The Habitual Poet: Robin Chapman

Installment #43

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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: From the poets, second-hand stores, Copper Canyon, Borders, SPD, Amazon, and the AWP book fair.

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

A: 1000 plus; 80 plus per cent.

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

A: In the bathtub, when books arrive, cover to cover.

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

A: Edward Hirsch’s collected poems. Nick Lantz’s two new poetry books.

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

A: Prairie Schooner, Field, Poetry; OnEarth, Orion, Science News.

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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: Longhand in notebooks I carry when the poem strikes me.

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

A: 4-5/week; 10 to 20 a month.

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

A: A day to years…

Q: When do you know a poem is “done”?

A: It begins to ring. Or it yields slightly when pressed.

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

A:  No; but I go on writing retreats for a month in the winter and a week in the spring.

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Publishing

Q: What is your system for sending out work?

A: Fall and spring mailouts; and then, try to keep poems out.

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

A: Both. And no—one was a prize.

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

A: Mix—mostly 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: A prize out of nowhere.

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

A: Thrilling. 

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Practical considerations

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

A: Poetry is my day job. Or rather, my main occupation.

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

A: His wilderness trips and accordion playing enter my poems.

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

A: Yes—while raising kids and beginning a teaching/research career.

Q: Do you have a “poetry budget”?

A: Yes. And a Schedule C.

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: Yes.

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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 can catch a ball with either hand.

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: _____ put flowers on her grave.

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 find another specialist.

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

A: Oh, who can say why?

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: Carry a notebook. And a pen. 

Robin Chapman is the author six books of poetry, including The Way In and Images of a Complex World: The Art and Poetry of Chaos (with J.C. Sprott’s fractals), both winners of the Posner Poetry Award; The Dreamer Who Counted the Dead, winner of a WLA Outstanding Poetry Book Award, Smoke and Strong Whiskey, and Abundance, winner of the Cider Press Editors’ Award, and five chapbooks, including The Only Everglades in the World (Parallel Press). She co-edited the anthologies On Retirement: 75 Poems (Univ. of Iowa Press), with Judith Strasser and Love Over 60: an anthology of women’s poems with Jeri McCormick.. A recipient of three Wisconsin Arts Board Grants, including a 2007 Literary Arts Fellowship, her poems have appeared in The American Scholar, Poetry, OnEarth, and The Southern Review, among others.