Reading
Q: Where do you prefer to get your books?
A: Independent bookstores, presses, or poets themselves.
Q: How many poetry books do you think you own, and what percentage of these have you actually read?
A: I own several hundred and have read all the ones on the shelves and none of the ones piled precariously on the floor. I don't put anything away until I've actually read it.
Q: When, where and how do you usually read?(i.e. at bedtime under the covers, cover to cover, etc.)
A: Mostly in bed. I real all the extraneous matter, including acknowledgments, blurbs, footnotes.
Q: What books of poetry have you read this month?
A: Carol Ann Duffy, Tim Mayo, Michael Dickman, Hillary Holladay, and several journals.
Q: What other books/magazines/backs of cereal boxes have you read recently?
A: Science News, Southwest Art, Smithsonian, the local paper, the local homeless paper
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 on a yellow pad because yellow paper is clearly draft and therefore I can say anything. When I begin to get the shape of a poem, I go to the computer.
Q: How many first drafts do you think you complete in a week? A month?
A: What's a draft? A major re-visioning or a word change? I fuss infinitely.
Q: How long do you wait before revising a poem?
A: Often not long enough. I can't keep my paws off 'em. Once in a while I dig out old stuff that never seemed right and am able to fix it.
Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?
A: When I find it sufficiently interesting and nothing offends me. I have revised after publication.
Q: Have you ever given up an invitation so you could stay home and write?
A: If I didn't want to go very much. Let those inviters remain unnamed here.
Publishing:
Q: What is your system for sending out work?
A: System? You call it a system? Every few months I get it together and send stuff out. I keep a list on a yellow pad. My friends are horrified and have tried to reform me.
Q: What have you more recently received: a rejection notice or an acceptance? Was it what you expected?
A: I always expect the rejections. This week I've received both.
Q: Where do you generally publish: online, in print, or a mix, and do you have a preference?
A: Mostly in print, but I'm trying to believe that online is really publication. What I'm discovering is that people have googled me and found my online work.
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: Poems published years after I sent them and gave up. A poem accepted five minutes after I e-mailed it to the editor.
Q: Have you ever received any fan (or hate) mail? If so, what was that like?
A: Yes, I received a lovely letter from some guy who was moving and had saved a poem of mine published many years ago--he wrote to tell me that he had liked it. The hate mail I got was one review on Amazon where the writer thought I had called a distant relative of hers a Lesbian.
Practical considerations:
Q: What is your day job, and how does it affect your writing?
A: I taught college English for many years and still do some exam writing.
Q: How does your significant other’s occupation affect your writing life?
A: I don't have to earn all the money.
Q: Have there been periods in your life when you couldn't write?
A: Only in my first marriage because nothing I had to say was what he wanted to hear.
Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?
A: No, I have a poetry habit.
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 picked my kids up on time. Fortunately they've grown up and left. But seriously, I have crammed poetry into all the corners of my life.
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: Yes, I can invent dinner out of nothing.
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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:___________
A: Well, when my first book came out full of poems about how bossy she was, she organized a poetry reading and invited all her best friends.