How often had you sent out Mormon Boy before it was chosen for publication as a winner of the
Elixir Press 11th Annual Poetry Awards?
This collection went
through a couple of incarnations (and titles) before it made it into the
current form, so I have to guess that it was out there for about three years
total. The first year, I sent it
out to about ten contests, and didn’t get any responses from the
publishers. I gave the manuscript
a global revision, restructured, basically started from the ground up, sent it
to fifteen or so contests, and was a finalist in seven of them. Man, I was over the moon! I gave it another tightening revision,
made sure it was perfect, and sent it to twenty more contests, and…
crickets. I remember being a bit
down about it, to say the least, and on the very day that I was laid off from a
dreadful job in sales by a computer auto-call, I got a call from Dana Curtis
from Elixir with the great news. It was a terrific day. Who needs a job, right?
Tell me about the title. Had it always been Mormon Boy? Did it go through any other
changes?
Honestly, the title
changed a couple of times during the submission process—. It started out as “Mormon Boy, then
went back and forth between that and “We Deserve the Gods We Ask For.” Actually,
that was the title of the manuscript when it won the Elixir Prize, and before
we went press I settled once again on Mormon Boy. For some reason, WDTGWAF seemed too, what, academic? And, I thought that Mormon Boy told a
better story of the book and the tenuous narrative thread meant to exist between
the poems. By that time, I was
also close to finishing my second collection (which is currently a finalist in
a couple contests), and the title of WDTGWAF was growing on me for that new manuscript.
It seems like there’s a possible misconception
among some poets who are trying to get their first book published: that they
must win a contest. Were you concerned about winning a contest at any point?
What advice would you give to poets sending their book out now regarding
contests versus open reading periods?
I’m not sure I have any
real advice in this regard. For
me, the choice for submitting to contests was a professional one. Most of my academic peers recommended
winning a contest with a manuscript as a way to shore up a CV. I will say this: I’m seeing less and
less open reading periods from major and minor presses, and many more contests
from those same presses, so it may be the progress of the business model that
makes that decision for some poets.
Ultimately, it’s just about getting your book published, because it is
one of the hardest things a poet will ever do! Keep working, keep writing, and someday the world will
notice.
What was the process like assembling the book? How
many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?
I spoke a little to this point
earlier, but this is the most important aspect of getting a book published, in
my opinion—if you are a real writer, someone who studies craft, someone who
feels that writing is essential, my guess is that the poems are already
there. So, when it comes down to
it, how do you assemble them into something that feels like a book? The answer, for me, was through trial
and error. I had wonderful and
generous readers like Jane Springer (read her books), Matt Bondurant (read his
books), and Toni Lefton (someone needs to publish her book!), who all saw the
fifteen or twenty renderings of this book. I shuffled, I rearranged, I spread it on the floor, I hacked
it up, reassembled it from spare body parts, hit it with electricity,
everything. And maybe that’s a
good metaphor for the process?
Maybe it should feel like creating Frankenstein’s monster-the love, the
hate, the isolation, the wild abandon, all stapled together and smudged and
blood smeared and reeking of amniotic fluid? My only hope was that it wouldn’t
have to hide under floorboards, be chased by villagers with pitchforks and
torches, all to die, alone and forgotten, in some frigid expanse. Holy
shit. That analogy got away from
me. Readers of poetry: don’t let my book end its days drifting
away on arctic waters!
How involved were you with the design of the book—interior
design, font, cover, etc.?
Thankfully, I didn’t have
much required of me in this regard—-I did revise the whole manuscript again,
which Dana Curtis was happy to allow me to do, but once everything was in
order, Dana and I simply sent it on to Joel Bass, who did all the heavy lifting
for the design. Personally, I
think the book is beautiful, and the quality of the paper and cover is exactly
what I hoped for—I couldn’t be happier.
Did you suggest or have any input regarding the
image that was used on the cover?
Again, credit Dana with
her confidence in her authors—she asked me if I had any ideas, and as soon as I
sent her a pdf of the artwork from a number of my favorite artists, she latched
onto Glenn Brown’s “Shallow Deaths.”
I had stumbled upon Browns work while living and teaching in London in
2000, and I had a print of the painting in my office. I never imagined that Glenn would agree to let me use it
(especially considering there was no way we could pay for the artwork), but I
knew I had to try. The hardest
part was finding him—it took me about six months to track down his agent from
the dozens of places all over the world that his work was being hung, and then deal
with the language barrier. Mr.
Brown is from the UK, but his representatives are most often not! Ultimately, he couldn’t have been
nicer, once I did track him down—-he was happy to support a small press and a
new author with his work. He even
had a representative send a lovely, inscribed book of his work that currently
sits on my coffee table.
What about the publication of the actual poems in
journals and magazines prior to the book being published? Was there ever a
concern for you to have the majority of the poems published before you were
sending out your manuscript?
I think it helps to have
a good representative portion of a book already published in good journals.
Many contests allow for an acknowledgements page, which I suspect gets flipped
to in the early stages of selection—editors like to have their tastes
confirmed, is my guess, so some proof you are a serious writer helps move you
along, perhaps? Either way, it
wont hurt a manuscripts chances—I think maybe 50-60% of the poems from Mormon
Boy were already published, and I was happy to have a chance to thank all those
editors who gave my work a chance as I was making my way in the poetry
world.
What do you remember about the day when you saw
your published book for the first time?
I remember thinking, I
hope what is inside the book is as good as the outside of the book! I couldn’t believe it was finally there
in the flesh-all the hard work and love and despair and fear and doubt bundled
up and packaged for a real audience.
I suspect most first books feel this way to their authors—will readers
see what I was trying to do? Will
they like it? Where is my Pulitzer?
Or, alternatively, will these books molder in some back room at Elixir Press,
until one day, they are all accidently thrown out on the curb for recycling? My
wife is always the voice of reason, however, and she carefully laid out my
author copies on our kitchen table, popped a bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte
champagne, and we sat there sipping wine and staring at the books, marveling,
proud, relieved. Then, when I woke up the next day, I started thinking about
the many ways I would revise it, if given a chance. The process truly never ends, if you love the work.
How has your life been different since your book
came out?
I don’t feel like much
has changed, to be honest. I did start wearing a velvet robe around the house, and
I took up smoking a pipe, and I now call my students “minions” and my peers at
the University of Colorado seem ok with the fact that I address them as My Dear
Fellow/My Dear Lady. I tend to stare off into space thoughtfully when asked
direct questions. I fill my lovely and profound soliloquies to minions and
subordinates with long pauses. And then there’s the collection of boaters,
trilbies, and pork pie hats, and the bowties. I discuss my oeuvre, and refer to
myself in the third person. That
was cute, Seth.
Anyway. I do get asked to
do readings now, which I used to have to pursue on my own, and I have been
fortunate to be asked to get involved with some inmate literacy projects and
veterans affairs workshops, and I suppose it has given my teaching some
legitimacy. Personally, though, it has given my writing a bit of confidence and
momentum that may have been lacking—since Mormon Boy was published I have
finished a second collection of poetry, finished a short story collection, and
abandoned one disastrous time-suck of a novel for a creative memoir that feels
promising. Validation can be a great motivator.
If you struck up a conversation next to someone
seated on an airplane, and after a few minutes you eventually told them that
you were an author who had a book of poetry published, how would you answer
their next question: “What’s the book about?”
The answer to this
question all depends on whether I want to be an asshole or not. If I want to be an asshole, I would
tell them it’s a teleological treatise on the solipsism of the anti-book, spoken
through the dissonant voice of cultural ennui. In other words, I’d make up something to make them regret ever
asking the question, and settle back into my seat with the knowledge that they
would very likely not care to speak to me again. My great mentor and friend
Mark Winegardner once told me that if he didn’t feel like talking about his
book, he would simply tell them it was a love story, and that would be the end
of it. And maybe that is a bit closer to the truth, if I’m giving an honest
answer—the narrative voice within Mormon Boy is meant to resonate with Mormon
dogma and Mormon guilt, but it isn’t supposed to be about Mormonism in any real
way. This is a book about a
narrator who learns to forgive himself by finding love (sometimes in all the
wrong places). Like all great
books, it endeavors to be a love story in some way, even if it fails. In this sense, it is a series of poems devoted
to the tragic and the comic aspects of self-love, a journey through war and
loss and loneliness, ending with a cease-fire that I hope feels like forgiveness.
Rather than tell interested parties that it is a love story, like Mark does,
maybe I will just provide the short answer that it is a book about learning to
forgive oneself. Either way, I doubt they will be interested in the longer
discussion regarding whether a poetry book can be “about” anything.
What have you been doing to promote Mormon Boy, and what have those
experiences been like for you?
It has been a lot of fun
doing readings around Colorado, and it has taken me a bit to get used to the
fact that people actually want me to sign a copy of my book. I had to develop a
signature! My handwriting looks like a five year old (with palsy) scribbling
with a crayon, so I had to figure out a signature that looked like something
authentic. Otherwise, I think I have had the traditional experience of doing
poetry readings that most (I hope) poets have—I’ve shown up to read for large
audiences one week, then I’ve read for an audience of three (counting my wife)
the next. Thankfully, poetry
readers are gracious and kind. I am also learning to be a proponent of my own
work (a requirement for poets given the lack of marketing money for the genre),
especially online (thanks again). I’ve built a website and an author facebook page and a twitter account I won’t bother linking because I still don’t understand
why the hell I would ever need to tweet something.
What advice do you wish someone had given you
before your first book came out?
I was lucky to have great
writers in my corner who also happened to be wonderful, generous, and
kind-David Kirby, Mark Winegardner, Julianna Baggott, Jane Springer, Toni
Lefton, Matt Bondurant, Roger Reeves, innumerable more, who all gave me great
advice on what to expect, how to prepare the book, etc. The only thing I wish I would have been
better about had to do with marketing myself—I thought that it would be
premature to start a marketing campaign before the book came out, but I now
know that is when the bulk of it needs to be done. I didn’t know, for instance,
that you can send galleys to journals and magazines for pre-publication
reviews, which would have saved me a number of headaches.
What influence has the book’s publication had on
your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?
I believe I am a better,
more confident writer. I believe in my writing like I never have before. Again,
validation is a great motivator. I hope that’s a good thing? Either way, I have been more prolific
than ever before, even while I devote huge amounts of time to teaching and
service projects, so I’m therefore as happy with being a writer as I’ve ever
been. My new collection is a finalist for the Philip Levine Prize, and my
fiction was a finalist for the Jeff Sharlet award from the Iowa Review, so I am
hopeful that there will be continued success. But as always, I am waiting for
the other shoe to drop—depraved Fortuna has had a good time finding ways to
teach me humility whenever I start thinking too much of myself!
Do you believe that poetry can create change in
the world?
It can and does. It
changed my world, anyway, in a shallow foxhole in an observation post on the
border of Iraq. A tattered copy of
William Carlos Williams Selected Poems
open next to my M-60, and the next morning I started writing stories and poems and
haven’t stopped. I love telling my students that poetry is the most important
thing in the world, even when it isn’t. Where our poetry fails, however, is
when it alienates and obfuscates. I can’t stand poetry that cares nothing for
its audience. Thomas Lux once said
that, “poetry should entertain.” I
don’t know if this is always the case, but I do believe that the poet should
give a shit about the reader, and should endeavor to enrich the world rather
than outsmart it. I often tell my
writing students that it is easy to write poems and stories about you that are yours. The difficult
task is to write poems about us that
are ours. There is a ton of poetry out there that confirms for the
occasional reader their prejudice that poetry is, as Jane Springer has said, a “festival
of [and for] the dead.” I believe that those writers who write with an eye on
what is at stake for themselves, as well as what should be at stake for the
reader, are changing the world every day, a lonely character at a time.
******************************************************************************************
Seth Brady Tucker is a
poet and fiction writer originally from Lander, Wyoming, and served as an Army
82nd Airborne Paratrooper in the Persian Gulf. His first book, Mormon Boy, won the 2011 Elixir Press
Editor’s Poetry Prize, and was released in 2012. His writing has been nominated for a number of Pushcart
Prizes, as well as the Jeff Sharlet Award, and is forthcoming or has appeared
in the Antioch Review, Verse Daily, Connecticut Review, Chautauqua, River Styx,
Indiana Review, Rosebud, Iowa Review, Witness, Rhino, Crab Orchard Review, and
many other fine journals and anthologies. Seth has degrees in Creative Writing
and Literature from San Francisco State University, Northern Arizona
University, and Florida State University (PhD). Currently, he splits his time teaching veterans at the Light
House Writer’s Workshop in Denver, and at the University of Colorado at
Boulder.
******************************************************************************************
