Question: When you write in the first person, are you writing about yourself?
Answer: Not necessarily. The decision to use first or third person is often made for phonetic and/or syntactical reasons. For example, I chose first person for “It’s Better to Burst than Ripple Away” largely because it sounds better in first person. For example,
compare this
I’m a rough and tumble cowboy
In a civilized time
My boots are gonna ramble
Till the end of the line
with this
He’s a rough and tumble cowboy
In a civilized time
His boots are gonna ramble
Till the end of the line
The first person just sounds better. And going the from the bilabial m in my to the bilabial b in boots is a smoother transition.
Question: Is this what you meant when you wrote that poetry is a journey across syllables?
Answer: Yes. I can see you’ve done your homework. That’s important for an interviewer. You wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself like the time Charlie Rose asked a guy who had stabbed his wife: “What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your life?”
Question: You have referenced Robert Pinsky’s elegant little book called The Sounds of Poetry.
Answer: So you’ve read that book too. What’s your question?
Question: You need to stop being such a spazz and wait for the question. You’ve written that there’s always tension sound and meaning.
Answer: Yeah. It’s a constant tug-of-war between what you want to say and how you want to sound.
Question: Are you a rough and tumble cowboy in a civilized time?
Answer: Not really. I’m more of a “Can’t we all get along?” sort of a guy.
Question: Do you ever wish you were more of a rough and tumble cowboy?
Answer: Sure. And I’m very sympathetic to guys like that. And I probably wish I were less cautious and more mavericky.
Question: So your writing is a variety of wish fulfillment?
Answer: Sometimes. But more often I write about the types of people and behaviors which annoy me. “Fastidious Fred”, for example. The genesis of that poem was a news feature I watched about an extremely uptight famous performer who was ironing his own shirt before going onstage.
Question: Who?
Answer: I’d rather not say.
Question: Why not?
Answer: Because it wouldn’t be nice.
Question: But isn’t the pursuit of Truth and the creation of art more important than being nice to people?
Answer: No. It’s not even close.
Question: But there must be at least a little bit of Fred inside you.
Answer: Not much. I hate ironing and I’m lousy at it. But like Fred I’ve certainly been guilty of idiotic stubbornness. In a more general sense, however, if you’ll pardon my circular reasoning, Fred comes out of me so he must be inside me. Adrienne Rich wonders about herself (and this applies to all writers): What kind of beast would turn its life into words? And writers turn their lives into words as spiders turn their lives into silk.
Question: You wrote “sometimes I think I have a long way to go when the poem suddenly informs me that I’m finished.” Can you give me an example of when that happened?
Answer: Sure. It happened with the last thing I wrote, “Put the World in its Place” which I expected to be much longer. But after I inverted the order of the two stanzas I had written, the poem said, “You’ve made your point. There’s nothing to add. Now shut up and take a shower; it’s time to go to work.”
Question: You also wrote “Sometimes I begin writing a poem knowing exactly what I want to say and it turns out just like I planned. Sometimes. Other times I set out to write something, but I end up writing something else.” Can you give me an example of when that happened?
Answer: Sure. Originally “Unspeakable Things” was going to be an Emperor’s New Clothes narrative where someone, probably a kid or a newcomer to the town of Lidane, was going to ask why nobody ever talks about the giant box in the center of town or perhaps he was going to ask why they don’t just tear the stupid thing down. But after writing three descriptive stanzas, it was a little late to begin my narrative and the poem said, “Wrap it up, dude. You made your point.”
Question: I notice Lidane is an anagram for denial.
Answer: You probably think you’re pretty clever for figuring that out.
Question: You write a lot about denial.
Answer: No I don’t.
Question: How do you decide if what you write is a song or a poem?
Answer: Usually I know from the beginning based on its structure. For example, if it’s iambic it’s probably a poem and if the stresses are more spaced out it’s a song. But sometimes I argue with myself right up until the moment I post it.
Question: Do you primarily consider yourself a songwriter or a poet?
Answer: Neither. I think it was Robert Frost who said you can’t declare yourself a poet; someone else has to do it for you. And no one that I know of has ever accused me of being a poet. And I can’t be a songwriter because I don’t know anything about music. Besides, I’ve only ever read one book about songwriting, and no one has ever set any of my words to music. So I’m just a frustrated would-be lyricist waiting for someone to email me saying, “I just have to make a song out of something you’ve written. Time to quit the day job.”
Question: I noticed that you write a lot about alcoholism and substance abuse.
Answer: I noticed that too.
by Richard W. Bray (and Richard W. Bray)
Tags: A Journey Across Syllables, Adrienne Rich, Charlie Rose, Fastidious Fred, It's Better to Burst than Ripple Away, Lyrics on Several Occasions, My Monkey Makes My Mother Mad, Norman Mailer, Richard W. Bray, Robert Frost, Robert Pinsky, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Hemingway Defense, The sounds of Poetry, Truth is a Silly Concept, Twenty-One Love Songs, Unspeakable Things
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