered, but I've almost always had her in summer camps so I would have time to write in the summer. There have been times when I wanted to go off in the mornings before work to write, but it led to too many problems for my family, so lately, I've been getting up very early to write.
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 can get a room full of teenagers to stop texting (for short periods of 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)
d.) Do none of the above; instead you:___________
Claim all poetry is 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: I'd do some submissions because I'd want my work to be out there after I'm gone. Then I'd hang out with my family, but I'd take a notebook with me. One friend, in the six months before she died put together an anthology of her writing, and the writing of friends. It came out in early December, and she died December 26.
Q: If you could be a vowel, which one would you be and why?
A: Ahhhhh....
Q: Finally, write a couplet for a collaborative ghazal using the following kaafiyaa and radif: “said the poet”.
Hand dye the fabric, then cut and sew it,
or else observe, and write, said the poet.