1. When did you start writing poetry?
As a teenager. Writing poetry was a key to getting into a girls' pants. I figured the better a poet I became, the more girls I could woo. For the most part, it proved right.
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I've written two novels, several short screenplays, a dozen short stories, a graphic novel script and have penned better than 2,000 stories as a journalist. However, the writing I do most regularly is e-mail.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
No. I am primarily a renaissance man, a career soldier, a husband, and a father. I have my mental fingers into a number of different things. I like to keep it that way.
4. Why do you write poetry?
See answer 1. However, as an adult, I find poetry to be an opportunity to free emotion that I might keep contained; an exercise in the use of language. The fantastic thing about poetry is it's a lot like journalism; it demands you economize the words, the sentences and the verses. So, I can connect on a number of levels with poetry now because I've been a reporter for so long.
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
It doesn't. It's an abstract.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
I've been featured by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Writers' Group, including a first-place prize in one contest. I've also been featued by the Southern Poetry Writers' Association. Beyond those, my poetry resume is paltry, but admittedly, I rarely send anything to anyone except the AW forums. I've won enough contests in my life.
7. How often do you write poems?
Sporadically. I find with more time on my hands, especially time to myself, I can be prolific. When deployed to the Middle East at the end of 2006, I wrote poetry almost every day. Since returning, I may write something once a month.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
None, really. With the exception of the "Blue Rock" stuff featured in the AW Forums, poetry is mostly a one off affair to me. When I'm 60, I'll probably collect all this stuff into one tome and read it. I'll laugh at a lot of the dumb stuff I was thinking about. I'm so young figuratively right now and I know so little that when I'm 60, I'll be giggling about what an idiot I was for writing this stuff.
In addition, another poet laureate mentioned liking the response when posting here. Me, too. So do others who post here. We're all socially linked that way, I think.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
It's simpler than that. Usually, I'll have one thought floating in my head. That thought is usually a statement, or an abstract. For instance, "Do Not Fork Under Coil" is a poem featured on AW. The idea for it came from a sign hanging on a generator in the Middle East. What the sign meant to say was, "Hey, don't use a forklift under this thing or you'll break it." But the phrase "Do Not Fork Under Coil" struck me as something entirely different.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
First, God and Satan is one that pops up a lot; our mortality. I always liked the idea of God being all powerful. God would smote you for the smallest transgression. Humans are small. God is big. And throw Satan in there as a counterbalance, but really nothing compared. I'm always trying to refine the concept; make it a little broader and bigger than it is. I have a lot of poetry with nuns, priests, God, Satan and other theological imagery. Mostly, it seems to revolve around Catholicism. Catholic religious imagery always comes to the forefront.
Second, sex. Yes. Sex. I said it. However, I've always felt the key to writing about sex is to never actually mention it. It's like using the word "love" in a poem about love. Kiss of death. When writing about sex, I'm usually looking for imagery that conjures sensation. Sex poetry is a form of foreplay. And yes, I purposefully avoided the word erotica. I write about sex. And if you peek at the "Blue Rock" poems, I write about a great cross-section of sexuality.
Finally, the human condition. Writing about people with HUGE flaws has always enamoured me. I also like the sudden juxtaposition of people; the blonde housewife from the Spic-N-Span commercial who has a dungeon filled with lonely accountants and a 1-900 phone line in her basement. The stranger I can make it, the closer it usually resonates to reality.
In short, we all have some core things we gravitate around. I want to write about those things. That's why you don't see poems of mine with a lot of flag waving or gushy romance. At our core, we're animals. So, we're about survival, reproduction and whimsy.
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
Idea. Then form follows function.
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I don't revise the idea. I will revise the words to strength and grow the verse. I'm always open to suggestions if the person offering them has a clear idea where I am going. That's what a good editor does -- keeps the idea but helps find the right assets to communicate the idea. In the end, that vehicle for communication may not be a poem.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
See answer 1.
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
I have no idea. Not to be a broken record, but see answer 1. I just remember seeing another student's poem, thinking it was pretty good and then getting started.
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
ee cummings is an easy influence. Wordsworth, too. Browning's Portuguese sonnets came late. Dr. Seuss is a brilliant poet (and a former neighbor in San Diego). Shakespeare, of course. However, I found that whatever I write as poetry is affected by other mediums more often than not. I'm aware of a broad base of fundamentals. And to know them is a great foundation. But part of the beauty of poetry is that you get a base of fundamentals -- then throw the whole thing out the window and write.
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
Almost anything from the "Blue Rock" collection. Thanks to AW's William Haskins, my Blue Rock poems are some of the most powerful works I've ever written.
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
Poetry is alive in other places. It baffles me the number of people who bash hip-hop culture. Poetry shows up there at every turn, and there's a ton of it that's very good. All other music, too. I've never seen "poetry" as a stand-alone medium in the first place. Shakespeare didn't write "Henry V" just to be ink on pulp. He meant actors to carry the water on his message. His verse was just a way to make it interesting for the audience. And that's what new media is about -- keeping it interesting for the audience. We continue to evolve in many ways. That stand-alone poetry is being left behind is a step in that evolution. Someone said it's dead. I disagree. It's evolved.
Poetry is more a component of things than a thing. It is part of music. Part of film. Part of other mediums. There's too much info chatter now for poetry to stand out in its own right. It is a small -- microscopic -- group of people that still reveres poetry as a stand-alone form and even then, those people are usually cheering the standards; the classics; something in forms they recognize and are comfortable seeing.
Finally, a note on poetry and social strata: there are plenty of people who see poetry as this niche carved into the elitist alabaster. That there's a certain summit you have to reach in order to be relevant, credible, praised ... a poet. That's bullshit. There are plenty of poets who have been stratified by social class and were darlings of the New York/Manhattan social circles. And if you're goal is to make The New Yorker, fine. However, again, poetry is a maliable animal. Impoverished, middle class or nose turned toward gargoyles, we all have these one-off opportunities of thought, grace and power to offer people. Don't worry about whether or not they will measure against Longfellow or Bukowski. Start with whether or not you've said the right thing to yourself. Then, publish.
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
Words. Accuracy. Brevity. Clarity. Moral (sometimes). A beginning, middle and end matter. In many ways, the same things that make up any good written work. Poems, however, are better as snapshots rather than feature films.
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
Little. Once I've written a piece, it's usually forgotten in about three days, unless someone else brings it up. Then I have to reread it to remember what he's talking about.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Three things: 1.) Learn what makes people, men and women, tick. Then, write about those things. 2.) Language. Absolutely every word matters in poetry. Some words are vague. Others are exact. Find the ones that are exact. For instance, "no" is one of the most powerful words in any language. For that matter, so is "yes." Both are clear, concise and absolutely have meaning to almost anyone who can comprehend. 3.) Don't take it too seriously. Do good work, but at the end of the day, it's just a poem. As a teenager, I started writing poetry to get laid. It's the same reason I took drama in high school and college. I can't attach too much philosophical infrastructure to it, other than to say this: sometimes people smile and sometimes they find something else to read.
As a teenager. Writing poetry was a key to getting into a girls' pants. I figured the better a poet I became, the more girls I could woo. For the most part, it proved right.
2. What other writing do you do regularly?
I've written two novels, several short screenplays, a dozen short stories, a graphic novel script and have penned better than 2,000 stories as a journalist. However, the writing I do most regularly is e-mail.
3. Do you think of yourself primarily as a poet?
No. I am primarily a renaissance man, a career soldier, a husband, and a father. I have my mental fingers into a number of different things. I like to keep it that way.
4. Why do you write poetry?
See answer 1. However, as an adult, I find poetry to be an opportunity to free emotion that I might keep contained; an exercise in the use of language. The fantastic thing about poetry is it's a lot like journalism; it demands you economize the words, the sentences and the verses. So, I can connect on a number of levels with poetry now because I've been a reporter for so long.
5. How does writing poetry relate with your other writing?
It doesn't. It's an abstract.
6. Beyond Absolute Write, what is your publication/performance history?
I've been featured by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Writers' Group, including a first-place prize in one contest. I've also been featued by the Southern Poetry Writers' Association. Beyond those, my poetry resume is paltry, but admittedly, I rarely send anything to anyone except the AW forums. I've won enough contests in my life.
7. How often do you write poems?
Sporadically. I find with more time on my hands, especially time to myself, I can be prolific. When deployed to the Middle East at the end of 2006, I wrote poetry almost every day. Since returning, I may write something once a month.
8. What goals, if any, do you have for your poetry?
None, really. With the exception of the "Blue Rock" stuff featured in the AW Forums, poetry is mostly a one off affair to me. When I'm 60, I'll probably collect all this stuff into one tome and read it. I'll laugh at a lot of the dumb stuff I was thinking about. I'm so young figuratively right now and I know so little that when I'm 60, I'll be giggling about what an idiot I was for writing this stuff.
In addition, another poet laureate mentioned liking the response when posting here. Me, too. So do others who post here. We're all socially linked that way, I think.
9. Do you set out to write a poem, does it compel you to write it, or something else?
It's simpler than that. Usually, I'll have one thought floating in my head. That thought is usually a statement, or an abstract. For instance, "Do Not Fork Under Coil" is a poem featured on AW. The idea for it came from a sign hanging on a generator in the Middle East. What the sign meant to say was, "Hey, don't use a forklift under this thing or you'll break it." But the phrase "Do Not Fork Under Coil" struck me as something entirely different.
10. What formal, semantic, or thematic traits do you prefer to use in your poems?
First, God and Satan is one that pops up a lot; our mortality. I always liked the idea of God being all powerful. God would smote you for the smallest transgression. Humans are small. God is big. And throw Satan in there as a counterbalance, but really nothing compared. I'm always trying to refine the concept; make it a little broader and bigger than it is. I have a lot of poetry with nuns, priests, God, Satan and other theological imagery. Mostly, it seems to revolve around Catholicism. Catholic religious imagery always comes to the forefront.
Second, sex. Yes. Sex. I said it. However, I've always felt the key to writing about sex is to never actually mention it. It's like using the word "love" in a poem about love. Kiss of death. When writing about sex, I'm usually looking for imagery that conjures sensation. Sex poetry is a form of foreplay. And yes, I purposefully avoided the word erotica. I write about sex. And if you peek at the "Blue Rock" poems, I write about a great cross-section of sexuality.
Finally, the human condition. Writing about people with HUGE flaws has always enamoured me. I also like the sudden juxtaposition of people; the blonde housewife from the Spic-N-Span commercial who has a dungeon filled with lonely accountants and a 1-900 phone line in her basement. The stranger I can make it, the closer it usually resonates to reality.
In short, we all have some core things we gravitate around. I want to write about those things. That's why you don't see poems of mine with a lot of flag waving or gushy romance. At our core, we're animals. So, we're about survival, reproduction and whimsy.
11. Which usually comes first: Topic/idea, form, words? Other?
Idea. Then form follows function.
12. Do you revise? Right away, later on? How do you decide when you've finished with a poem?
I don't revise the idea. I will revise the words to strength and grow the verse. I'm always open to suggestions if the person offering them has a clear idea where I am going. That's what a good editor does -- keeps the idea but helps find the right assets to communicate the idea. In the end, that vehicle for communication may not be a poem.
13. How did you come to be interested in poetry?
See answer 1.
14. What particular poem or poet first attracted you to poetry?
I have no idea. Not to be a broken record, but see answer 1. I just remember seeing another student's poem, thinking it was pretty good and then getting started.
15. What poems, poets, movements or eras have influenced you as a poet: which do you particularly enjoy, admire, or aspire toward?
ee cummings is an easy influence. Wordsworth, too. Browning's Portuguese sonnets came late. Dr. Seuss is a brilliant poet (and a former neighbor in San Diego). Shakespeare, of course. However, I found that whatever I write as poetry is affected by other mediums more often than not. I'm aware of a broad base of fundamentals. And to know them is a great foundation. But part of the beauty of poetry is that you get a base of fundamentals -- then throw the whole thing out the window and write.
16. What single poem of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read your work?
Almost anything from the "Blue Rock" collection. Thanks to AW's William Haskins, my Blue Rock poems are some of the most powerful works I've ever written.
17. What are your thoughts on poetry today: its function, future, direction, relevance?
Poetry is alive in other places. It baffles me the number of people who bash hip-hop culture. Poetry shows up there at every turn, and there's a ton of it that's very good. All other music, too. I've never seen "poetry" as a stand-alone medium in the first place. Shakespeare didn't write "Henry V" just to be ink on pulp. He meant actors to carry the water on his message. His verse was just a way to make it interesting for the audience. And that's what new media is about -- keeping it interesting for the audience. We continue to evolve in many ways. That stand-alone poetry is being left behind is a step in that evolution. Someone said it's dead. I disagree. It's evolved.
Poetry is more a component of things than a thing. It is part of music. Part of film. Part of other mediums. There's too much info chatter now for poetry to stand out in its own right. It is a small -- microscopic -- group of people that still reveres poetry as a stand-alone form and even then, those people are usually cheering the standards; the classics; something in forms they recognize and are comfortable seeing.
Finally, a note on poetry and social strata: there are plenty of people who see poetry as this niche carved into the elitist alabaster. That there's a certain summit you have to reach in order to be relevant, credible, praised ... a poet. That's bullshit. There are plenty of poets who have been stratified by social class and were darlings of the New York/Manhattan social circles. And if you're goal is to make The New Yorker, fine. However, again, poetry is a maliable animal. Impoverished, middle class or nose turned toward gargoyles, we all have these one-off opportunities of thought, grace and power to offer people. Don't worry about whether or not they will measure against Longfellow or Bukowski. Start with whether or not you've said the right thing to yourself. Then, publish.
18. What, in your view, makes a written/spoken work a poem?
Words. Accuracy. Brevity. Clarity. Moral (sometimes). A beginning, middle and end matter. In many ways, the same things that make up any good written work. Poems, however, are better as snapshots rather than feature films.
19. What do you like about your own poetry?
Little. Once I've written a piece, it's usually forgotten in about three days, unless someone else brings it up. Then I have to reread it to remember what he's talking about.
20. What would you say to someone who wants to learn to write poetry well?
Three things: 1.) Learn what makes people, men and women, tick. Then, write about those things. 2.) Language. Absolutely every word matters in poetry. Some words are vague. Others are exact. Find the ones that are exact. For instance, "no" is one of the most powerful words in any language. For that matter, so is "yes." Both are clear, concise and absolutely have meaning to almost anyone who can comprehend. 3.) Don't take it too seriously. Do good work, but at the end of the day, it's just a poem. As a teenager, I started writing poetry to get laid. It's the same reason I took drama in high school and college. I can't attach too much philosophical infrastructure to it, other than to say this: sometimes people smile and sometimes they find something else to read.
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