I had been seriously sending it out for a year and
during that year I was constantly changing it so different versions were sent
to different publishers. I tried to forget who I had sent to once I had. I
didn’t want to focus on my expectations for the book, I wanted to focus on
having exactly the book and the poems I wanted.
Tell me about the title.
Had it always been Begging for It?
Did it go through any other changes?
The title was American
Youth for the first three years I was working on it—I began writing the
book in 2007 and I finished it in 2012, though it was taken in 2011. I wrote a
chapbook called American Boys during
that time period but I had changed the title of the book to Begging for It well before the chapbook.
And none of the poems in the chapbook are in the book—they are very different
projects.
America is one of the big things I think through
in Begging for It, which is full of
lovers, America being one of them. So for a while, it just felt like I needed
to include America in the title. But ultimately I decided against it. America, You Darling was also a possible
title. That’s a poem in the book. I don’t know, I’m not Andy Warhol so that
title didn’t quite work for me. I like what I went with.
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?
I actually have always wanted an editor to take my
first book as opposed to having it win a contest. Obviously it’s an honor
however one’s book is taken. But I’m happy that it was taken by Martha Rhodes.
What was the process like
assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were
sending it out?
I was changing the book until the last possible
moment. I can’t tell you how many versions it went through—probably over twenty.
I took out many poems, it was originally a longer book, but I had a rule that I
needed to absolutely love every single poem in the book. No filler. No poems
that were a “bridge” from one poem to another or from one section to another. Every
line, every poem had to stand on its own and together with the others. And that
took a long time and was difficult for someone like me who is not patient at
all. But I knew I had to be patient because my poems are the most important
things to me. And so I waited until I had exactly the book I wanted.
You only get to debut once.
How involved were you
with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.? Did you suggest
or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?
I wanted a photograph from David Wojnarowicz’s
“Rimbaud in New York” series. I knew that. When I first moved to New York, in
the summer of 2007, I would look at those photographs and think about Rimbaud
and being an artist and New York and Wojnarowicz. That series was very
instructional to me. Those photographs were an education. So for the book
cover, it was a matter of getting permission from his estate, and they ended up
giving us permission.
Everything about this book, from the design to
what’s in it, is very personal to me. It’s all been thought through really
carefully. So yes, I was involved in the design process. I can’t imagine not
being involved. I’m someone who’s concerned with both depth and surface. Visual
presentation and aesthetics are incredibly important to me. But I mean, they
are to most artists, right?
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?
Almost all of the poems in the book have been
published in magazines, journals, anthologies. I never set out to do that, it
just happened. I don’t think it matters either way. The only thing that mattered
to me was that I was happy with the poems. There are a few poems in the book
that haven’t been published anywhere, and they are some of my favorites, and I
think some of the best. So what does that tell you.
How much work did you do
as far as editing the poems from the day you knew the book would be published
to its final proofing stage?
I never stopped editing. Before it was taken,
after it was taken, a day before my final proofs were due. I have a hard time
letting go of work.
What do you remember about
the day when you saw your published book for the first time?
I was sitting at my desk at the Academy of
American Poets and just looking at the envelope. I sat there and looked at it
for a few minutes and allowed myself to have those last possible thoughts about
the book before it existed in the world, before it was real, in front of me.
And then I opened the envelope. And I loved it. I’ve worked so hard and for so
long on this book. If I don’t love it, what’s the point.
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?”
Begging for It is about
youth, love, and sex in America. It’s also about the past, religion, death, obsession,
New York. It’s about people. It’s about me.
What have you been doing
to promote Begging for It, and what
have those experiences been like for you?
I’m doing a lot of readings this spring at NYU, New
School, Harvard, Yale, Poetry Society of America, a lot of places. And I’m also
going to San Francisco. I want to go to LA and I want to go to Portland because
I’ve never been there and the poetry community there seems great. I’ll go anywhere.
This is not a New York book. So many different kinds of people from different
parts of the country have written to me, and I want to give them these poems,
physically, in person.
What advice do you wish
someone had given you before your first book came out?
I don’t really wish for things like that. Wishing
is mostly a waste of time. I’m lucky, my teacher in graduate school was Marie
Howe, who as well as teaching me how to make my poems better, taught me how to
be a person in the world. She’s one of my best friends. And I really value all
the advice and help Brenda Shaughnessy has given me. I love those women. They
care and they’re such role models. And so many other friends have helped me as
well.
What influence has the
book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects
in the works?
I don’t think the book being published has had any
influence on my writing. I am working on a few projects—one is a series of
poems, some of which are portraits that I wrote about people I have never met
from the internet—people who answered a questionnaire I wrote, consisting of 26
questions, which I posted on my Tumblr, and which asked them about love and
death and what they really want in life. Here is a link to it if people want to
read it.
I am using their answers to write poems, to make
something out of the lives of people I don’t know, but also out of feelings,
their feelings, that I often relate to quite a bit, and other feelings I don’t
relate to at all. And I’ve also been seriously working on new poems, the
internet project aside. Right now I feel like the internet poems/portraits will
be a part of my second book, a section perhaps. I’m not entirely sure but I’ve
been writing a lot. I also throw away a lot. The world doesn’t need bad poems.
Or poems just for the sake of poems.
Do you believe that
poetry can create change in the world?
If I didn’t believe that I would have a very
difficult, impossible time, justifying my life.
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Alex Dimitrov is the author of Begging for It, published by Four Way
Books. He is also the founder of Wilde Boys, a queer poetry salon in New York
City. Dimitrov’s poems have been published in The Yale Review, Kenyon
Review, Slate, Poetry Daily, Tin House, Boston
Review, and the American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley
Kunitz Prize in 2011. He is also the author of American Boys, an e-chapbook published by Floating Wolf Quarterly
in 2012. Dimitrov is the Content Editor at the Academy of American Poets,
teaches creative writing at Rutgers University, and frequently writes for Poets
& Writers.******************************************************************************************
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