First Book Interviews

#51 - Steve Kistulentz

2011-11-02T17:26:00.006-04:00

How often had you sent out The Luckless Age before it was chosen for the 2009 Benjamin Saltman Award from Red Hen Press?

The version that was published had only been sent out twice. But other versions and other books had been floating around for a while. Like since 2000 or so.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been The Luckless Age? Did it go through any other changes?

I’d always hoped that my first book would be called World’s Tallest Disaster, after a painting by Roger Brown that I’d seen in the National Musuem of American Art in DC, but then Cate Marvin published her book, and hers was so thrilling that I felt like she’d really earned the title in a way that my manuscript hadn’t. Later, when I began to write more expansive poems, I found that they didn’t fit at all with the earlier ones I’d published in magazines. There are a few poems in The Luckless Age that I think have titles that could have merited being the name of the whole volume, particularly “Wild Gift” and “Places That Are Gone.” But those titles came from music, from an album by X and a song by Tommy Keene respectively, and I didn’t want to leave the impression that this was solely a rock-and-roll book. It’s a book in my mind about an era, roughly from the John Kennedy assassination to the end of the Cold War, and what better name for that whole window of time than The Luckless Age?

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?

My advice to poets is to read poetry. From being a voracious reader of contemporary poetry, I had a hunch about presses that would be naturally inclined to my manuscript. I thought my book would fit nicely at the University of Akron Press, where it ended up being a finalist; I felt the same way about Steve Mueske’s Three Candles Press, because he’s almost evangelical about poets with a distinct voice; and finally, I felt like Red Hen would be a good fit because the last few books from them that I’d read had a similar blend of lyric and narrative. And I was lucky enough to win Red Hen’s contest. Of course, those decisions were nothing more than a sort of informed supposition on my part, but I think that you can learn a lot about the aesthetics of a press by reading from their backlist. Even though the judges change from year to year, often times the screeners do not. So I think if you go the contest route, you have an obligation to be familiar with a press. It’s a waste of the poet’s money and the screener’s time if you’re sending a highly experimental manuscript to a press proud of its neoformalist catalog. At the time I was putting together this manuscript, I was finishing my doctorate at Florida State, and I bought all the books I could afford, and read the rest through that great service known as interlibrary loan.

I’m troubled by some contests, as I think most poets are, because there are still a few places that refuse to be transparent about their methodology. I don’t necessarily think that blind readings are the best way to go, but I do think a press has an obligation to disclose how the 700 manuscripts they might receive in a contest get whittled down to the 10 to 20 that go to a well-known judge. But ultimately, good work rises to the top.

So many excellent poets sabotage themselves by not sending out what I know to be very good work. So I guess my only piece of advice is to submit everywhere that you can, as long as you know that the press or the journal is a logical home for your work. And since I’ve read for contests and screened manuscripts myself, I’ll add this caveat: read the guidelines and follow them to the letter. A few years ago, I guest-edited a nonfiction section of the great indie journal Barrelhouse on dive bars, and you’d be surprised at how many submissions came in that weren’t nonfiction.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

I’d say that there were really three versions of the book, including one that had a long poem at its center. It was a poem called “The Rosenstiel Cycle” that had won the Writers at Work Fellowship in poetry, and though I am awfully fond of that poem, it didn’t at all fit with the rest of the book. And because that poem had a certain measure of recognition already, I felt obligated for a long time to include it in whatever manuscript I was sending out. I’ve just started sending around a second book recently, and that poem isn’t in there either, so maybe it’s just an orphan.

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 convinced Red Hen to let me present them with a finished cover, and that cover was the work of a talented designer named Barbara Neely Bourgoyne. Barbara read the manuscript and came back to me with a design that was almost finished. We tinkered a bit with the fonts, but in every real aspect, the concept and execution was all hers. A Red Hen staffer, Leila Benoun, did the typesetting, and Mark Cull, the publisher of Red Hen, collaborated on little ideas that really brought the concept together, such as repeating the motif of dice inside the book in its table of contents. But Barbara came up with the idea of the dice hanging from the rear view; it was my idea to make the dice show snake eyes.

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?

It’s a different process for me, as I tend to write poems in batches, and the thematic connections between them don’t necessarily announce themselves until much later in the process. So I write, and I revise, and I submit in an almost continuous loop. Said another way, I don’t sit down with the conscious project of writing a collection of poetry. I’m constantly writing in a way that attempts to strip away the artifice I might put on in the classroom or in conversation and find out what it is that I feel at the deepest possible level. So whether a poem has appeared in a journal or not has little to do with whether it goes in the book. My litmus test has more to do with whether or not the poem feels emotionally open to me. One of the things I tell my students is that writing and publishing are two different things, which seems obvious. But I’m just as guilty of being the poet who obsessively checks his email or mailbox when there is work under submission.

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?

The only changes were as a result of copy-editing. I have a bad habit of writing these syntactically challenging sentences riddled with subordinate clauses, both in poetry and apparently in this interview. I tried to cut out a few of those in the editing process.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

I’d been traveling that week, and so Red Hen shipped the books to my office at Millsaps College, and when I got home from my trip, I had all these messages from friends and editors who’d gotten their review copies already, and I hadn’t even seen the real thing. And it was a weekend, so the post office at Millsaps was closed. So I had to wait an extra couple of days, which seemed cruel and unusual at the time. So I saw the books for the first time on a Monday, and my wife and I toasted its arrival, and then I had that moment of writerly dread where I realized that I had to write another one. And then we opened some champagne, because it felt like the thing to do.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

I’m guilty of making the same mistake that most writers without a book do, which was to think of publication as a panacea, but it’s not. One of my classmates from Iowa, Tom McAllister, wrote a really lovely memoir about fathers and sons and sports called Bury Me In My Jersey, and we compared stories about the things that happen to you when you promote a first book, like giving readings to an audience of three. Our inside joke is that we were going to write an essay about the experience called “No One Gives A Damn About Your First Book.” That’s not to say that the experience isn’t positive, but I think a lot of writers delude themselves into thinking that a book solves all of their problems. I know many talented writers from grad school who have two or even three books and who, for various and sundried reasons, still don’t have a tenure-track job, or the recognition that their work deserves.

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 literal answer is probably that the book tries to dissect some of the more obvious myths of the 1970s and 1980s. I remember reading an essay by Stewart O’Nan. In it, he called Richard Yates the signature writer of the Age of Anxiety. I tend to associate that phrase age of anxiety with the height of the Cold War, that sort of black and white paranoia that evokes Rod Serling and Joe McCarthy in equal measure. My book argues that the 1970s and 1980s—far from being the benign era of kitsch that the mass media would have you believe—are the beginning of the end of the American dream.

It’s the low point for nearly every artistic medium except perhaps cinema, and it’s the period of our history wherein we abandoned the idea that we were all in it together. That communitarian ideal—believing in the kind of shared sacrifice that meant victory gardens and war bonds and a draft based on true random selection—has disappeared from American society, replaced with a sense of grandiose entitlement that I find really off-putting. There are probably a hundred other answers I could give to that question, but the easiest one is this; I want you to reconsider nearly every single value that you hold dear.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Every thing you do is a chance to market the book. Every thing. When people ask you for help, or to come read, or to talk to their nephew who wants to be a writer, say yes as often as you can.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I just finished a manuscript called Little Black Daydream. In many ways, it’s kind of the alternative universe version of The Luckless Age, except in this alternative universe, Spock doesn’t have a beard. I wanted to create a sort of post-apocalyptic book. When I was in high school, President Reagan made that famous joke about how he’d signed legislation that outlawed Russia forever. Little Black Daydream takes place in a world where we actually did begin bombing in five minutes.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

I have to.

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Steve Kistulentz is the author of The Luckless Age (Red Hen Press, 2011) selected by Nick Flynn from nearly 700 manuscripts as winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award. His second book, Little Black Daydream, will be published by the University of Akron Press in 2012. His work in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction has appeared widely in literary magazines and anthologies, including Best New Poets and The Helen Burns Anthology: New Voices from the Academy of American Poets. He lives in Jackson, Mississippi, where he teaches English and creative writing at Millsaps College.

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#50 - Shane McCrae

2011-10-18T14:39:00.004-04:00

How often had you sent out Mule before it was chosen for publication in 2010 by Cleveland State University Press?

I’m not exactly sure, exactly—probably, I had sent it out fewer than 10 times. Although I think the contest-based publication model makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways, I just couldn’t afford to submit Mule that often. But I would have submitted it to more contests if I could have afforded it.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Mule? Did it go through any other changes?

Mule had every worst title any book ever had—figuring out a title for the whole thing gave me a lot of trouble. Early on, the manuscript was half rueful, kind of yuck poems left over from my MFA years, and half whatever it is now. And I think this disunity made the manuscript basically unnamable. Eventually, I put a poem called “Mulatto” at the front of the manuscript, and then wrote a few other poems also called “Mulatto,” and, thinking I had a theme going, decided to call it Mule. It wasn’t until the book had been taken by Cleveland State that I recalled a friend of mine, Kara Andrade, had written a memoir called Mule years before, and I’ve felt a bit weird about the title ever since. Sorry Kara!

Well, I would have liked to win a contest—that seems like it would be a neat thing—but I didn’t really think I was gonna win a contest since I’m not the book contest winning sort. Like I said, I think the contest model makes a lot of sense, but it’s also problematic—in part because it facilitates this notion that the only way to get a first book published is to win a contest. And that just isn’t true. If a publisher likes a manuscript enough, and if he or she can find the money, etc. to do it, he or she will publish that manuscript. I was very fortunate that Michael Dumanis liked Mule enough to publish it even thought it didn’t win Cleveland State’s first book contest.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The oldest poem in Mule dates back to 2005; it was written a few weeks after I had drastically changed the way I wrote poems. Because of this, the first versions of Mule were hybrids of pre-change poems and post-change poems. It was an unpleasant mess, really, but Jorie Graham took pity on me—I was workshopping with her at the time—and gave the manuscript its first sensible order. I reordered it many times after that, but if she hadn’t shown me how to order it in the first place, I don’t know that I ever would have sorted it out.

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 had some notions of what I wanted on the cover and strong feeling that I didn’t want any of the lines to overlap, but really it was Amy Freels at Cleveland State who designed the book. She was very patient with me, and endured my notions. And yes, I stumbled across the wonderful painting on the cover—it’s called Passing and it was painted by Michael Dixon—and sent it to Amy, and she made it work.

In the years before Mule got picked up, I was sending poems out constantly—I wanted to be part of the writing community, to be part of the dialogue between writers in whatever small way I could, and publication in journals seemed like one way I could make that happen. But I wasn’t particularly worried about placing the poems with regard to submitting the manuscript.

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?

Huh. A lot? I think I did a lot of work, but it’s hard to say. Just before the final proofing stage, I compared the final version of the manuscript to the version that Cleveland State had taken, and the differences weren’t that many—I had cut out a few poems, and maybe added a few as well. Most of the changes were cuts. But it felt like I went through dozens of versions of the manuscript, so maybe I did? Inexcusably, every time I made a tiny change, I sent the revised version of the manuscript to Katie Ford. She was then, and is now, a saint.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

I remember thinking that I needed to take a picture of the open box of books right away so I could post in on Facebook—and to maintain the purity of the moment, or whatever it was I was thinking, I had to take this picture before I had actually touched any of the books. Sigh. I don’t know why I do the things I do.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

I’ve felt blessed mostly every day, even on difficult days, because I wrote this thing and some people maybe like it. For most of my life, I’ve wanted to be a part of the poetry community (communities, I know), whatever it is, and I’ve felt closer to becoming a part of that community since Mule came out. And I get to do things like this interview, which is, at this very moment, blowing my mind—I’ve loved the first book interview project since way back when Kate Greenstreet was doing them. Basically, it is my favorite interview series ever. So yeah, blessed.

Ha! I can’t image ever doing that! But if somehow it got out that I had written a book, I would probably say, lamely, that it was about stuff that had happened in my life, because I would feel presumptuous saying that the poems were actually about what I tried to write them about. Like, I wrote a bunch of poems about God, for example, but how could I say such a thing? And if I said instead that those poems were about me trying to write poems about God, well, then that would just be me being a jerk. I would be very bad at this conversation.

What have you been doing to promote Mule, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I worry that I haven’t done enough—I’ve done some readings, quite a few of them (or an amount that I think of as being “quite a few”), and I always love doing readings and I honestly wish I could do them every day forever. And I’ve done a few interviews, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing those. But I feel like I should be standing atop parking garages all over the country with a megaphone, shouting, “Hey! You should buy this book because I don’t want Cleveland State to get screwed on this deal!” I worry a lot about the people who have been kind enough, unbelievably kind, to publish the books I’ve written.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Actually, I think I got the advice I needed from reading first book interviews. I learned that my life wouldn’t change all that much, for one thing, and I learned not to expect the book to be reviewed right away or at all. I learned not to expect anything especially good, beyond the publication of the book itself, to happen. When your book is published it is a moment both for rejoicing and for making peace with whatever comes next.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

Since Mule was published, I’ve felt a bit freer, I think—rather, I’ve noticed a bit of a falling away of self-imposed constraints I hadn’t known I had. But I’ve also felt a bit of self-imposed pressure to prove that the first book wasn’t a fluke, which I imagine is a common feeling to feel. And I can say happily that I have a second manuscript now called Blood—it took me about two years to write it; I started writing it right after Mule was taken. And I don’t know what the next thing will be, but right now I’m OK with that.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

It can, yes—it has. Much of the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian scriptures is poetry; the Qur’an is such an awe-inspiring text in part because it is very much like poetry, absolutely bursting with beautiful sounds. These texts in large measure made the world Westerners recognize as their own (and I don’t mean to prioritize the Western world at all, or to suggest that it ought to be prioritized; it’s just the one I know best), and the Homeric epics made the world before this one. And the Western world as it is today would also be unimaginable without Shakespeare. Beyond that, each person is a world, and I know people are changed as individuals by poems, and they then take their changed selves out into the world, and consequentially that initial change ripples outward.

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Shane McCrae is the author of Mule (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011), and two chapbooks, One Neither One (Octopus Books, 2009) and In Canaan (Rescue Press, 2010). His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Best American Poetry 2010, The American Poetry Review, Fence, jubilat, Gulf Coast, Denver Quarterly, and others. Currently, he is studying for a PhD in English at the University of Iowa.

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#49 - Nicky Beer

2011-10-03T13:04:00.003-04:00

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Yes, in the sense that human endeavor can always create change in the world. It’s important to remember that “change” is a value-neutral term—poetry can create just as much dreadful, boring, or mediocre change in the world as it can good. But we should always have high expectations for it nonetheless. Maybe it’s that “change” isn’t just value-neutral, but by definition, it’s never stable or safe—there are always unimaginable repercussions to change. That’s what I love about poetry—the good stuff changes you in ways that you never could have expected.

How often had you sent out The Diminishing House before it was chosen for publication in 2010 by Carnegie Mellon University Press? What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The manuscript was chosen for publication back in late 2008. I’d been sending it out for about four years at that point, and was starting to despair about how many times I’d been a finalist, but hadn’t gotten the jackpot. I’d started joking that I felt like Susan Lucci. However, I got some good and timely advice from Linda Bierds, who suggested that if I’d come close so many times without winning, it was probably a sign that I needed to reorder the book. Shortly after following her advice and sending out the newly ordered manuscript, I got the call from Jerry Constanzo at Carnegie Mellon.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been The Diminishing House? Did it go through any other changes?

For a while it was called Apocrypha for the Body, because of the anatomical poems within the book. My husband, the poet Brian Barker, eventually suggested changing it to its current title; after being attached to the former one for so long, it was liberating to see how a new title can help change one’s ideas about a manuscript. I enjoyed the dual idea of a “house” as both a domestic structure and a family line, and the ambiguity of the adjective—the sense that a “diminishing house” could be a house that was somehow shrinking, and the sense that this could also be a house in which one is diminished, as in a slaughterhouse.

I would rather have my eyes gouged out with a rusty screwdriver than strike up a conversation with someone on an airplane. But let’s say that someone was threatening to gouge out the eyes of someone I love with a rusty screwdriver unless I did—okay. The short version I’d give them is that it’s about the death of my father. Hopefully that would end the conversation, and I’d be able to get back to my Entertainment Weekly and Courvoisier.

I was absolutely concerned, in the general sense of just trying to get the book picked up—the passing years during which I sent out became a kind of slow panic in that respect, one that I’m guessing a lot of other writers can identify with. And of course, the pressures of the academic job market & its relation to publishing didn’t help much, either. But in terms of trying to decide whether one should chose a contest or an open reading period, I think the character and reputation of the press you’re wanting to work with is much, much more important than the means you choose to get published. The relationship that you have with them and how they respect and promote your work is going to last a lot longer than any prize money you might win. Of course, if you’re trying to pay off loan sharks, that’s a different story.

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?

Carnegie Mellon was very generous about this, and was very proactive about soliciting my input for the cover. I’d had the idea for a while of using a blueprint image, which they were very receptive to, and I’d sent them some mock-ups to illustrate the idea using blueprint images I’d pulled off the internet. Annie Jacobson, the designer, did a fantastic job in bringing it all to life.

And, in a very poetry-geek admission, I should say that I really liked the idea of my first book being blue, because Elizabeth Bishop requested a blue dust jacket for North & South.

I was concerned about it a little, because I felt, rightly or wrongly, that a juicier publication list at the front of the manuscript might give a contest reader a reason to hang on to the work for a few minutes longer. But I didn’t let that keep me from sending out the manuscript. I’d seen enough first books with only a handful publication credits not to agonize over it too much. And, in the end, because it took so long to get the book picked up, a lot of the poems did wind up getting published before the book came out.

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?

Not a great deal—many of the poems had been finished for so long before the final proofing, and I’d felt pretty solid about where they were. But the weird thing is that once the book came out, I found myself wanting to fool with the poems much more—sometimes I’ll be doing a reading, and in the back of my mind as I’m saying a line aloud, I’ll find myself ruminating, “Huh—that line break could be improved,” or “Maybe I should have used ‘putrescent’ instead,” etc. Something about having something so solid and unchangeable in my hands must have brought out the Highly Perverse Editor in me.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

That I wished my parents were alive so I could show it to them.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

I am less consumed by a blinding envy when I meet other people with published books. Or rather, I can now focus my blinding envy on their talent and good looks, where it belongs, rather than on the fact that they’re published.

What have you been doing to promote The Diminishing House, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I’ve done a fair amount of readings in the past year and half since the book came out, and they’ve all been a tremendous amount of fun. I’ve gotten to read at Central Missouri University, University of Missouri-Columbia, Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University, Sarah Lawrence College, and at the Triptych reading series in Manhattan, the Chin Music series in Brooklyn, the Sarabande reading series in Louisville, and the Gypsy House series and the Bad Shadow Affair series, both in my adopted home city of Denver. I know it sounds corny, but they’ve all been really wonderful experiences—partially because I love doing readings, but also because of all of the incredibly talented and distinguished writers that I’ve gotten to read with as well. Not to mention all the dedicated folks who run these series—I don’t think it’s always widely understood how much hard work and headache goes into keeping those things afloat, and I greatly admire the people who do it, often against the odds, without much money, if any, and without the level of thanks that they truly deserve.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

There are so many kinds of advice I could have benefited from in the thirty-four years before the book came out! “Never indulge in ‘Ladies’ Night’ in Tijuana,’” “Never date someone who says he does ‘A little of this, a little of that,” for a living,” “Never get a body piercing at an establishment that also does motorcycle repair.”

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’s publication has had a huge influence on my subsequent writing—I sit down to the same big ol’ blank page I did before I had a book, and still worry that I’ll never write another good poem again.

I’m trying to finish up my second manuscript, The Octopus Game, right now. Many of these poems are less explicitly autobiographical, which I suppose might be an unconscious pushing-back against the content of The Diminishing House. The majority of the poems are about cephalopods—primarily octopuses, but I’ve got a squid poem and a cuttlefish poem swimming in there as well. But if I have to have that conversation with a stranger on an airplane, I’ll probably say that it’s about fiery plane crashes.

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Nicky Beer is the author of The Diminishing House (Carnegie Mellon, 2010). Her poetry has been published in Poetry, The Washington Post, The Nation, Best American Poetry, McSweeney’s, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. She has been awarded a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a fellowship and a scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, a Campbell Corner Prize, a “Discovery”/The Nation Award, and the Colorado Book Award for Poetry. She teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, where she co-edits the literary journal Copper Nickel.

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#48 - Jeremy Halinen

2011-09-15T16:08:00.008-04:00

How often had you sent out What Other Choice before it was chosen as the winner of the 2010 Exquisite Disarray First Book Poetry Contest?

I didn’t keep perfect records, but from what I can tell from those I did keep, I sent out earlier versions of the manuscript at least 17 times, primarily to other first book contests, nine times in 2008, seven times in 2009, and one time in 2010. One of those earlier, less-polished versions of what eventually became What Other Choice, a manuscript entitled “Hardly Planet Yet,” was a finalist for one of the earlier contests I entered: the inaugural (2009) White Crane / James White Poetry Prize (a biennial poetry prize established by the White Crane Institute in collaboration with Phil Willkie to honor gay male poetry), judged by Mark Doty. That finalist status gave me the encouragement to continue sending out revised versions of the manuscript until it was eventually picked up.

During the years I sent out my full-length manuscript, I also sent out various chapbook manuscripts, comprised mainly of poems that ended up in the full-length manuscript. In 2007, I entered 11 chapbook contests and placed second in the Frank O’Hara Award, judged by Jim Elledge; my manuscript was also a semifinalist for the Gertrude Press Poetry Chapbook Contest that year. The next year I entered just one chapbook contest and didn’t place, but in 2009 I entered a few contests and my manuscript was a semifinalist for the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize (Seven Kitchens Press). In 2010, my manuscript was a runner-up for the same prize, judged that year by Eloise Klein Healy, and was offered publication, which I unfortunately had to decline as by that time my full-length collection, which contained most of the poems in the chapbook manuscript, had already been accepted and was scheduled to appear before the chapbook would.

A strange thing happened in early 2010 that I haven’t shared publicly before. A small-press publisher (who shall remain nameless and whose books I very much admire) asked to take a look at my manuscript; not too long after sending it to that publisher, I also submitted it to the Exquisite Disarray First Book Poetry Contest (and notified the other publisher that I was doing so but that I would withdraw the manuscript from the contest immediately if the other publisher wanted it). Shortly thereafter, I received an acceptance email from that other publisher. I immediately emailed Exquisite Disarray to withdraw the manuscript from consideration for the contest, but apparently they never received the email. To my great surprise several months later, I received an email from Exquisite Disarray notifying me that judge Kathleen Flenniken (author of Famous, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize) had selected What Other Choice as winner of the contest. I was stunned and didn’t know what to do. First, I emailed Exquisite Disarray and told them what happened, that I had withdrawn the manuscript and that I was planning to stick with my current publisher. Then I had second thoughts: Exquisite Disarray was offering me more control over the production of the book and a larger print run. As they are a local press (based in Tacoma, which is not far from Seattle, where I live) I felt I would perhaps get more local publicity and have an easier time getting readings, etc. Furthermore, they were going to print the book on recycled paper and were going to use a local printer, both things that were quite appealing to me. That said, they were a new press, unlike the other publisher, and didn’t have a distributor. It was one of the more difficult decisions of my life; I consulted with a few close friends and former professors and with the other publisher, who graciously offered to release the manuscript, and finally decided to go with Exquisite Disarray.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been What Other Choice? Did it go through any other changes?

The first title for the earliest version of the manuscript was “Position,” which is also the title of one its poems; I decided I didn’t want that poem to be the focal point of the book, so I changed the manuscript title to “Hardly Planet Yet,” which is plucked from a line of another poem in the manuscript, a love poem called “Buggering You Under an Apple Tree.” I liked the way “Hardly Planet Yet” sounded, and I also liked that its meaning was a bit baffling without the context of the poem it came from. Ultimately, although I considered another title or two (including “Some Queer Poison,” which I felt was a bit more attention-grabbing and flashy), I decided on What Other Choice (which was plucked from a line of “Or,” another poem in the book) as I felt it was perhaps the most flexible, layered, and thematically relevant title I came up with and because it fit so ideally with the cover art I chose.

A book is a manifestation of a possibility or a set of possibilities. For such a possibility or such possibilities to be made manifest, one doesn’t need to win a contest, one needs to write.

I certainly don’t think poets need to win a first-book contest or any other contest, for that matter, but I think it’s often easier (although not necessarily less expensive) to send out to contests in the U.S. (I don’t know whether the contest model is used widely in other countries, particularly in countries where English is not the first language, and hope that it is not) than to send to open reading periods, in that the contests are often more widely advertised and thus easier to find. I happened to find myself in the rare position of actually having a choice between going with a contest publisher or another publisher, as I said earlier. It was a really difficult choice; so many variables to consider and so many unknowns. I won’t say that winning a contest wasn’t something I considered while making that choice, but it wasn’t the only consideration by any means. (Frankly, I wish the contest model wasn’t the primary means for promoting and funding first books in the U.S., but for now economic concerns seem to require that. I should mention that the Exquisite Disarray First Book Poetry Contest did not have an entry fee, unlike many other first-book contests.)

Everyone takes a different path to publication; what’s most important is that the work be strong; if it is, odds are it will eventually find a publisher, although it may take many years. My advice to poets sending out their first manuscript is: send it to both contests and to open reading periods. If you can afford to submit to several at a time, do so. And try to be patient; although I admit the wait isn’t easy, it’s worth it: it will allow you to continue to revise and strengthen the manuscript. I’m very glad that it took as long as it did for my book to be published; had an earlier version been published, I would be a bit embarrassed by it, I think.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

It went through many versions; I saved a new version every time I made changes, whether minor or major, and I have more than 100 versions saved on my computer. The process was a mixture of pain and pleasure. I very much enjoy revising individual poems, but deciding which poems belonged together in the book and in what order was difficult. Luckily, I had some readers of various versions of the manuscript give helpful suggestions about that. Nathan Whiting (one of my favorite poets and author of, among many other books of poems, the fabulous This Slave Dreads Her Work as if She Were a Lamb Commanded to Be a Musician) was kind enough to put the poems in a completely new order for me, which was extremely helpful and served as a guide as I continued to revise the manuscript and move poems around.

Many friends, some who are poets and some who aren’t, provided very helpful feedback on individual poems and on the manuscript as a whole, and I’m ever so grateful.

I continued to revise poems in the book (and to ask for and receive feedback on those revisions from a few very generous friends—including Elizabeth Colen, Greg Laynor, Dana Guthrie Martin, and Katherine Stribling—and my ever-patient sister, Anne) until the night before the final version was sent to the printer; I was so afraid I was going to overlook something. I read the book over and over during the month before it was published, and made many changes, some fairly major (including cutting a poem or two, adding an epigraph, and changing some poem titles), during that time.

Let me show you an example of what I did to one poem, titled “Position,” the day before the final version of the book was sent to the printer (it was risky, I think to make such radical changes so late in the game, but I’m glad I did). Here’s the version of the poem prior to the final version that appears in the book:

"Position"

Perhaps I was dreaming airplanes

and in my dream I lived in an age before airplanes,

an age in which birds ruled the air with wing and with song,

so that, in my dream, I was daydreaming nonexistent things

and was therefore surprised when I woke in an unfamiliar field,

my anus bleeding into dry grass, an airplane passing above me

like the ride last night from the bar to this far, unfamiliar field

and what happened here, in this space covered now by an airplane’s

small shadow, that can neither be remembered nor forgotten.

And here’s the final version that appears in the book:

"Position"

Perhaps I’d been dreaming airplanes in an age before airplanes

in which birds ruled the air with wing and song

and was therefore surprised when I woke in an unfamiliar field,

my anus bleeding into dry grass, an airplane passing above

like the ride from the bar to that ordinary field

and what happened there—in that space shadowed briefly

by the airplane—that can neither be remembered nor forgotten.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I was quite involved with the design of the book, in an advisory role; luckily for me, Exquisite Disarray let me have my talented sister, Anne, do all the design, so I worked closely with her on it, which isn’t to say that I did much of the work on it myself; she designed it all; she gave me choices and her professional opinion, and I gave her my approval and feedback. I trust her judgment over mine when it comes to design/layout (we’ve worked together on design projects for several years, as she’s designed each issue to date of Knockout Literary Magazine, which I’ve coedited with Brett Ortler since 2007). I’m thrilled with the work she did. I can’t imagine a more fitting or beautiful cover or interior design.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

I found the image. The moment I saw it I knew it had to be the cover image (I don’t think I would have settled for anything else), and happily for me, Bill Kupinse, the president of Exquisite Disarray, agreed with me that it was the perfect fit for the book.

I certainly wanted to have a majority of the poems published before the book was published, but not necessarily before I started sending out earlier versions of the manuscript back in 2008. I started sending a number of the book’s poems out in 2006, before I even conceived that they would be part of a manuscript. Once I received the offer from the publisher who originally offered to publish What Other Choice, I immediately started sending out the poems that hadn’t appeared in periodicals to as many magazines as I could find that had an issue coming out before the book’s planned publication date, partly because I thought it would be good and free publicity for the forthcoming book. Unfortunately, it turned out that there wasn’t time for more than a few of them to be picked up in time for that, so I needlessly spent a lot of energy and paper and time on that. Several of those poems did end up being accepted by some good magazines that I’d been trying to place work at for some time, only for it to turn out that they weren’t going to publish their next issue before Exquisite Disarray was going to publish my book, so I had to withdraw those poems from those magazines.

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 don’t think a day went by from the time I signed the contract with Exquisite Disarray until the day the final version was sent to the printer that I didn’t do some editing of the poems. I was extremely critical of the poems. Among other things, I sharpened the syntax, heightened the diction, changed line breaks, and worked a great deal on the rhythm and music of the lines.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

I first saw a copy of my published book at the Richard Hugo House here in Seattle at a release reading of a new poetry anthology. I remember having a hard time restraining myself from flipping through my book during the reading. It was fun to hold it. I was amazed when I finally looked through it all at how well it had turned out, especially considering that it was printed only about two months after I heard that it had won the contest. An enormous amount of effort on my part, on my sister’s part, and on Exquisite Disarray’s part went into getting it to print so quickly, and I was relieved to see that it paid off.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

I do more poetry readings and interviews, and occasionally editors of literary magazines solicit poems from me now. Oh, and I get to read reviews of my book (including this recent one), which has really been fun.

Well, I generally read on airplanes and avoid speaking to anyone other than the flight attendants, so I probably wouldn’t, but in the off chance I did, I’d probably say it was about questions of fate and free will, love, sex, identity, power, violence, and death, but not necessarily in that order, and I’d probably only be scratching the surface. I don’t think books of poetry can be easily (or at least fully or honestly) categorized. It’s hard enough to try to categorize a single poem, let alone a whole passel of them. There are too many aspects to poems; poems branch out in so many ways and cover so much territory with so few words that it’s really breathtaking. A successful poem can sometimes take the reader or listener out of time, to a level of nearly pure consciousness, transcendence over the ego. But that’s not exactly what you asked. I think you meant more whether a book of poems can be summarized, not categorized. The thing about poetry is that it really can’t be summarized; so much is lost in attempts at doing so: the delivery and texture of the language itself, the layering of suggestion and possibility, the collapsibility of time, repetition and variation, etc. I don’t think one can say what a poem means, either; one can perhaps sense it, but when one tries to define it, it slips away. Can anyone say what a river means, or what wind means, or what sexual intercourse means? Neither can one say what a poem means. A poem, like a river, like wind, is a force, however, to be reckoned with.

What have you been doing to promote What Other Choice, and what have those experiences been like for you?

Well, it’s a lot of work to promote a book, especially a first book of poems. I’ve done a number of readings and interviews, including an extended two-part filmed interview with Elliot Trotter that can be seen here. I’ve used my Facebook status more times than I care to recall. I’ve done lots of research about reviewers and sent out review copies. I’ve submitted the book (and Exquisite Disarray did as well) to a number of book awards. There are more things I should do, certainly, like setting up an author’s website, but of course there is a limit to what one can do. It can all be a bit daunting and exhausting at times, but sometimes it’s a lot of fun. Doing readings and doing interviews, such as this one, are the most fun types of book promotion, I think. One thing I’d like to do is have a preview of my book filmed and put on YouTube or Vimeo, something I’ve noticed more poets are doing with their books now, including Steven Reigns, whose book Inheritance has a haunting preview film.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

I can’t think of anything; if someone missed something important, I still haven’t figured out what.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

The book’s publication freed me to focus on other work and gave me a confidence boost. I am currently working on several new books that are in different stages of completion. One is a book-length erasure poem. Another is a book of short linked poems. Still another is a book of poems based on the title character of poet CAConrad’s fantastic The Book of Frank. Yet another is a book of prose poems. And the last is rather amorphous at present. Wish me luck!

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

I don’t think the world needs to change. I think that people need to change. And I do believe that poetry can change people, those who listen to it and read it and those who write it and perform it.

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Jeremy Halinen co-edits Knockout Literary Magazine. What Other Choice, his first full-length collection of poems, won the 2010 Exquisite Disarray First Book Poetry Contest and is available at alibris.com. His poems have also appeared in Best Gay Poetry 2008, Crab Creek Review, the Los Angeles Review, Poet Lore, Sentence, and elsewhere. He resides in Seattle.

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#47 - Justin Evans

2011-09-01T12:17:00.009-04:00

How often had you sent out Town for the Trees before it was chosen for publication in 2011 by Foothills Publishing?

I must have sent it out about twenty times, but only three or four of those submissions were contests. I find it difficult to send out my work to places with which I have no connection. For that reason, I would spend a considerable amount of time researching presses, and there were quite a few which were shut down or who had suspended reading periods until further notice I wanted to have read my manuscript.

Those twenty times represent about three years of my manuscript's life because one press in particular that showed interest actually took me off the market for an entire year because I was so hopeful to submit it the next year. The editor chose not to publish poetry the next year, and when I re-submitted, she had selected a poet with whom she had worked with in the past. It was very disheartening, but not nearly as crushing as when the book had been accepted (to the point of a contract being signed) only to have it dropped. The editor and I were hopeful about the book in the future, but I ended up backing out of the agreement, in part because I was not interested in an on-line only publishing option.

It was about four months after the book was dropped I decided to send it along to Michael Czarnecki at Foothills because he had published two of my previous chapbooks. He loved it and almost immediately got back to me and said he wanted to put the book out. A few people had asked me why I didn't just send him the book in the first place. The truth is I didn't want to send it to him because I didn't want him to think I was trying to capitalize on our previous work.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Town for the Trees? Did it go through any other changes?

No. I had actually made a change. It used to be called Springville, after the very real town most of the poems are set. Town for the Trees came to me as an appropriate play on the idea of 'forest for the trees' at some point and I never varied from that choice. Choosing titles for me is a lot of fun. I will invariably go through several ideas, and a manuscript may have three or four different working titles, but by the time I get serious about sending it out, I have decided on a title, and I don't change my mind often after that point.

I have only won one contest in all of my writing and publishing experience, and that was for my first chapbook. I entered contests for the experience of entering contests, and I will probably continue to enter them as I see ones I am interested in entering. For the most part, however, I do not see myself as the contest type. In fact I just wrote about this on my blog. I really don't see my poetry, specifically my manuscripts, as the type which fits in line with contests. What I wrote about in Town for the Trees was fine one or two poems at a time, but as a manuscript it just never seemed to fit my perceptions of what a contest winning manuscript looks/reads like.

What I would like to see happen is poets entering contests at presses with which they can see themselves creating a real working relationship. I think poets should find other ways to support the small press than rationalizing their contest reading fee as support. Poets should support presses without the ulterior motive of submitting to them. We all should buy more books just to buy and read them. More presses would survive that way. I think poets should seek out presses more actively and take the time to learn about them. Because of Facebook, I rarely go a week without looking at some new press and exploring their mission. Do I submit to every press I come across? No. I query, I ask myself questions, and I weigh my options. But having heard of presses I can suggest them to poets I know, and I hope other poets might do the same for me.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The poems in this manuscript were quite easy to order. I had narrative arc in mind, and it was simply a matter of finding the most entertaining/best way to express that arc with the poems which I had for the book. I am a big believer in over writing, and I had a lot of poems initially, and when I had what I thought was a pretty good start, I sent my book off to a friend of a friend whose work I admired. He got back to me with more cuts to make, and I made most of those and ended up with something which was pretty close to the final manuscript. I wanted to do a few specific things and I set about doing them. On such thing was the placement of two haibun poems and a few advent poems at specific points in the manuscript. One choice made early on was to not have sections. I had tried several variations of the book with sections, and every time the book felt wholly unnatural. By the time I was sending the book out regularly, it was pretty much set.

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 was involved a lot more than I was really comfortable with as a rule. I know it's my book of poems, but the last thing I want anyone to come away with is the idea that I am the alpha and omega of my poetry universe. I'm not. However, Michael Czarnecki publishes quite a few books each year and it is a very small operation. This means he really doesn't have the time to do a lot of cover art, so he asks for photographs and cover design suggestions. I sent a couple of pictures I had taken and he mocked up a few covers. My wife and I immediately chose the cover choice he made for my proof copy. I will say the cover photo is of the Springville City Cemetery. The interior presentation and font was all Michael. I have known his work for years and trusted his eye, so there weren't any complaints there. As for any future books, I hope to have as little involvement as possible because I don't believe it's correct for me to be involved with that part of the process. It's where I am supposed to trust my editor.

Most of the poems had been accepted for publication and had been published years ago. Of course, it's important to remember that many of the poems are a decade old or even older. Any poems not published from the manuscript were not published as a conscious decision. I have never thought that it was key to have a majority of the poems published because most of them were already published as a part of their natural life. In the end it is the poem that matters, and the manuscript as a whole when it comes to book publication. Is the poem well written? Is the poem essential to the manuscript? I think publication is important on some level, but I know when I have written a poem essential to a manuscript which will never be sent out for publication on its own. I think it is important for a poet to know the difference but also understand editors often look to publication to gauge how well the poems have been received.

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?

None. The poems had already been so far down that road, by the time the book was coming out there simply were no changes to make. I was pretty fortunate in that category. The only thing I needed to do was proof for my own typos and mistakes.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

I had been waiting for a few days since I got word from Foothills that my books were on their way. I had to go pick them up because where I live there is no home delivery. I was out and about doing errands, so I had to drive around with my box of books for about twenty minutes or so before I could come home and open the box. When I opened the box, I found my books were wrapped in butcher paper in smaller bundles. It was like Christmas. I tore into them and took a picture or two with my wife's camera. They were so pristine. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Foothills, their books are hand-stitched and really are works of art in and of themselves. It was a rush to say the least. I still have a few wrapped bundles of my book up in my closet.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

I can breathe easier. I mean that. I can stand up and be a little more relaxed than I used to be. Of course I still have to work to get the word out about my poetry, I still teach high school to pay the bills, and I still have my poetry rejected on a regular basis, but I must say I really do feel more at ease with myself as a poet. What's more, when I see my book, I feel better about the path I have had to travel in order to get where I am.

I would begin by saying my book is part landscape meditation and part elegy for the places we no longer have. I would follow that up by saying it is an acknowledgement that we carry the places we have known for our entire lives and that is worthy of reflection. I would talk about how important Springville is, and was to my formation as a poet and a person, and how important "place" is for me.

What have you been doing to promote Town for the Trees, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I have been giving away a lot of copies in the hope people will review it and get the word out. I have started the process of setting up readings wherever and whenever I can. I have been doing scads of interviews and offering trades of my book for other people's books. I live 120 miles away from a Wal-Mart, and as pleasant as that reality is on many levels, it also means I don't have an in-person writer community/network to help promote my book. If anyone out there is interested in one or more of the options I have mentioned, please get hold of me.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Well, first off, I have read just about every first book interview in this series, and I have really enjoyed learning all of the little tidbits of advice everyone gives. The biggest piece of advice I needed was to start much earlier on book promotion. I should have been building my network much earlier, sending e-mails and sample poems much sooner. Asking for help from day one. People get tired of hearing from you, but you know what? It works.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I'm more methodical. The process of ordering a manuscript, looking through proofs, and going back and forth with what should be included has made me more conscious of the process of writing poems with a manuscript specifically in mind. I'm also more confident in the choices I make as I work towards the completion of newer projects. I have a second manuscript completed which is radically different from Town for the Trees, and I have started a third book length manuscript about the history of my home town.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Yes, but it's like what Gandhi offered: Be the change in the world you want to see. The change that poetry offers is in the individual, not in some measurable shift with the outside world. Don't just tell people about poetry. If you want poetry to make a difference, then write a poem which changes yourself, and help others to do the same.

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Justin Evans is the author of Town for the Trees (Foothills Publishing, 2011), and three earlier chapbooks of poetry. He is also the author of a chapbook of political humor, which took the form of letters written to Karl Rove in late 2004 and early 2005, titled, Dear Mr. Rove: 32 Letters to Karl Rove (Imbecile Press, 2008). Justin was born and raised in Utah at the base of the Wasatch Rockies. After graduating from high school in 1987 and finding nothing better to do in the following year, he joined the United States Army in 1988, where he served in various domestic and foreign locations. After leaving the military in 1992 Justin completed his undergraduate studies in History and English Education at Southern Utah University. After, he and his family relocated to rural Nevada where he began teaching in a Junior/Senior high school. In 2004, Justin completed a Master's Degree in Literacy Studies at University of Nevada, Reno. He is married to Becky Lee Evans, and together they have three sons. Find more information at his blog: http://justinevanspoetry.blogspot.com/

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#46 - Kyle McCord

2011-08-15T16:40:00.005-04:00

How often had you sent out Galley of the Beloved in Torment before it was chosen as the winner of the 2008 Orphic Prize for Poetry from Dream Horse Press?

I sent some version of the book out for about two years. The second year, I decided I would just fully invest in my own work, so I sent the manuscript to a huge array of places. I felt (and still feel) like my work balances between a few traditions in a way that makes it tricky to publish. So, even though it was expensive, I think a wide range of contests was the best choice.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Galley of the Beloved in Torment? Did it go through any other changes?

I came up with the title poem first. I actually wrote the poem as part of an emulation of a Lisa Jarnot piece, though, as often happens, the poem boiled out to be completely different from anything in Ring of Fire.

I suppose the truest test of a title is how you feel about it after the book comes out and is in the world for a bit, and I’m still very happy with the title. The book went through a phase where it was called A Nesting Doll, but the title didn’t offer much shape to the manuscript. As I began to imagine these poems as undeliverable monologues written by a lost beloved to another, it gave the book an identity.

Winning contests is great. But (the inevitable but) I would say it’s much more important to have a press that’s a good vehicle for you and your work. If a press runs a free open reading period like Graywolf or Black Ocean and you think your book is a good fit, ship it over! Some contests can propel a writer into some level of prominence, but being on a press you love from the get-go, especially if they option future work, can be at least as good a deal.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful to Dream Horse, no question. The extra prestige and money has been wonderful. I do guarantee that plenty of folks who do not win contests will have books that are still incredibly visible and well-distributed. Winning a contest is a nice plus, but it’s much more of an icing-on-the-cake situation than people make it out to be.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

There is a part of me that still doesn’t feel like a manuscript is complete until I’ve laid out each page on the floor to form a crazy grid that I can walk around. It’s some part of me that still believes there is always one mystical, perfect arrangement just waiting to be called into being.

The book went through two major permutations—the A Nesting Doll stage and its final form. The sections were relatively clear to me from the beginning, but I did have this moment of epiphany when I realized that the then second section needed to be first.

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 didn’t have a ton of input on the interior of the book, but I doubt that’s uncommon with first books. I’m a Garamond fan (though lately I’ve begun to admire Perpetua), and my publisher had a font in mind that looked similar to Garamond.

The cover was a different story though. J.P. Dancing Bear, the editor at Dream Horse, selected thirteen paintings from an Australian surrealist collective and sent them to me to pick what I thought was best. After hounding friends for opinions, I narrowed it down to two wildly different designs: the current design and a painting that looked like a Hieronymus Bosch piece. I eventually concluded that the second, though wonderful, was a little too instructive in terms of what the book was going to be about.

If I had any advice for folks who are publishing a first book, I would say that it’s imperative to have some say in a book’s cover. I read a huge range of first books, and a beautiful, or conversely, not so stellar cover can really color a reading. Be sure to check out the design work of a publisher when you’re considering submission. If you really don’t dig a publisher’s previous designs, it’s pretty unlikely that you’re going to be happy with the look and feel of your book. It’s a worthwhile consideration!

I really got my start as an intern at the Beloit Poetry Journal, so I’ve always seen journal publication as an imperative part of interacting in the poetry community. I had been placing poems for about a year before I got serious about sending out the book. I found homes for about a third of the poems.

I don’t know that I would send out a book until I’d at least seen how the individual poems had done in the realm of journal submission. It gives a person insight into what sort of audience might be most receptive. Sometimes, it’s not who you’d expect, which is great to know!

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?

Commas. Oh man, let me tell you about commas. The book went through five galleys (Galley of the Galley... funny, I know) and nearly all of the edits were comma-related. I didn’t have the same sense of grammar during the three years I worked on the book, so when I sat down to consider consistency, I had to make some extensive choices in regards to appearance and meaning.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

Maybe this is what everyone says, but I don’t think anyone can understand what a wonderful moment it is when you see your work out in the world for the first time. I remember that during my MFA at UMass the program hosted a first book festival that included panels by folks whose first books had just been released. I remember Ethan Paquin from Slope was on a panel where he talked about sending two manuscripts out for two consecutive years and dropping thousands of dollars on the process. He gave a grim, but not necessarily unrealistic picture of how tough it was and is, and I took that seriously.

That was somewhere in the recesses of my mind when I opened the package and saw my book for the first time. It was sort of staggering and emotional all at once. Mostly, I would just say that I felt grateful.

How has your life been different since your book came out? What have you been doing to promote Galley of the Beloved in Torment, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I think there’s also a misconception that publishing a book is the end of process, but the truth is that it’s more of a midpoint. Releasing a book opens some doors, but it also makes demands on you as a writer. It can mean setting up readings, promoting the work online, and a slew of other time-consuming projects, even on the most active presses.

For me, it opened some doors that allowed me to go on tour with another poet on Dream Horse—Keith Montesano. It was the tour that changed my life more than anything. The tour lasted a little short of three weeks. Since then, I have felt more willing to be reckless in my work. I think a book release lends the author some legitimacy in the world of poetry and that legitimacy is so critical in a job where it’s easy to go unacknowledged.

I often find myself telling the story where an audience member approached Robert Frost and asked what one of his poems was about. Frost responded to the question by politely rereading the poem verbatim. Anyone who has taken an intro to poetry workshop probably knows that what a poem is about may not be the best place to start. However, it’s still a question we’re responsible for as writers.

So, I would probably tell my curious fellow passenger that it’s a book of surrealist poetry that explores contemporary life and religious language mostly through the form of parables. I suspect this might be met with a long stare, at which point I might jokingly add, “it’s got animals in it too.”

I was just at Salvador Dali’s museum in Figueres, Spain, and I can tell you people love Dali even though it’s probably not in the public vocabulary to explain the significance of a dead horse blanketed with melting clocks. So, to say that surrealism is at a disadvantage in terms of audience reception just because it can’t always point to a singular subject as a focus, well, I’m just not sure that’s true.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

This is sort of tough, but I do wish that I’d understood earlier that the best supporters of poetry are poets themselves. It’s a lesson that became clear to me while Keith and I were on tour. I think a big part of marketing a book of poetry is knowing how to present the book to other poets as well as the general populace. Audience is such a huge question that I don’t know that anyone can really start grappling with until they’re standing at the front of an auditorium or bookstore after a reading waiting for someone to buy a book. It just gives you such a totally different insight on the nature and purpose of art.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I just had a new book of co-written epistolary poems come out from Gold Wake Press. The book is called Informal Invitations to a Traveler. My co-writer, Jeannie Hoag, and I had just finished writing and revising that manuscript when my first book came out. I think my third manuscript is probably more of a reaction to some of the things I learned from Galley. I wanted to try making an extremely accessible, I-driven book while maintaining the imaginative capability that is central in my work. It’s just a different style of book.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

One SAT question a few years ago asked students “Is there such a thing as the modern day hero?” I’m not so vain to suggest that poets fill that role, but I would say this is indicative of the fact that one thing the world seems to suffer from at the moment is a dearth of belief in heroism. And maybe there is some basis to feel so distrustful, but I still believe we desperately need prophets, which is one of the roles of poets.

I don’t believe truly great poetry can ever flourish from nihilism, and I fear that sort of cynicism that obliges no action is becoming so prevalent any more. I think poetry, by its very nature, resists this sort of hopelessness. The wonderful thing about Whitman’s America is that it’s so much more than any of us could live up to, but by its utterance, in a way, it is real and what it asks of us is even more real. So, I think poetry has a lot to offer to the world, and maybe more now than in the past, the role poetry can and should play is so crucial. Hope requires imagination, and as poets, we have responsibility to protect and cultivate imagination in ourselves and the world around us.

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Kyle McCord is the author of two books of poetry. His first book, Galley of the Beloved in Torment, was the winner of the 2008 Orphic Prize. His second book is a co-written book of epistolary poems entitled Informal Invitations to a Traveler from Gold Wake Press. He has work forthcoming or featured in Boston Review, Columbia Poetry Journal, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, Volt and elsewhere. He lives in Des Moines where he teaches co-edits iO: A Journal of New American Poetry. Find more information at his website: http://kylemccord.com/

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#45 - Luke Johnson

2011-08-01T15:47:00.006-04:00

How often had you sent out After the Ark before it was chosen for publication in 2011 by NYQ Books?

I sent the manuscript to sixteen places, mostly first book contests, before it was taken by NYQ. About half of these publishers saw an early draft of the manuscript, one that looked much closer to my graduate thesis than does the final product. That version was selected as a semi-finalist for one of the big first book prizes, but by the time I’d found this out, I had already overhauled the manuscript. I probably sent the revised version to 7 or 8 places before I was invited to submit by Raymond Hammond at NYQ Books, who responded within a few weeks letting me know he wanted to publish the dang thing.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been After the Ark? Did it go through any other changes?

In my second year of grad-school, I was thinking about thesis titles and trying to identify my obsessions (if you’re not looking at your own writing, these are called ‘themes’). I snatched out line fragments, scoured quotes from the canon, Wordle-d my manuscript and looked at the most-used pieces of language—searching anywhere for something to call what was then my thesis. One of my professors used to talk about the continuum of titles available to a writer: from the concrete situational title that gives the reader a firm narrative foundation on which to begin (i.e. “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”) all the way to the more abstract or ambiguous title (“Signs”) that does a different sort of cognitive work in forcing the reader to reconcile it with the content of the poem. Certainly, they both have their spot in the toolbox. But, in thinking about this, I realized that my favorite titles, both of individual poems (“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”) and of collections (The Wild Iris), seemed to fall somewhere between the poles. I worry when I feel as though a title is stage-directing, dictating (or, limiting) the unraveling of a poem, so I look for a balance of story and metaphor. For me, a good title should have or imply both.

Back to the question: the book deals heavily with my parents’ ministries, their divorce, and my mother’s death. I wanted the book’s title to do situational work: establish the religious backdrop and affect a sense of loss and absence, but also of renewal. I was writing a great deal at this point—my second year of grad-school—spouting and pruning about 2 poems a week for workshops at Hollins. Whenever I wasn’t sure where to start, I’d sit down with a field guide, pick an animal and try to write my way in. So I had lots of these animal poems. They featured animals, but probably weren’t ‘about’ animals any more than Wilbur’s gorgeous poem linked above is ‘about’ laundry. Anyway, it was around then (’08), that I floated (bad pun) the idea of calling it just Ark. You know, because it was filled with animals. That seemed a bit too broad and inessential, but it did have the Biblical connotation I was looking for. I was intrigued by the idea of an aftermath, a survival of what seems then apocalyptic. After a bit of gnashing, I came up with After the Ark. A few weeks later, I wrote the title poem, the longest in the book, with the idea that it would be the last poem in the collection. The book has been called After the Ark ever since.

I think it’s important to separate the book from the job. When it comes to the book itself, I was never that concerned with the ‘contest-winner’ label. I just wanted a book of which I could be proud, one that would be aesthetically pleasing and widely available to readers. I had worked with Raymond before and knew that he was a great editor, someone who would take good care with the poems.

When it comes to getting a job teaching creative writing, it’s certainly not a bad thing to have won one of the prestigious contests. If one’s main concern is a job teaching creative writing, then it’s only reasonable to worry about winning one of those big contests (and be willing to wait for it, potentially). We’re fortunate to live in a time in which there are multitudinous ways to publish a beautiful book. There are many more fine presses than there are tenure-track teaching jobs. My advice to poets would be to send your poems to presses you think publish beautiful books—some of them will be contests, some of them won’t be. In the end, it’s about finding a curator for your work you believe in, one that in turn believes in your work. Fame and fortune will come later, or not at all, or cease to seem so important.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

It came together, for the first time, as my MFA thesis in the spring of 2009. I had little to no idea where to start, but was fortunate to have a great support system at Hollins and an amazing advisor in Cathryn Hankla. Eventually, my manuscript settled into three sections. This version went out to all the major first-book contests and a couple of open reading periods. Christmas of 2009, I had a breakthrough with the structure of the collection. A friend had kindly and generously lent his eyes to my manuscript and he suggested I separate three triolets I had in a sequence titled “Chemotherapy Triolets.” Each triolet took place in a different season, and I tried setting them as frontispieces for the three sections of the book. Somehow, it was only then that it clicked with me that the structure could be something as basic and straightforward as a seasonal arrangement. After realizing this, I merely set the poems according to their season. Simplifying things in this way made it much easier for me. I felt as though I was over-thinking before, searching for minute tangential connections to provide the book’s sinew. The seasonal arrangement gave me bones. This skeleton took the indecision out and made the collection’s structure appear (at least to me) much more logical.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I felt intimately involved in the process of putting together the book. Raymond kept me in the loop throughout. He did everything with the interior design, and asked me to select an image for the cover. He stressed the idea that we were building a book together, an idea which was extremely meaningful to me. I imagine if I ever had any issues with layout, etc., he would have been amenable to changes, but I was thrilled with how everything looked from the first galley I saw.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

After I found NYQ wanted to publish the book, I emailed a copy of the manuscript to an old friend who I knew to be a hugely talented graphic designer, Patrick Howard. He read the poems and we discussed a few concepts. Later, Pat sent me a draft. It was basically the same image as the one we ended up using for the cover, only where there is now a willow tree, there was an Ark. I loved the feel of a watercolor, and really dug the depth, texture, and range of the colors Pat used, but I worried an actual ark might be heavy-handed, so I searched through the poems again looking for images that repeat. I noticed willows recur and suggested maybe a willow could replace the Ark. He sent me another draft, and it would go on to become the cover. It felt perfect. I remain immensely grateful that I was so involved in this part of the process, and feel very lucky to have worked with a friend and artist as talented as Pat.

I definitely think that having published individual poems in magazines lends your manuscript confidence. It also gives you confidence, something that’s important in a pursuit that can be mostly angst. Previous publications certainly won’t win you a contest or an editor’s support, but they can possibly gain a keener eye from a first or second reader. I would never include a poem in a collection just because it’s been published in a good place—it has to fit in more transcendental and thematic ways—but, I don’t think it hurts to establish some level of professionalism, some proof that the writer is actively participating in the literary community.

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?

By the time I found out NYQ wanted to publish the book, I was happy with most of the poems. So there weren’t many changes, though there were three that I decided to cut and one new piece that I added—we also shifted the order slightly in a few cases so as to have all the two-page poems on facing pages.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

I know one of the first things I did was sniff it—and then I let my dog sniff it, as if to confirm that it was, in fact, a real thing. There had never been a smell before—books have smells, computer files on the desktop don’t. I remember alphabetizing the spine on my shelf between Heaney and Joyce, and immediately feeling ridiculous. I remember I slept with the book under my pillow. I remember not being able to sleep and knowing why.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

I currently work full-time at an excellent pet store in Seattle. I don’t think the book had much to do with me getting hired there. Every other month-or-so, I’ll teach an online composition class as an adjunct. Neither employer seems too interested in the book’s publication, which is fine and makes me feel more accountable when it’s time to actually write poems.

Occasionally, I’ll feel self-sorry and wish I could bring my love of poetry more completely to the center of my occupational attention, but at those times I comfort myself by thinking of Faulkner working at the electrical company while writing As I Lay Dying. It reminds me that writing successfully is about nothing more than getting the words on the page, however and wherever you can.

I hope, sometime before I die, to teach reading and writing. If the book helps get me there, that’d be great. For now, new writing happens before sunrise and has very little to-do with the jobs that bring home the bacon.

Faith and grief, and the ways in which we navigate them.

What have you been doing to promote After the Ark, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I’ve done a few readings, including one at my alma mater, Elon University, and one at AWP in celebration of my graduate program’s 50^th anniversary. Both were surreal, and for both I’m extremely grateful. It was so heartening to share the finished product with the same folks who were so insightful and encouraging during the book’s conception. The strangest was when I visited classes at Elon and all the students had copies of After the Ark. I would read a poem from the book and they would turn to the page it was on. I couldn’t get over the strangeness of it. Seeing one or two copies had up to that point seemed normal, but having them there en masse struck me as all-of-a-sudden real. It was terrifying and incredible.

Most of my active promotion has been web-based. It’s simply the most inexpensive and extensive way to spread the word. I’ve maintained a blog since 2007, one which I hope is about much more than self-promotion (though, a fair bit of that slips through). I’ve found a wonderful sense of community in the blogosphere and have been floored by the generosity of these folks, some of whom I know only by their links, fragments, and poems. The cultivation of a generous and dynamic community, whether virtual or otherwise, will have a much longer (and larger) impact than moving a few copies on Amazon. That said, it’s been hard to gauge if blog-promotion has led to book sales, but I try to think a little bit more about the long haul. I don’t want to force the book down people’s throats, but I do want them do know how to get it if they’re so inclined, so I added a PayPal button to the blog and started a group for the book on Facebook.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Make sure the poems look good on the page, make sure you believe in every single one of them, and then let them go.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I like to think that the book’s publication has freed my synapses to things heretofore unexplored. I’m about twenty poems into a new project, one which at this point is almost entirely composed of near-rhyming couplets. I have little idea where it’s going, but I’m excited to find out.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

The right poem read at the right time can turn an individual’s world on its head and, certainly, change it. But this can only happen if that poem finds its way into that person’s hands. It’s important to drag poetry around in the daylight, not just through institutions and outreach programs (though, these are excellent and important things, too), but in day-to-day interactions: talk to people at the pet store about Seamus Heaney, tell the girl from Pittsburgh about Jack Gilbert’s heartbreaking poems, memorize snatches of Bishop’s letters, leave a copy of 32 Poems on the lunch-table. I get annoyed when I encounter folks who are ironic or detached when they talk about their passions, something which seems to happen all too often in poetry. Poems can remind us of the things we didn’t know we knew. They can call us to a larger sense of attention, a clarity of thought and expression mostly absent from day-to-day discourse, but they can only do these wonderful things if poets help to make it happen.

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Luke Johnson was born in Ithaca, New York. He is the author of After the Ark (NYQ Books, 2011). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Best New Poets, New England Review, Southwest Review, Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Seattle, Washington, where he’s working on a new collection of poems. Find his blog at http://proofofblog.blogspot.com

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#44 - Nicholas Ripatrazone

2011-08-01T15:37:00.005-04:00

How often had you sent out Oblations before it was chosen for publication in 2011 by Gold Wake Press?

I sent the manuscript to several small press open reading periods, but was fortune to get a very quick response from Gold Wake, so I withdrew the manuscript elsewhere.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Oblations? Did it go through any other changes?

The title has always been Oblations--the lead poem in the collection existed before the book became a project, and later felt appropriate to the collection as a whole. The traditional definition of the word is an ecclesiastical one--offerings to God--but I wouldn’t consider the book purely devotional. I am Catholic, though, and there is a sequence of parish-based poems in the book.

I did withdraw Oblations from several contests, so never learned what its possible fate would have been, but I knew it was a long shot based on the prose poem form. The contest system has led to the presentation of excellent poets (so many to name, but Alison Stine and Traci Brimhall are poets I’m reading now), but it does have its potential issues. The word “prize” is beginning to accumulate some interesting connotations; at least for me, it felt like a prize to simply have a book published. I’d advise poets to research a press before submitting, and not to submit wildly. I sent to Gold Wake because I read Blake Butler’s review of Donora Hillard’s Theology of the Body at HTMLGIANT. Gold Wake sounded like a publisher open to progressive representations of faith, as well as a supporter of the prose poem form.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The book coalesced quickly, as I knew I wanted to have a consistent number of poems per section. The ordering of the earliest version was very similar to the final book.

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?

Very involved--and that’s a nod to Jared Michael Wahlgren, the publisher and editor at Gold Wake. My wife contributed the cover photograph of a local historical barn, and people have said that image sets the tone for the collection, which is nice to hear. Jared was great about communicating layout possibilities and font changes--I can’t imagine a smoother publication experience.

Only when individual pieces began to find homes in places like West Branch and Beloit Fiction Journal did I begin to really view the project as a full book rather than a chapbook. In the end, nearly half of the poems were published elsewhere, but it was cool to have certain poems only available in the book.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like most of your focus is in short fiction. Can you talk a little bit about your ideas regarding the prose poem versus flash fiction, or why you chose to publish a book entirely comprised of prose poems?

Although I’ve published a good amount of stories, and had a fiction concentration in the Rutgers-Newark MFA program, one of my professors (Jayne Anne Phillips) said, listen, your tendency is toward the poetic. I appreciate the distinction between poetry and the poetic. Some people who read the book call it flash fiction, others look to the weight of the final sentences as similar to the punctuating final lines of poems. The baseball poems feel the closest to stories, while the barn poems feel comfortably within the realm of the poetry. I think a reader’s inclination and experience moves him or her toward one of those alliterative titles of form.

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?

Most changes were cosmetic, as I’d given the content of the poems a few drafts before collecting them into a full manuscript.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your published book for the first time?

I received a proof copy in the mail while I was between houses (we’d just sold our first home and were about to move into a new place). We’d been staying with family, so I had about 4 different potential addresses, and was worried UPS would send it to the wrong location. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to do with it--was it bad luck to read it? Every other book I’d ever read was written by someone else. But I finally sat down with it and the reading was a wonderfully affirming experience. I’m still thankful that it exists.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

I guess I’m more comfortable with publicly saying I’m a writer, at least when prompted. I still teach public-school English in New Jersey and adjunct at Rutgers University, but I guess my slightly-mysterious second existence is now becoming a bit more palpable to people. Life was great before the book, and now there’s that little bonus.

Barns, baseball, miscellanea, work, and parishes: those subject headings work as a tagline response. Beyond that, I’d say quirky sketches of eccentric people meant to reveal the oddity, and sometimes beauty, of the mundane world in front of our faces.

What have you been doing to promote Oblations, and what have those experiences been like for you?

The release party for the book is at CakeShop in New York City on August 7^th, as part of the PoleStar Poetry Series, a great program curated by poet and publicist Melissa Broder. It will be nice to read again alongside Paul Lisicky, who actually saw a few of the poems in their earliest versions while a visiting professor in the Rutgers program. Earlier this year I read from the book as part of the Soda Series in Brooklyn and at a few NJ bookstores. Support has been incredible, which is quite humbling.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Be absolutely thankful and gracious to any and all support you receive, whether it’s someone coming to your reading (which is a decision they’ve made and time they’ve given to you), buying a book, sharing their appreciation for the work, etc.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I have 2 poetry manuscripts making the rounds (one lineated, one prose poems), both written after Oblations was accepted. I finished other manuscripts also: a novel, a short story collection, and a proposed anthology. Fingers crossed that some of that work makes it out into the world.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

One’s individual world, certainly. And at least focus or refresh our understanding of the world. Slow us down, a bit. Help us to accept that the world can be concurrently imperfect and beautiful.

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Nicholas Ripatrazone is the author of Oblations (Gold Wake Press 2011), a book of prose poems. His writing has appeared in Esquire, The Kenyon Review, West Branch, The Mississippi Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Sou’wester and The Collagist. He lives with his wife in New Jersey.

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#43 - Laurie Clements Lambeth

2011-06-15T11:55:00.006-04:00

How often had you sent out Veil and Burn before it was chosen for the 2006 National Poetry Series?

My dissertation defense took place at the end of the 2005 Fall semester. Afterwards, I made a few changes, particularly re-titling the prose fragments in the table of contents. In February 2006 I sent the manuscript to the National Poetry Series, as well as to some other contests, and I submitted it elsewhere later that spring. In my vainer moments I could say that it was published after I sent it out 6 times. If I’m going to be even more vain, I could truthfully say that of those 6 contests, the National Poetry Series was the first one I sent the revised copy to. In essence, I could lie and say that I sent it out only once (ha!). Then again, there were other versions and many revisions. In total, I sent out “a manuscript entitled Veil and Burn” 15 times.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Veil and Burn? Did it go through any other changes?

Reluctant Pegasus (now the title of a sequence in Veil and Burn) and Undressing the Tree. But they were fundamentally different manuscripts from V&B.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

It was a learning process, to say the least, and it took a number of years. At least one poem in Veil and Burn dates back to my senior year of college. Many of them were originally in my MFA thesis, Reluctant Pegasus, which I had organized thematically. Back then I didn’t understand that there were more nuanced and engaging ways to press poems together, I suppose because as a reader I used to peck through collections, rather than reading them straight through. In a manuscript workshop with Cynthia Macdonald I began paying much more attention to the sequencing of a collection, the importance of poems speaking to each other in subtle ways, crafting new context in the space between poems.

Cue the angels singing or the light bulb fizzling above my head.

A couple years later, while experiencing optic neuritis, a symptom of multiple sclerosis that involves pain, double vision and vision loss, I wrote about it in prose. Mark Doty read and nurtured those lyric essays and suggested later that I try including some of my creative nonfiction in my poetry collection. I imagined at first that he meant something like Anne Carson’s Glass, Irony, and God, in that an essay might appear at the end or beginning of the book. My husband asked me if Mark meant that the prose would be scattered throughout the book or in a separate section. My heart leaped at the notion of scattering, so I went for it. I set to cutting up essays and taping them on sheets of paper, trimming the language back, then juxtaposing them against poems. Since the prose fragments explore vision loss and fear of blindness, something I felt was too melodramatic or maudlin for poetry, their positioning against the poems and their spareness are what I feel bring the book together through tension—what can and can’t be sung.

The title Veil and Burn then speaks to these two modes—more effusive poems and spare prose—and enlarges the concept of “Gauze Fragment,” which seeks representation of my vision loss in an old Hollywood trick: veiling the camera lens to soften wrinkles in close-up and burning the veil with a cigarette to let the actor’s wet eyes sparkle through.

Winning a contest certainly is not essential, but for me it allowed my book to be read by a poet I’d admired since I began writing, Maxine Kumin. I don’t think I’d have had that chance otherwise.

I like the notion that, if a contest is fair, your book can be read by someone you don’t know, another person practicing the art. But it takes a lot of luck to even get that far, especially in an open contest like the National Poetry Series, where you don’t know who’s judging when you send your manuscript in. And you must make it past the preliminary judges, too, who might be reading 400 manuscripts in a six week period. It takes a lot of luck no matter what you do. I doubt it’s much different with an open reading period. Still, sometimes sending to a press you admire during an open reading period, and being published by that publisher, will also help foster a relationship that will last into your second and third book, which is a very good thing.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I think I wanted to be surprised by the interior design of the book, and it paid off. My only request was that the font and line spacing be large enough for me to be able to read at public readings, since the optic neuritis has left some scarring. I really like the concept of the fading vertical line down the middle of the page. It echoes the sensation of vision loss, losing clarity, and it acts as a divider between the two elements of the book’s title. I couldn’t have thought that up, or I wouldn’t have had the guts to.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

Absolutely. After a couple of images were presented to me, I felt they didn’t speak to what was at the core of the book. University of Illinois Press was very kind when I asked if I may look elsewhere. Keith Carter, the photographer whose work I selected, lives and teaches in the Houston area. Mark Doty suggested I look into his work, as one of his photographs is on the UK edition of Firebird. Beside the obvious connection between Veil and Burn’s cover photo and the first poem “Coming Down,” where the wedding dress figures prominently, I felt drawn to the photo’s hazy quality, reminiscent of my altered vision with the optic neuritis and more figuratively, the fuzzy area between two extremes. The lack of a body inside the dress, in a book that seeks representation of the afflicted female body, seemed perfect. I’m also pleased with how UIP designed around the image, its negative on the back, and the glossy finish of the cover. The reader’s face is reflected, which is a nice way of saying, believe me, you’re in here, too. I don’t write about illness and disability to whinge about my own condition; I want readers to feel themselves in those poems, in those bodies.

Carter’s an amazing photographer who in 2009 developed cancer in one eye. In response he created a series called Ocularia, where he digitally combined microscopic optical images of his eye with Hubble images from space, the macro in the micro. When I saw those images I felt even more connected to his work.

I wanted to get individual poems published in reputable magazines, but I never felt any pressure to publish in quantity. After the book was selected—and there was a long time between winning the contest and the book’s publication—I wanted to publish some of the poems in order to maintain a presence, generate whatever interest I could in the book, and so on. I thought it would be easier to get published in literary magazines after winning, but it wasn’t—much. It’s not as if (and I actually thought this is the way it would be) once you have a book you are automatically admired by editors everywhere and have a free ticket. It’s still hard.

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?

Not much at all. I found the epigraph in Rilke’s poem “Going Blind,” and I put that in.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

Padded envelope. Single copy. Hmm. Didn’t expect that.

I knew I’d be receiving a shipment of copies, but had no idea that a single copy would arrive first. I felt torn about whether I should open it immediately or when my husband came home from work that day. Immediacy won. I remember the moment felt very quiet and private, meditative, and that seemed a good way to soak in the experience.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

In many ways my life hasn’t changed. But there have been fantastic moments when I’ve heard from people who have enjoyed or been affected by Veil and Burn. A few opportunities have come up that wouldn’t have arisen if I didn’t have a book; I was invited to be an Artist-in-Residence at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland, and my poetry was, in part, the subject of a scholar’s doctoral dissertation. So that’s fairly mind-blowing to me. When I met the late writer Kathy Acker, I told her I wrote a paper about her work and Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings, and she was blown away that anyone would be writing about her at all. Now I understand, but on a much smaller scale.

Perhaps V&B has become a factor in finding a future job for me—in the future. We shall see. For now, the book allows me to apply for certain jobs at great universities and get interviews, but I haven’t pursued that very aggressively in the past couple of years, given the academic job climate. I think my book has also helped me in my adjunct teaching; from time to time I get to teach upper division poetry workshops at the University of Houston, and have also been asked to teach Literature and Medicine there, given the focus of my writing.

And there’s a sense of legitimacy I feel from having crafted this book that’s out in the world. That said, I have plenty of poet friends who have written spectacular manuscripts that still struggle to find a publisher. There’s so much luck involved, and those manuscripts are just as deserving as mine.

Ah! I have had such a conversation. Over breakfast at a B&B in Venice, California, where I was staying when I did a reading at LMU, I actually sold a copy to someone who doesn’t read poetry. I think he was a retired math teacher. I generally tailor the description to what I know about the person’s interests: it’s about MS, it’s about finding beauty in the ugly and terrifying, it’s about animals, relationships, it’s about classic film, it’s about loss. I try to keep it simple and light, avoid talking about form and so forth, which is sort of hard to do.

I imagine that on a plane there is a sense of awkward proximity to your captive audience. Depending upon the poet’s level of bravado, he or she could give an entire reading and the poor guy sitting in the next seat, gripping his SkyMall catalog, would at least pretend to listen, or maybe he’d fall asleep, or “accidentally” spill his drink. Or maybe he’d call the flight attendant. Thankfully, I haven’t quite been in that kind of situation. A breakfast room at a B&B is far roomier, but sometimes you do have to share a table. At least I didn’t send the guy running into the ocean.

What have you been doing to promote Veil and Burn, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I had a great debut reading with James Allen Hall, who was kind enough to come back to Houston for that reading. Mostly, I’ve been doing readings since then, some of which fell into my lap, some arose out of friendships, and others I pushed for, sometimes unsuccessfully because I didn’t plan far enough in advance.

I love introducing my work to people through readings. I like to “convert” people who are afraid of poetry. I expect everyone possesses the capability to read a poem. So when those people come to readings and speak to me afterwards, it’s incredibly gratifying to know that the work is connecting to them on a very deep level. I’ve taken part in a few public radio interviews, too. Book reviews are also immensely important but in many ways out of a poet’s control, so I’ve sent V&B to publications that might be interested. I haven’t had a great number of reviews, but the one in Shenandoah was a fantastic surprise, and the others have been great, too.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

1. The New Yorker will probably not review your first book. Do not be discouraged when your book is not included in the “Briefly Noted” section.

2. Once your book is accepted, get started early preparing for post-publication book contests.

Know their deadlines so you’re ready once the book is in print. I believe I was so content with the book itself as a tangible object in the world that I momentarily lost sight of what to do next.

3. Discuss marketing, reviews, and contests with your publisher. Don’t assume anything. Make your expectations clear from the start and be aware that while the press is very willing to assist you, their purpose is not to do everything for you.

4. Gather your courage to arrange readings early on. I wish I’d traveled a bit more for readings when the book first came out.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing?

I feel like I’m writing the same book. It’s a continuum. For instance, there is a poem in Veil and Burn entitled ‘Hypoesthesia,” so named for a symptom of MS, numbness. Not long after the book came out I wrote a poem entitled “Dysaesthesia,” named for another MS symptom, a fiery pain on the skin’s surface when there is no source, no agent inflicting the pain, no evidence, such as a red mark. Both poems address these mysteries that are in many ways two sides of a coin. I would have liked to have put them together in one book, but I hadn’t yet “lived” what informs “Dysaesthesia” when I wrote Veil and Burn. At least with poems that have their roots in experience, I think there will always be connections.

I’m also working on a memoir, or more specifically, a collection of linked essays. The same month that I sent Veil and Burn off to the National Poetry Series I was contacted by a literary agent after she read my essay in The Iowa Review. I signed with the agency, and for a while harbored a sense of confusion about what shape my writing would take. After investing so many years in poetry, what if my first and perhaps only book would be nonfiction? How would that make me feel as a poet? After all, Lucy Grealy had some great poems in journals like Ploughshares, but we know her for her memoir Autobiography of a Face. But later that year I learned my poetry manuscript won the NPS, so there was little reason to worry. The nonfiction project has taken a back seat in the past, but I’m finding time to devote much more attention to it, and I have a good sense of where it’s going.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

A poem can change a person’s imagination and ear, even if only for the moment that person is reading the poem, so I’d like to think it can create some change. It will resonate and bounce across neurons and help rewire that reader’s thinking, hopefully expanding the way he or she pays attention to his or her surroundings, and by extension, the world.

If metaphor can be felt, physically felt, and even more so when tied to cadence, then poetry must have the power to cultivate empathy, which could indeed change the world. This is a theory still in development (language is slippery and hard to place into vials), and we are currently conducting double-blind studies in our imaginary poetry laboratories.

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Laurie Clements Lambeth is the author of Veil and Burn (University of Illinois Press, 2008), which was selected by Maxine Kumin for the National Poetry Series and finalized for the 2009 Glasgow/Shenandoah Prize for Emerging Writers. Her most recent poetry has appeared in Crazyhorse, Seneca Review, Zocalo Public Square, and American Letters and Commentary. She holds MFA and PhD degrees from the University of Houston, where she is an adjunct lecturer. She is currently at work on a memoir as well as her second collection of poems, Bright Pane. Find out more at Laurie's website.

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#42 - Bobby C. Rogers

2011-06-01T08:34:00.006-04:00

How often had you sent out Paper Anniversary before it was chosen for the 2009 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize?

Many, many times, Keith. The book had been short-listed for just about everything. The university where I teach rewards research and writing, but it’s not a “publish or perish” institution, so I had the luxury of time. I kept working on the book until I felt a degree of comfort that it was ready. I also had the luxury of being selective in where I sent it, which may have been a factor in its taking so long to find a publisher. I submitted the manuscript to the same contests and presses year after year, and it was a finalist so many times that I was beginning to think the book had what in baseball is known derisively as “warning track power”—that it sounded good off the bat and carried a long ways but didn’t have enough pop to leave the yard. I never gave up on the book, though, and kept trying to make each iteration a little stronger, a little more cohesive, hoping it would find a sympathetic reader. Maybe the wind was blowing out that day.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Paper Anniversary? Did it go through any other changes?

The book’s had about as many titles as it has poems. Ed Ochester, who directs the Pitt Poetry Series, picked Paper Anniversary after the book had been accepted. It’s from the title of a poem that’s at the center of the collection. Ironically, I suppose, the poem deals with the difficulty of naming things.

I was mostly interested in finding the book a good home. The prize was just gravy. Being in the Pitt Poetry Series with all those poets I hold in the highest regard—Larry Levis, Ted Kooser, Cathy Song, Kate Daniels, Greg Orr, it just goes on and on—that’s the real prize. The advice I would give is envision your book on the backlist of whatever publishing house you send to—it’ll be there soon enough—and ask yourself, “Is this good company to be in?” Not a hard question to answer with Pitt.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

Paper Anniversary went through many versions, many orderings. Even though it’s just a collection of poems and not a “concept album” type of book, I still was deeply concerned that the poems progress in some coherent way. The book doesn’t have to be read sequentially at all, but that’s the way most people read a book of poems, so I wanted each poem to not be disruptive of the poems around it. It took some doing.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

Pitt has an excellent designer, Ann Walston. She listened very patiently to my, um, generous amounts of input. My long line is hard to manage in a standard book format and I had definite ideas about how I wanted the pages to be set up. Despite all my input, the book looks great. She did a beautiful job.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

Again, Pitt was a pleasure to work with. The image I chose, Bookshelf With Sunbeams by Memphis artist Burton Callicott, is from the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. I’ve loved that painting for a long time. And in ways I can’t fully articulate, I believe Mr. Callicott’s project in his painting is related to what I’m trying to do on the page. It hangs on the second floor of the museum, a few blocks from my house. These are Memphis poems, written in Memphis even when they aren’t explicitly about Memphis, so it is fitting that a Memphis artist is on the book.

A good editor like Ed Ochester is capable of reading a book and making a judgment as to its worth without consulting the Acknowledgments page to see what journals have put their imprimatur on the individual poems. (The world needs more good editors—can’t have too many of ’em.) But I think a book’s journal credits do have a story to tell about the tastes of the poet, and maybe a little to say about the savor of the poems themselves. My work tends to get published in places like Shenandoah, The Georgia Review, the Southern Review, Southern Humanities Review, Southwest Review, any journal with some version of “South” in its name. Sou’wester.

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?

Though none was required, I did make a couple of changes after the book was accepted. Actually sending the thing off to press and being confronted by the absolute ending of its evolution somehow casts a manuscript in an even harsher, clearer light. It’s the book’s date with the gallows, so to speak, and the thinking of the poet becomes wonderfully clarified. I was happy that the collection stood up well in those conditions.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

We went to dinner at Café Society, a neighborhood restaurant. I had the filet.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

I’m thrilled at the prospects of the book becoming a factor in helping me keep the job I’ve got. I’ve been teaching at Union University for 22 years. It’s a great job.

That’s a tough one. I try to stay out of conversations on public conveyances. And “What’s the book about?” is a difficult question for even the best book of poetry. What’s Harmonium about? Or Geography III? (I’m pretty sure it’s about more than geography.) I’d say Paper Anniversary is one man’s attempt to make sense of the stories his life has churned up, and that by reading such a thing, I’d hope the reader’s own world might begin to register a little more sharply on the retina.

What have you been doing to promote Paper Anniversary, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I like to read poems out loud and talk about craft. The book has provided me with a more pressing reason for doing that. I’ve given readings at The Southern Festival of Books and our local independent bookstore, Davis Kidd Booksellers. It’s been a busy spring, with events already at the AWP Convention in Washington, D.C. and Vanderbilt University, and I’ll be reading shortly at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and UNC Greensboro. But I have many open dates in fall 2011 and spring 2012!

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

People who take up the art of poetry and pursue it long enough to complete a book have already demonstrated an imperviousness to even the most reasonable advice from family, clergy, and loved ones. I’ve disregarded miles and miles of wise counsel. To my detriment. It probably wouldn’t do me any good to wish for more.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I’m writing poems. Same as always. They say some boxers fight tentatively as they’re rising through the ranks, and then, when they’ve had success and finally win a belt, they are transformed and start to fight like champions. Poetry isn’t exactly the same as prize fighting, but it’s not a bad thing to hope for.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

This is a common question and a thought-provoking one, but I think these days it is largely a question about celebrity: Why aren’t poets bigger deals in our culture? Why aren’t poets consulted by presidents? Why don’t they do American Express commercials and lip sync their poems during halftime of the Super Bowl? The thing is, poetry does create change. I don’t believe it; it does. We read Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and we come out transformed on the other side. All art changes us. We look at a painting, it moves us, it stops us in our tracks and we are changed. We listen to a piece of music and the world seems less barbarous for a few notes, the world is less barbarous for a measure or two. That will have to be enough. My poetry has never gotten me a better table in a restaurant, it’s had no discernible impact on our nation’s foreign policy, it’s never made my children’s schools any better—the only thing in my immediate power that does is when I show up myself and volunteer for something, maybe I’m reading in my daughter’s third-grade class, not my poems but someone else’s writing, and the kids go quiet as I bend open the book, waiting for me to find where I left off the week before, and then we begin to listen to every word Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote a long time ago, during the Great Depression, and for a few minutes all of us are changed.

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Bobby C. Rogers grew up in McKenzie, Tennessee and was educated at Union University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and the University of Virginia. His book Paper Anniversary won the 2009 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in fall 2010. He has been three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and he won the Greensboro Review Literary Prize in Poetry for 2002. His poems have appeared in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Image, Epoch, Puerto del Sol, The Iron Horse Literary Review, Southwest Review, Sou’wester, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, Southern Humanities Review, Washington Square, Meridian, Grist, and many other magazines. New work is due out shortly in Shenandoah Online, Southwest Review, and Image. Currently, he is Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He lives in Memphis with his wife and son and daughter.

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#41 - Elyse Fenton

2011-05-16T14:45:00.004-04:00

How often had you sent out Clamor before it was chosen for the 2009 Cleveland State University Poetry Center First Book Prize?

Clamor was two years old in contest years when Doug Powell chose it for publication. I think I was pretty lucky in that regard—I’d probably sent in out to ten places, all told.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Clamor? Did it go through any other changes?

Even before it was a manuscript, it was definitely ‘Clamor’. ‘Clamor’ as ruckus and noise, clamor as protest, clamor as silence.

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 pretty sure I’ve contributed to that misconception—and I’m hoping it is, indeed, a misconception. I admit, I wanted to win a contest, sure, but more than that, I wanted those poems out in the world. In hindsight, I’d probably focus on open reading periods, but I was much less aware of them at the time. In fact, I’m still pretty ignorant on the subject.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The process involved a lot of sweeping. Literally. I would spread the pages out on my floor so I could see the physical progression, catch the imagistic echoes and cross-poem rhymes, see the general landscape of white space and typography amassed before me. I began to view the collection as its own poem, so I was insistent on trying to get all the breaks right, to allow a breath here or there, but to—hopefully—enact and maintain a harrowing momentum for the reader. But I had a pretty dirty floor: hence, the sweeping.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

Pretty minorly. One sticking point for me was that I wanted the final poem, “Roll Call,” to be a kind of hidden track, with a few blank pages of breath and space separating it from the previous poem. I was told that it might not be possible, but then the designer, Amy Freels, came up with a simple, gorgeous solution—that abstracted static image that appears as a section break throughout the book.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

While my input was limited, I’m pleased with the results.

Oh, no! Was I supposed to have the majority published? I thought I was lucky to have published a good handful... But I also thought that the poems belonged together, so I was hesitant to orphan them. Plus, I just wasn’t that focused on publication. I mean, I was, but I wasn’t organized or nearly diligent enough about it.

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?

Very little. Cleveland State sent me some minor editing suggestions, and we back-and-forthed for a few rounds. It was all very civilized.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

The day I got the phone call from Michael Dumanis saying that Doug Powell had chosen my book was two days after I’d discovered that I was pregnant. So there was a general sense of giddiness and unreality that presided over my life at the time anyway. And, honestly? The news of the book just seemed that much more, well, hard-earned and noteworthy... But I guess I’m lucky that way.

The first day I saw the book I was at the AWP book fair in Denver, which happened to be the first time I’d been apart from my then ten-week-old daughter. At the time, standing alone in a public place without a burp cloth over my shoulder was pretty remarkable. The thrill, then, of holding my baby—er, book– in my hands was relatively unspeakable.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

Well, I begrudgingly joined Facebook on the suggestion of my press, and I’ll admit to many frittered-away hours as a result.

But what’s really changed my writing life was winning the Dylan Thomas Prize last December, which came with a purse hefty enough to buy a modest yacht. (Maybe.) I don’t know which is more incredible: the prospect of a few years of childcare or the sudden crazy bump in readership the prize—and the media in the wake of the prize-- has sparked. But if you had told me a few months ago that I’d be featured on All Things Considered—the theme music of which still takes me back to dinner preparations from my childhood-- and that strangers would be emailing me from New Delhi (ok, only one from India) to tell me how much my work resonated with them, no way would I have believed you. But there it is, and it’s been amazing.

As for future jobs? Well, I’m looking, ahem, to teach in Portland, Oregon beginning in fall 2011. Big ellipsis there.

What have you been doing to promote Clamor, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I scheduled a very small handful of readings in places where I had friends or family, which have ranged from, um, intimate, to raucous (and attended by my first grade teacher!). And my husband engineered a website that bears no marks of my own luddite leanings, which has at least given me something to point people toward.

But when Clamor came out, I was teaching and being a befuddled new mother and moving cross-country and trying to steal whatever sleep I could, and I really wasn’t in a position to travel, or spend time on promotional stuff. As it turns out, the little that I did do—which also included nagging my press about submitting the book to other first book contests— panned out huge with the Dylan Thomas Prize. And though it’s been a few months now since it was announced, I’m still reeling.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

To have a few pithy, interview-ready quotes for moments like this.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I think it’s easy to feel overshadowed by The First Book. As if you’ll never write another poem worthy of publication again. To combat that potentially paralyzing fear, I just try to write as much and as often as I can—which is really a pitiably amount at the moment-- and to banish thoughts of future submission periods. Of course, that’s easier said than done. But, yes, there are poems in the works.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Yep. Just not, maybe, the kind of ‘change’ we talk about when we talk about ‘change’. I mean, that feeling when you come away from a poem wanting to see more-- or less or better-- to love more—or less or better—or to be less—or more—brutal...? That’s perception-changing, vision-changing, mood-changing stuff. And since you asked if poetry could create change in the world, and not change the world, I’m sticking to that initial affirmative.

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Elyse Fenton is the author of the poetry collection, Clamor, which won the 2010 University of Wales’ Dylan Thomas Prize and Cleveland State University Press’s First Book Award. She has published poetry and nonfiction in The New York Times, Best New Poets, The Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, Verse Daily and elsewhere. She received a BA from Reed College and an MFA from the University of Oregon and has worked in the woods, on farms and in schools in the Pacific Northwest, New Hampshire, Mongolia and Texas. Though West Philly has recently claimed her as a resident, she is moving with her family to Portland, Oregon, in 2011. Find more at her website - http://www.elysefenton.com

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#40 - Mike Dockins

2011-05-02T17:33:00.005-04:00

How often had you sent out Slouching in the Path of a Comet before it was chosen for publication in 2007 by Sage Hill Press?

Between 2002 and 2006 I sent out the manuscript (to contests) probably 80 times, about 20 times a year for four years. Multiply that by an average of $15 a pop, and I spent over a grand, not counting postage. If I had ended up winning one of them, I might have broken even.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Slouching in the Path of a Comet? Did it go through any other changes?

The title changed many times, as did the overall content of the book. What is now Slouching is essentially a dramatic evolution of my UMASS MFA thesis. Even after defending my thesis, I knew that I had a lot of work to do. When I moved to Atlanta, I was lucky to have been writing (and publishing) many new poems, and so these gradually got added to the mix. A key moment in the evolution of the book was the result of a blast e-mail I sent out, around 2004, to several poet-friends. Ethan Paquin, a former UMASS compadre, replied tersely but beautifully spot-on: he said, “Lose the crap. End of story.” This comment was a lifesaver. After that, I took the best from my thesis, and added the best from the newer work, and in the meantime got rid of the crap. After this process (see below), the manuscript didn’t see many major changes, and was picked up by Sage Hill Press soon after. As for the specific title, one of them that I really liked was Splitting the Atom for Dummies (after a poem that has since been cut). I thought this title captured the irony inherent in my work. I found the current title while scanning the book for titles and also key lines. The first line of “Dangling” is “The Earth slouches in the path of a comet,” and I remember writing that down and thinking that it (well, its variation) would end up being the title, and I’m glad for that.

I very much wanted to win a contest, though I don’t recall anyone telling me that this was a necessity. Most of the contests I sent to were those for a first book, and I knew the competition would be keen. In the year and a half or so before Thom accepted my book at Sage Hill, I was a finalist or semi-finalist several times, so I had confidence that the manuscript would be accepted in the near future, though I have no way of proving this. Since then, I have not been concerned with contests at all. Perhaps I’ve grown a little cynical. But there are many small independent presses out there who publish books of poetry without the stress, pressure and cost of a contest. In the last couple years since I have refined my second manuscript, I have sent it to only a couple of contests. Sometimes the press has had a reading fee, but that fee been far cheaper than the average contest fee. My conclusion is that young poets absolutely do not need to win a contest. This is not to say that they shouldn’t enter them – but the poets should remove such unnecessary pressure.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

As I said, there was a long evolution. But what I did several times was something I call the “floor effect.” I would spread out the poems individually on the floor, and at first out them in pairs. These pairs might be based on theme or form (etc.) but I wanted the poems to speak to each other as a reader progressed through the book. In the final stages of the floor effect, the process got easier: for example, there are five double-abecedarians in Slouching, and I knew that these would go into a single (and short) section of the book. I used the advice of a former mentor, Judith Kitchen, to alternate these poems A-Z-A-Z-A. But the floor effect worked really well in other ways, too – it enabled me to see each poem all at once, something that a computer could not have managed. As for submissions, yes, various editors would have seen various incarnations of the book until about 2004, after which I had finalized what is now Slouching.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I had no involvement in the overall design. However, when I had met Thom Caraway in 2006 at AWP Austin, I commented on Sage Hill’s first book: I told Thom that I admired the relatively small type, and how the titles were in caps. For some reason, this is aesthetically pleasing to me. When my book came out, I was happy to see that Thom had used those same typographical aesthetics. I did not have any say in the cover design, but Mike Fetsch did a great job, and I like how not only is the tree quite bizarre, but it’s set at 90 degrees to the right. I think the image seems to parallel the book’s overall level of surrealism.

I had heard that if 75% of the poems had been previously published, that this was a good number to strive for. I had been lucky with magazine publications, so after a while I stopped worrying about such numbers. But I do think that a solid acknowledgments page can influence not only potential publishers but readers as well. Ethos, I suppose. In any case, I do think that poets should publish in magazines as much as they can, and not merely rely on book publication for gathering an audience.

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?

Very little, but only because I had already spent so much time and energy on revision, not just on the overall selection of poems, but on each poem itself. Not only that, Thom didn’t have many revisions to make either, so when the book got accepted, very few changes were made, and those changes that were made were very minor issues of line-editing or word choice.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

The box of books arrived just in time for AWP Atlanta in 2007. I literally took the box down to the conference hotel. The initial print run was 100, and we sold about 85 in just a couple days at AWP. I barely had time, when the box had arrived, to bask in any kind of glory, and the whole thing was a whirlwind. We then did the main print run of 500 that September. In any case, I do recall of course a feeling of pride in seeing the book as a real book, and not just a manuscript being constantly sent off to contests. The real vs. the abstract felt like a huge victory.

How has your life been different since your book came out?

It would be easy to say that I’m respected as a poet just because I have a book out. But lots of poets have a book (or multiple books) out, and perhaps those poets cannot truly stand behind those books. Years ago at UMASS, James Tate told our workshop group that we could all publish books, but could we stand behind them? I always had that in the back of my mind when sending out the manuscript, and Tate’s advice along with Ethan’s both led to my insistence upon getting rid of the crap. So, I’m more proud of having what I (and others) consider a good book than of simply having a book out. In a strictly practical sense, many potential employers are looking for a candidate who had published a book, and I’m happy to be one such candidate.

You say “on an airplane,” but this happens more often in bars. This is one of the most frustrating conversations with “non-poetry” people I’ve ever had. I suppose it’s fair to say that the “average person” is not a poet. But why does the average person insist that a book has to be about something? And, why does this aboutness have to be at the center of their universe? Even if I say my book is about science, for example, that is a poor answer, and my questioner will no doubt be dissatisfied. I often answer, “It’s not really about anything.” But then my genius questioner will ask if it’s “about nothing, like Seinfeld,” at which point I just want to run far away from this person. To this day, I just suffer through such questions and do my best to not get arrested for manslaughter.

What have you been doing to promote Slouching in the Path of a Comet, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I have done as much self-promotion as possible, though I never learned how to effectively self-promote. When I stopped using MySpace, I simply left a picture of my book cover as my profile pic. I did this because I found that when I googled myself (guilty as charged), my MySpace page came up at the top. So I figured, why not use that? I’m a big fan of doing live readings, and I’ve been lucky to have several colleagues teach my book in their classes. I like this method because it introduces my book to young writers, and not just already-established ones. But I can be pretty shameless. For example, right here and right now. Buy my book. Why? Well, it has sold almost 850 copies, and that’s not bad for a first book from a small independent press.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

I don’t have any particular regrets. But I would make sure to be in touch with your publisher about how many copies would comprise the first print run, and how long those copies were intended to last. While I didn’t have any problems with this, or with my publisher, I have to say that both Thom and I were surprised that we moved so many copies all at once at the 2007 AWP. The result was that the main print run didn’t come out until several months later, after we had sold out all the copies. This is a “good problem,” I know – but it still left a gap of several months where we had no copies even to give away if we wanted to. Then again, you can’t anticipate these things. I’d also advise poets to do as much self-promotion as they can, or are able to. Publishers are terrific, but it’s a two-way street. Poets should not rely only on them, just as publishers should expect their poets to do some of the work, and this work can be fun and rewarding.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

The publication of Slouching itself has not directly influenced subsequent writing, but when you publish a book, it’s like a monkey off your back, pardon the cliché. As I said, I sent Slouching off for years, but I also had a new project brewing early on, since 2004, and this is the second manuscript which I’m hoping to publish soon. But when Slouching got accepted, I felt a stronger push to keep working on these “new” poems. When you let something go, it’s beautiful. Even more beautiful, I let Slouching go, only to see it a few months later as a published book. So I didn’t really let it go at all – I just let go the pressure and stress of trying to find it a home. My new project is a collection (I like to think of it a poem-cycle) of epistolary poems, initially inspired by Richard Hugo’s. My title is even a direct reference to his individual titles: Letter to So-and-So from Wherever. Of the 21 (many are long) poems in the collection, about 18 have seen magazine publication, both in print and online, and I’m confident that the collection will be picked up at some point, though you never know. But meantime I do want to let this one go, too, so that I can really focus on other projects.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

That’s a great question. When I think of literature changing the world, I think of those great world-changing novels like Huck Finn or The Jungle or The Grapes of Wrath. It’s hard to think of a single collection of poetry that effected some kind of concrete social change. Pablo Neruda? Tomaz Salamun? I was very lucky to have taken a semester-long workshop with Tomaz at UMASS in 2001 when he was a Visiting Poet. One day he told a story that left us breathless, and it goes something like this: When Tomaz was a young poet in Slovenia, he lived in a basement apartment next door to a “rival” poet. For a while, the rival poet had what you might call writers’ block. But Tomaz next door was typing away, night and day. The rival got so upset that one day he and his goons called Tomaz outside, and they proceeded to jump up an down on his chest. Apparently, they were not trying to actually harm Tomaz, but to stomp out the spirit in him that made him write so profusely, and so that maybe this spirit would leap inside the rival poet so that he could get some writing done. I might have mangled some details here, but this is like the coolest story about poetry that I’ve ever heard. It tells us that we should take poetry seriously, that it’s even possible to take poetry seriously, and that all of us poets have a huge responsibility beyond merely sketching images and metaphors and such. Granted, I know that Slouching will never “change the world,” but when I think of Tomaz’s story, I think that it maybe could. Lastly, I think of that terrific quote from William Carlos Williams: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” Amen.

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Mike Dockins was born in 1972 and grew up in Yonkers NY. After almost a decade of upstate NY college-hopping and insufferable stockboy jobs (which he now, ironically, misses), he graduated from SUNY Brockport (’99) with a BS in creative writing, and an almost-minor in geology. He holds an MFA from UMASS (’02) and a Ph.D. from GA State University (’10). He currently lives in Decatur GA where he teaches full-time at GA Perimeter College. His poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, The Gettysburg Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, Quarterly West, Willow Springs, and elsewhere, and they have been reprinted on Verse Daily, Poetry Daily, and in the 2007 edition of The Best American Poetry. His first book, Slouching in the Path of a Comet (Sage Hill Press, 2007) is currently enjoying a second print run and is closely approaching a third. Mike is also a singer-songwriter. Fame for Zoe, the latest album (2005) from his acoustic-pop band Clop, is available in iTunes and elsewhere.

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#39 - Michelle Bitting

2011-04-12T00:10:00.006-04:00

How often had you sent out Good Friday Kiss before it was chosen for the 2007 De Novo Award from C&R Press?

Because it was my first book and I was still struggling to get my poet sea legs even marginally solid, I’d say it made the rounds for about two years—10-15 contests?—before its final incarnation and descent into publication territory.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Good Friday Kiss? Did it go through any other changes?

It was called Communion for about a year. That title eventually got tossed along with its eponymous poem. Good Friday Kiss is a much more provocative title. It’s got edge and is much more in keeping with the overall tenor of the collection.

That’s a very good question and one that is ultimately left for the individual poet to decide. Some writers just don’t want to wait an eternity to publish a first book. I think it’s probably a good idea to be as patient as possible because the writing and manuscript will improve and your chances of winning a prize along with it. Much harder to make the PR machinery go when you don’t win a prize, and even then, it takes a lot of publicity work to launch a book, regardless. That said, I know poets who are super talented, smart and excellent lecturers who really needed to have a book in hand in order to make their public reading and lecturing work flourish. So they went the open read/publication route. In general, I think it’s wise to wait and let the book and the poet grow and ripen as long as possible. You want to be really proud of your book when it finally makes it to print.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

Many versions gone through—oh my—yes! Lots of laying out, page to page across my living room floor.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I can’t speak highly enough of my publishers: Chad Prevost and Ryan G. Van Cleave at C & R Press. They were fantastic. Meticulous, thoughtful, interactive, diplomatic. They loved the cover photo I was able to secure. They did a super lovely job. I have heard it does not always go this way with other editors and presses so I feel blessed to have had such a positive experience.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

Yes! My friend I C Rapoport, a fabulous ex-LIFE magazine photographer had an image I knew would be perfect, and very kindly allowed me to use it.

Again, this is a personal preference thing but I would say, in general, you want to have published a fair number of your poems in reputable magazines or be well on your way in that direction unless you are one of those closet geniuses who emerges from obscurity and sets the literary world on fire first strike.

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?

Not a ton, but there were changes made. Things the eagle editors caught and suggested I change. I may have added and subtracted a poem.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

A lot of glowing, floaty feelings. A new sense of responsibility and determination. I mean, if your words are going out there for real—make them count!

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

It has helped with securing readings and teaching jobs. For whatever reason, people take you more seriously.

Very personal stories told with some mystery and musicality about loss, survival, family brokenness, domestic turmoil, salvation, sex, transgression, spiritual longing, justice, parental strife and triumph. How’s that? Wanna read it?

What have you been doing to promote Good Friday Kiss, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I should and would do more but I’m still pretty busy at home, raising my family and attempting to keep the roof from blowing off. I’ve run off to do a number of readings and, of course, these interviews are wonderful and I can sit in my kitchen in my pajamas typing them up while everyone is still asleep!

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

I’m pretty pleased with how it all unfolded for me. I’m really glad I won a contest and extremely happy I had Thomas Lux choose it. I’ve gotten some mileage from that endorsement and I’m a HUGE Lux fan so it means an awful lot.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I see and embrace it for what it is, who I was while writing it. It’s my baby and I stand by it, though my work has changed and I’m excited about that, too. I have a new book I’m just beginning to send out. I’ve been teaching a lot and am writing a play. Poetry is the best foundation for every kind of writing.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Of course, though we don’t always see it or realize it. This is soul work. Without it, where would we be? Hate to think. I know for a fact: Poetry Saves Lives. I’d buy that bumper sticker, wouldn’t you?

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Michelle Bitting has work published or forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, Narrative, River Styx, Crab Orchard Review, Passages North, diode, and others. Poems have appeared on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. In 2007, Thomas Lux chose her full-length manuscript, Good Friday Kiss, as the winner of the DeNovo First Book Award and C & R Press published it in 2008. Recently, she was a finalist for the Poets & Writers California Exchange contest and Rona Jaffe Foundation Awards. Michelle has taught poetry in Twin Towers prison with a grant from Poets & Writers Magazine and is proud to be an active California Poet in the Schools. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Pacific University, Oregon. Visit her at: www.michellebitting.com

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#38 - Alexander Dickow

2011-04-02T12:35:00.007-04:00

How often had you sent out Caramboles before it was chosen for publication by Argol Editions?

Once!

I suppose I’m a lucky fellow.

I tend to have difficulties publishing in journals, where I guess my work doesn’t often fit, but Argol and Caramboles was apparently meant to be. Catherine Flohic, Argol’s founder and mastermind, contacted me first. I had written some polemic commentary about one of her books, Beck, l’Impersonnage, on my blog, in response to an uninformed article a young poet had published on the French website Sitaudis. Catherine sent me a message thanking me for my commentary, and mentioning with visible pleasure that we “dwelled in similar literary territory”, or something to that effect. At that point, I had nearly finished Caramboles, and immediately thought of sending it to her. Within four or five months, she had accepted it enthusiastically, not without a few useful critical reflections about my work. I’m exceptionally lucky to have stumbled on Catherine, who defends her writers passionately and has a true personal vision of the kind of work she wants to publish: unlike many publishing houses, Argol is not principally about the bottom line; it takes risks, and I suspect it will be one day viewed in France as the equal of prestigious houses like POL (I say this without making claims about Caramboles, of course).

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Caramboles? Did it go through any other changes?

I am fatally allergic to titles, and lacked all but a pale working title until no more than two or three months before the book went to press. Some poets and writers have a peculiar talent for creating evocative and fascinating titles, like Pierre Reverdy in France (The Massage Glove, The Hemp Necktie, The Ball in Mid-Air), or Amy King in the US. I must have come up with four hundred titles for Caramboles, all of which were fairly awful. I wanted a title that would work reasonably well in both languages, like the book, and that compounded the problem. I sent my zillion random ideas to Catherine, who finally decided upon Caramboles, a title that I had apparently suggested at one point, but hadn’t found convincing at first, and had since forgotten. But when she suggested it again, I mulled it over and accepted the suggestion. And I should say that Catherine had a nose for the title that worked: the critics (almost all of them in France) who have lauded the book invariably discuss the title, which evidently resonates in French more than in English. In English, a carambole, usually spelled carambola, is more generally known as the starfruit, those yellow-green, sour fruit often considered decorative (I find them quite delicious and refreshing). The idea of naming the collection after a strange fruit seemed both appealing and appropriate. The word carambole means the same thing in French, but it also means caroms, otherwise known as French billiards – the kind without pockets whose rules rely entirely on ricochet (which happens to be one of the mediocre primitive titles for the book). But the French also use the word carambolage, which might be translated as “collision” or “fender-bender”. An inventive bookstore owner in Tours took this little exegetic game much further, explaining obscure archaic usages and etymologies, suggesting the word caramboles had latent sexual meanings, for instance. In any event, the relation to the language of Caramboles is fairly transparent: bumpy syntax that invents a kind of weirdly approximate grammar, but without abandoning meaning-making (a friend referred to it in one critical article as an “all-over” technique, à la Pollock), idiosyncratic and disconcerting, playful…

…And speaking of starfruit, for the last few years, I’ve developed an enthusiasm for exotic fruit, and try them at every occasion. Pawpaw fruit, mangosteens, persimmons of all kinds, medlars (including the old Western European variety: they taste like apple sauce with a hint of seder wine), Barbary figs, kiwano, you name it. Affinity for weird fruit, I guess.

Open reading periods, completely.

My book was published in Paris, and France has few poetry contests and only a handful of poetry prizes that finance publication: the Prix Mallarmé, the Prix Max Jacob, and one or two others with some visibility. These prizes do some of their own marketing, labeling their winners with colored paper banners in large print for visibility in bookstores, for instance. Since I rightly thought that my book would find a more enthusiastic audience in France, contests were hardly an issue for me, and I’m thankful for it.

In the US, it’s not always immediately evident that a book has even won a prize at all, and I’ve never heard of 95 percent of those prizes. Above all, the prize system allows editors to dispense with the necessity of marketing and defending the books they publish, since they’ve generally already broken even thanks to the prize money (I recently read this in an article on the subject, but can’t recall the name and author of the article). Finding an editor willing to defend your book seems to me one of the most essential factors in a book’s success (very relative for poetry, in any event, but critical success is more crucial for the long-term than financial success). Prize submission is costly, time-consuming and discouraging, and (so I hear) often involves intern readers rather than publishers or editors. I don’t really buy the rumors about fraud or nepotism that tend to float around (with the occasional obvious exception), and I don’t think it’s always a bad thing to favor people you know, but I do think that the level of personal investment of editors in their contests is small enough that they may have very little stake in their results.

That said, I have submitted a chapbook manuscript to a contest no more than a month ago: but it’s a press in which I have a great deal of confidence. Choosing prizes carefully is essential if you’re going to indulge in them, in my opinion. I’m a defender of chapbooks and buy them frequently; they’re sometimes as significant as entire books – Ana Bozicevic-Bowling’s Document from Octopus Books is astonishing, for instance – and they’re often more beautifully designed, cheaper, etc. I think that some presses’ chapbooks should be considered accomplishments of equal weight as a full-length; some chapbook presses or collections are particularly selective and consistent in quality.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The process of assembling Caramboles was like cooking an egg: it remained in a liquid state for years, literally, and then suddenly congealed. I struggled for an extremely long time with making a coherent ensemble, and some of the poems included in Caramboles date from as far back as 2002. I had work in both languages, and I knew I wanted to make a bilingual collection, but it took forever to put together some whole with stylistic consistency and vision. The long narrative poem “Prince/Dragon” that forms the center of the book was instrumental in giving the book a proper shape. Once all of the poems ultimately included had been written, the structure of the collection took shape in a matter of weeks. Once Catherine had received it, she suggested some alterations to the order of the poems, and suggested I remove a few weaker pieces. For instance, in yet another instance of editorial foresight, she suggested placing the two opening poems at the beginning of the book, and those two pieces are among the most popular, at least among French readers, who like to compare these two in particular to Verlaine.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I made a suggestion or two to my publisher, but these decisions were essentially hers, and had to correspond to the established design of the collection of which I am a part at Argol. But I find Catherine’s choices in the matter quite judicious, and I think the book looks great. Catherine uses photos that she takes herself and then transforms them into grayscale images against a black background. The photo she took for the cover of Caramboles is the mosaic tiling of her apartment building entrance, just off the rue Mouffetard in Paris….

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

My wife had found a restaurant business card with elaborate, curly inkblot shapes printed on the back, which we both liked and sent to Catherine, who decided instead on the mosaic: probably another judicious decision; in hindsight, the image we had found was probably a bit too ornamental and frilly.

This was and is still a concern for me. Since I produce at a slow rate, publishing different pieces in books and journals is not an easy task for me, and I tend to hoard my work rather than submit like crazy (especially since I respect requests for non-simultaneous submission). But when I consider writers like Léon-Paul Fargue or Max Jacob (I apologize for my French cultural references, which reflect my background), I don’t think this is as much of a problem as it seems. The work of these writers is so widely dispersed in journals that it’s a giant editorial task to collect the work for publication. Neither writer has anything resembling a “complete works” for the moment, although there will be a 1,500 page Max Jacob selected works volume released in 2012. They tended to collect their work at rare intervals and very selectively, on the whole. And their readership has suffered because of it, to some degree.

In other words, publishing in journals doesn’t ultimately provide widespread visibility, as pleasant and necessary as it is to be involved in them. Even on the internet, the chances of being read by more than fifty readers are fairly slim (or so I strongly suspect, in spite of – or because of! – the wave of electronic journals in recent years). Hapax, where “Prince/Dragon” from Caramboles was first published in a slightly different version, certainly had readers, but only 100 copies existed in the first place. Even if you publish in Poetry or APR, how many readers will actually notice the work you publish there, or notice it enough to realize that some of the work in a collection had already appeared in that journal? Such things do happen, of course, but it’s not common, in my experience. Readers who encounter more than one prepublication in distinct journals will be even rarer (besides established fans who seek out the work, of which first-book writers are unlikely to have many). If these suppositions hold water, collecting published material in a book does a favor for future readers (one hopes…), and the readers of the book are very unlikely to be bothered by a high percentage of prepublications.

So, I do worry about it, but rationally, I don’t think I ought to.

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 tend not to edit much once a poem is “done.” On the rare occasions that I’ve done so, I’ve invariably ended up rewriting the poem from scratch, and ending up with two very different poems instead of two versions of a single poem. So I only edited the proofs for typographical errors and the like, and they were few (two escaped my attention, as another friend and critic indicated: “Vas” in the poem “Vas au lit…” should be “Va”, and the Heine quotation in the second to last poem should say “ist” and not “is”. A few poems were removed, or changed places, as I already mentioned. On the other hand, my compositional methods are particularly painstaking and non-linear: it sometimes takes me upwards of twenty hours to complete a ten-line poem, hence my slow output. I suppose I’m a perfectionist, with much more of a classical temperament than the poems might suggest.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

Oddly, I remember very little about the actual day I received my copies in the mail. I felt proud and excited, and not at all disappointed, but the rest of the day was in some ways a day like any other, although I did spend time dedicating copies and setting them aside for friends and family. I also remember that I couldn’t believe my eyes; it felt a bit unreal, as things do on major occasions in one’s life. Like having one’s first child, although much less intense and life-changing.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

Since I have not applied for creative writing positions, it has not had a direct impact on obtaining or applying for positions. But I suspect the book does “get noticed” on my cv when I’ve applied for other teaching positions (in French literature and teaching English in France), although perhaps not always advantageously: academics, according to rumor, can show hostility toward literary pretensions, particularly if they are displayed as though they reflected some kind of research accomplishment, which they most decidedly are not. I mention it, but I leave it out of presentation letters for research positions; those who are not hostile to literary efforts by researchers tend to know or find out about the book on their own, and a few academics have supported my work generously. I don’t buy the either/or relationship many people see between being a critic and being a writer, although it is a tricky juggling act with sometimes unfortunate results. My research, teaching and writing are quite distinct in their goals and methods, but they do entertain an intense synergetic relationship.

My life has certainly changed thanks to the book. I’ve met a lot of people and forged friendships thanks to the book, both with writers and with non-, given readings and interviews, and I’m invited more frequently to contribute to literary journals or events. The slightly cynical term for this is that the book contributing significantly to “networking”; a more human way to put it might be that books are ideally social objects, and that the book has been a “success” in that sense, independently of literary quality, symbolic capital or sales.

The question stumps me every time. I’m sure I would babble something unconvincing. The book is about relationships, very certainly, and how they consist of misreading, and function a little like circus mirrors. It’s about feeling vulnerable, threatened or fragile, and the kinds of power that produces. It’s about melancholic farces and noisy lullabies. I’m not sure what it’s about. But they tell me it’s a memorable read.

What have you been doing to promote Caramboles, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I enjoy promoting my work. Though I try to avoid being intrusive or vain about it, I don’t think people should feel embarrassed or hesitant to talk about their work. In my experience, people aren’t put off by it: they’re generally curious, or act as though they are. Hopefully, I’m not imagining things.

The first thing I did was to make the book available more easily in the US by sending copies to Bookpeople of Moscow, Idaho, where I grew up, and where my mother has worked for years. The book wasn’t distributed in the US, so I wanted to make it a little cheaper for people to order (Bookpeople has no more copies, but the book is now available at amazon.co.uk). Along with my mother’s bookshelf, Bookpeople is one of the places I discovered poetry, simply by digging around in the (rather chaotic) shelves, and it felt right to sell the books through them (if one grows up in a place like Moscow, Idaho, and probably in most places nowadays, discovering poetry requires an autodidactic temperament, although I had admirable primary and secondary school teachers). Most of those copies ended up in the hands of former schoolteachers, old friends and their parents rather than in the hands of writers: but I like that idea too. Of course, I also sent the book out to various writers and review venues (there’s still a copy at CutBank last time I looked, should someone still feel like writing about it two years late, just for the free copy). I must have done something right: the book was reviewed (favorably, sometimes hyperbolically) at least seven times in France, in almost every major venue available to poetry, which does not include major daily newspapers, of course. In the US, Crag Hill wrote a great review of the book in Galatea Resurrects, and I’ve had favorable echoes otherwise, and I’m quite happy with that, but it has been quiet in comparison to France.

I find the discrepancy in reception between France and the US fascinating, rather than disappointing, and I often wonder what it means. American readers, for starters, seem much less comfortable about having a foreign language on the other side of the page; they think they’re missing something, even though the book was designed to be multiple: although unilingual readers read a different Caramboles than bilingual readers, they all read a complete and self-sufficient book. It’s three or four books in one, if you like. (Oddly, people invariably believe that the poems in their non-native language deploy a more conventional syntax and style than do the poems in their own language: in other words, they believe the clarity lies on the other side, on the side they ostensibly don’t understand, or understand less perfectly…). I think people ought to imagine that strange other language on the facing page as the opacity that’s always there when people speak to each other, in our “own” language: people perhaps understand what they hear, in the most literal sense of the term “understand”, much less than they believe they do. Communication involves picking up on a handful of cues, following subtle variations in a set of pre-programmed scripts, rather than following utterances fully, in detail and between the lines. The strange language on the facing page is a reminder of what our language does behind our back every day. I understand why that makes readers uncomfortable, but I would hope they’d leave their comfort zones more readily.

But there are other reasons the book might meet American readers differently. I sometimes have difficulty conversing with American poets, because when they say Eliot, I answer Apollinaire; when they say Joyce, I answer Proust, etc. – although if other names come up, like Roethke, Auden, Hopkins, Melville, the conversation can happen again. Whether I like or not, I’m an odd mish-mash of French and American literary culture, and I’ve partly built my “tradition” from scratch. I think many people come from places where they could do this less haphazardly. In any event, the difference in cultural baggage might also explain why I reach a French audience more immediately than an Anglophone one: but who knows?

Since the book came out, I’ve had more invitations to contribute to journals, and to give readings, in Paris, in Nantes and in Tours. I love giving public readings. It’s been months and months since I’ve given one, but I’m sure occasions will come around again, perhaps here in Nancy, France where I’m currently living. I never hesitate to inquire about opportunities at libraries, cultural centers, etc. Publishing new poems and translations from time to time also has an incidental marketing function, and so does teaching (I don’t advertise it when I teach, but the students often discover the existence of Caramboles by themselves), and relationships with colleagues, and all sorts of other activities.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Perhaps inevitably, I wish I had heard the most relevant criticisms about the book before it came out. The response to the book in France was overwhelmingly favorable, but some remarkable and very constructive criticism might have made me put the book together differently. But had this been possible, the book would have been different, and I would have received different criticism!

As far as the publishing process is concerned, I think I was well-advised over the years, having been encouraged not to rush, to think carefully about where I submitted and why/where I wanted to publish a book, not to be hasty, and also not to jump the gun. Clearly, the right moment came along, perhaps because I followed the advice. I know of a few magnificent writers who I think publish too frequently; I’d rather be the sort who releases a book with real impact every six or ten years. A matter of tastes and colors, as the French would say.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing?

A poet and friend once suggested to me that I had written a “livre-piège”, a trap; which is to say, a book that can’t be repeated, but that creates expectations in readers that you then have to meet – or refuse to meet. Perhaps he’s right; perhaps that’s just the feeling that first books often leave behind: a desire or a need for reinvention. So I have and do react to Caramboles. On the one hand, since Caramboles is a colorful book, I’ve been working on less ostentatious forms, more muted, – but which rummage around in my own guts a little more. On the other, I’ve done work that’s even more formalist; sonnets, pieces with strange writing constraints, concrete work, détournements. But the central impulse is not just to discover new techniques, new styles, new directions to work in, but to work in the direction of variety. Since I’ve been writing a dissertation on three writers with a gift for reinventing themselves (Max Jacob, Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars), crafting a singular personal style appeals to me much less than working in incompatible directions. Baudelaire and Whitman write the same poem over and over again, but I got fairly bored reading the Flowers of Evil and Leaves of Grass from cover to cover, even though I love both these poets. I would love to write a poem that would stylistically have a little bit of everything in it, and preferably plenty of irreconcilable elements, something more than a patchwork or a mosaic. But that’s a tall order indeed.

I’ve also been working quite intensely on translation since Caramboles came out, some of which just appeared in The Colorado Review, others in Ekleksographia. Some of those have involved very exciting collaborative work with the poets who wrote the originals.

But one thing I’m certain of is that the next full-length will be unilingual. Not that I’ll cease writing in French and English, or even publishing poems side-by-side in both languages from time to time, but I’ve already written Caramboles, a book (or books) that’s built for both languages, so now I want to do something else. For the moment, I’m exploring.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

I believe poetry does create change in the world. But it generally creates collective change at an unobservably gradual rate, by influencing the evolution of attitudes and practices, and it does so in ways impossible to measure (there’s no control group for Shakespeare; you’d need two identical United Kingdoms, one having been exposed to Shakespeare, and the other having remained unexposed: personally, I suspect the differences would be rather noticeable, and not just on stage). Poems can be collectively co-opted as hymn-symbols, of course, like “Invictus”, or “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” or any number of poems transformed into ideological emblems (I use ideological here in the neutral, general sense of an unsystematic set of beliefs and values). But for the most part, poems effectuate change at an individual level, in ways and to an extent that seem to me fairly indisputable. Poetry certainly changed my own life irreversibly, and continues to do so, happily (not worth cataloguing…). One might object that by those standards, collecting insects also creates change in the world (I borrow the analogy from a satirical prose piece by Nicholas Manning). In fact, these standards are perfectly reasonable, and insect collecting indeed creates change in the world, relatively speaking. I think it’s fair to say that those whose lives have been vastly impacted by poetry, or even by a poem (“Invictus” again?), outnumber those who’ve experienced epiphanies while painstakingly inserting live grasshoppers into kill jars.

This question about whether poetry can create “change in the world” regularly irks me. The very form of the question presupposes that collective change has more intrinsic value than individual change, and indeed, that individual change does not even qualify as “real” change. I tend to wonder if the opposite does not have more validity: that vast social movements like the French Revolution tend to claim changes to the social fabric that they (debatably) never accomplish (all that “New Man” rhetoric! and then the Restauration comes along…). I prefer small but real change to vast quixotic fantasies, which does not amount to lack of ambition, tout au contraire. Individuals are difficult to… move; like societies, they tend to revert to their original position, like memory foam. Changing a person is a relatively rare event, compared to subscribing to a cause or project for collective change, which takes place all the time. But perhaps there’s as much risk of sophistry in this relation as there is in politically committed positions.

Of course, it would be nice to contribute to vast positive changes in the hearts, minds and institutions of millions of human beings, but I don’t think any writer, of whatever stripe, has any real control over whether or not that occurs. Go ahead and write like Upton Sinclair, or like Stéphane Mallarmé instead; I’m not sure the nature of the rhetoric (committed vs. not) has much to do with how much impact a book ends up actually having on collective life, long-term or short. (Mallarmé has probably altered many more people’s daily behavior than Upton Sinclair in the last hundred years, but the examples are admittedly facile.)

Hm, so, what about Caramboles. Its (conscious) ethical intention has very little to do with upending mores (or linguistic usage). Contrary to what the somewhat noisy (but apparently effective, or so I’m told) back cover blurb seems to suggest, the book is not about obeying or disobeying, it’s about the miscommunication that communication happens to be, and about not being sure whether that’s a loss or a boon. Perhaps it just encourages readers to listen a little closer.

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Alexander Dickow grew up in Moscow, Idaho. Poet, critic and translator in French and English, he is currently completing a dissertation on self-presentation and stylistic transformation in the works of Blaise Cendrars, Apollinaire and Max Jacob. He has translated work by Amy King (into French), Max Jacob, Gustave Roud, Christian Prigent, Jean-Claude Pinson and others. He curated the “France Issue” of Ekleksographia. The Parisian press Argol Editions published Caramboles, his collection of poems in French and English, in the fall of 2008 (available through amazon.co.uk). A chapbook of his own work, and a complete translation of Max Jacob’s Central Laboratory (1921) is currently in preparation.

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#37 - Sandy Longhorn

2011-03-15T11:40:00.004-04:00

How often had you sent out Blood Almanac before it was chosen for the 2005 Anhinga Prize for Poetry?

I sent the manuscript out to around 50 presses/contests before hearing from Anhinga.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Blood Almanac? Did it go through any other changes?

Blood Almanac comes from a line in “Labor Day on the Bremer Blacktop”: “three decades now out of our hands, / out of the almanac in our blood.” It was originally suggested as a section title by my then thesis advisor, Davis McCombs, at the University of Arkansas. I loved it so much, I made it the title of the book.

Winning a contest was very much talked about in my MFA program, and while I did send the book out to some non-contest presses during open reading periods, I sent to many more contests. It seemed harder to find news of open reading periods than it did to find news of contests. I was definitely more concerned with getting the book published than winning a contest; the contest road was just more heavily publicized.

As for advice, I’d say only submit to contests or open reading periods from presses you admire and with whom you feel a kinship. I sent to far too many contests that I never stood a chance of winning because my work didn’t fit the style of the press. That was wasted time and money. With contests, you want to be sure you’re willing to donate the entry fee to the press. I don’t mind sending in entry fees for contests because I know that they go to support the press and poetry; however, it’s money that I have to spend, and I’m not going into debt doing this.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

The first version of Blood Almanac was assembled as my master’s thesis at the University of Arkansas. That program is four years, which was a huge selling point for me during my application process. I’m a slow learner in all things, and I didn’t find my voice until my third year. In that year, I realized that one of my obsessions was the landscape of the Midwest, where I’d been raised and had come of age. Those poems fit neatly together in the first section. The middle section is a series of twelve self-portraits that I wrote over one year, one per month, in an attempt to explore the self-portrait as a poetry form, taking my cue from visual artists. The third section was a bit of a mess when I left Fayetteville, and I spent the next six months or so ripping it up and reconstructing it.

Of course, it took another year and a half to find a home for the book, and the week before I heard from Anhinga, I had actually torn the manuscript to shreds and removed half of the poems. The doubt does sink in from time to time; luckily, both Rick Campbell and Lynne Knight of Anhinga reassured me that the book was wonderful and worthwhile as it was.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I had always been told not to expect much involvement with design, so I was caught off guard by Anhinga and specifically, Lynne Knight, who designed the book. I had a hand in every detail from choosing the font, page design, and the cover. However, I have to credit Lynne’s wonderful eye for the overall design, which I think is beautiful.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

Yes, the photograph on the cover is by the same photographer who took my author photo for the back of the book, George Byron Griffiths. Geordie is an old friend from my undergrad days, and it was a delight to be able to work with him on the book. He’s from Minnesota, but the photo on the cover is from his family’s farm in Iowa (my home state), so it fit perfectly.

In the MFA program at Arkansas, we were told that we needed to publish individual poems in national journals and that this would lead to publishing the book. I don’t think this is as cut-and-dried as it might have once been. However, I’ve always written for an audience, always wanted the publications for affirmation but also because I knew I was writing for more than myself and my family/friends. So, the “business” of publishing fit right in with my detail-oriented, spreadsheet-keeping self and my sense of competition.

I do remember someone remarking that I had over ten poems published from my thesis collection, so surely it would get published. If only it were as easy as that!

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?

Again, the folks at Anhinga were wonderful about this. I think they asked me to remove two poems and add four newer pieces to the book. Then, I received a copy of the manuscript with both Lynne Knight and Rick Campbell’s editorial comments. I’d say there were marks on about ¾ of the manuscript, usually a question of word choice, line break, or grammar.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

The book came out in June of 2006, the month I married my husband, so the two events are linked in my memory. I received my box of books at the end of May or early June, and I remember being bummed because Chuck, my then husband-to-be, was still at work when I came home and saw the box on the porch. Still, I couldn’t wait, so I rushed to slash it open, and then I just stood there looking at the copies for the longest time. There was an initial rush of joy and then a “what’s next?” I admit that I was surprised by how quickly the rush from seeing the books wore off.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

I already had my current job when the book came out, so it hasn’t been a factor in that sense. It has changed my writing life, made me feel a bit more legit, although I still suffer from an inferiority complex when I’m around people with more books. I’m not sure I’ll ever shed that feeling of climbing a ladder in terms of number of publications and number of books. Perhaps that is my own failing.

With the book, I’ve been able to travel and do readings (mostly on my own dime & time). One of my favorite things to do is to visit with undergraduate students about poetry, and the book has allowed me to do that.

Blood Almanac is about landscapes both exterior and interior. On the one hand, there are poems about the Midwestern landscape and the quiet people who inhabit it; on the other hand, there are poems about the interior landscapes of a speaker in search of herself and her place in the world. It’s very much a coming-of-age book, although it wasn’t published until I reached my early thirties.

What have you been doing to promote Blood Almanac, and what have those experiences been like for you?

At first, all of my promotion activities were centered around giving readings and visiting schools. In the fall of 2006, Anhinga hosted me on a mini-reading tour in Florida, which was a delightful way to launch the book. I also contacted my former undergrad mentor and was able to visit and read there, where the book was adopted for a class in contemporary American lit. I’ve worked to meet folks in Arkansas and really anywhere within a six or seven hour drive and have read or guest lectured at quite a few schools, colleges, and universities. I offer to come and visit a class/school for free if the book is adopted, if I can drive there and find a couch to crash on. If there is an honorarium to be had, well that’s just icing on the cake.

It was only two years after the book came out that I established a “web presence” with my blog, Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty, and a profile on Facebook. It’s something I knew I needed to do, but I dragged my feet. I have to say, once I figured out what I wanted from the blog, it’s become as important as the physical contacts I’ve made. I have discovered a supportive and caring community of writers, many of whom are not associated with a major writing program, as I’m not. The web allows us to form our own networking structures in the absence of being surrounded by established faculty peers and visiting writers.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Honestly, I received great advice and read every article I could find about launching a book, even before there was an inkling of hope that the book would find a publisher. I just wish I’d listened more.

Getting “the book” will not change your life, but it will be a milestone. Once the book is accepted, the work of getting it into the hands of readers begins, and that work will fall, mostly, on the poet. Some poets are good at this naturally; others are not. Know yourself and set realistic expectations. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

I heard all of this and have only come to understand it over time.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

Since Blood Almanac came out in 2006, I’ve finished a second manuscript, tentatively titled, In a World Made of Such Weather as This. It’s been making the rounds for a year and a half and has gotten some good responses so far, although no contract as yet. The experience of publishing Blood Almanac is helpful in this, as I remind myself that it takes time and a bit of luck to find the right fit, the right pair of eyes.

Lately though, I’ve been foundering a bit as I’ve been seeking whatever comes next. I don’t write around a book-sized project or topic, so it usually takes some time to get my bearings. I have been working on a series of fairy tales about a girl from the Midwest who has trouble with boundaries and there may be something gathering force there.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Yes. I’ve seen it happen. I teach at a community college, and while some of my students have had a decent exposure to poetry and prose in the past, many are blank slates. Despite their background, many of them begin by doubting the worth of literature for whatever reason. Each semester, though, I see a poem or a short story change at least one student, usually more. I’ve seen Emily Dickinson’s “After great pain a formal feeling comes” allow a student to give voice to her grief for the infant she lost. I’ve seen poems by Ai allow students to discuss domestic violence and open the eyes of their classmates. I’ve seen veterans from the Vietnam era debate veterans from our current wars when we’ve read Komunyakaa, sometimes speaking about experiences they haven’t even told their families about. These are not earth-shattering changes, but those students, and myself, are changed just the same, in some small way. All those small changes, those cracks that let the light in, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, eventually add up.

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Sandy Longhorn is the author of Blood Almanac (Anhinga Press, 2006), which won the 2005 Anhinga Prize for Poetry. New poems are forthcoming or have appeared recently in Anti-, The Dirty Napkin, Lake Effect, New Madrid, Redivider, Spillway, and elsewhere. Longhorn holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas, lives in Little Rock, AR, is an Arkansas Arts Council fellow, and blogs at Myself the only Kangaroo among the Beauty.

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#36 - Leslie Harrison

2011-03-02T17:10:00.005-05:00

How often had you sent out Displacement before it was chosen for the 2008 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless Prize?

I sent it, mostly out of curiosity, to a couple of contests, even though it didn’t feel finished, yet. I’d heard how awfully hard it is to get a first book taken, and I was worried about that, so I wanted to test the waters. Then, a few months later, I’d had a breakthrough concerning structure, and it felt finished, so I sent it out to five places—all on the same day. One of those places was the Bakeless. So, maybe seven in all, but I ended up withdrawing it from three of those places after it won.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Displacement? Did it go through any other changes?

I have a vivid memory of sitting in Michael Ryan’s office at Irvine as I was finishing up my MFA. I had given him two piles of poems. I was trying to prepare my thesis, and I think I was hoping he would wave a magic wand and tell me how the two piles fit together into a single project. Instead, he confirmed my suspicion, that they were two projects. He told me he thought I should lay the other one aside for awhile, since it felt less urgent to him. Then, with the poems that would eventually become part of Displacement sitting on his desk, he handed me a couple of sheets of paper. It was the OED entry for the word displacement. He made me read the entire entry aloud. By the end, I was practically in tears because it did seem clear that this one word was at the center of everything I was writing.

So in a way the title formed the book. It gave me a center, a sun to orbit around, an illumination. I wrote for a couple of years after that, but knowing in some fundamental way, that this idea, this word was what I was writing “about.”

Now, as I work at putting the second book together, I wish I had Michael or someone else to read it and step back from it to help me find the center.

I wouldn’t dream of giving advice to poets seeking a first book publisher about whether or not to participate in the contest system and/or the open reading system. Obviously the contest system worked for me, but I understand other people’s reluctance and frustration. So I would say that everybody should follow their hearts and instincts. Which presses are putting out the most exciting work? Who is publishing books you love?

You want a press that wants your work, that believes in your book and that will support it and you. Some presses have more resources than others, but really, my advice is to do the research, figure out who is publishing stuff you love and how that stuff is getting to them, and go from there.

I don’t think you have to submit only to contests, or only to open reading periods. I don’t think you have to go for commercial, academic, independent, or POD presses. I think everybody’s path to publication is different, and how you approach it should have to do with what you want and what is realistically possible. For example, FSG lets anyone query with a couple of poems. But I don’t know when, if ever, a slush-pile query resulted in a contract for a completely unknown poet. But FSG does publish first books occasionally, so you don’t lose anything by trying if, and only if, you can honestly see your book fitting with their list.

For me, open reading periods felt like they might have worse odds than the first book contests. Open reading periods don’t read blind, are rarely limited to first books, and are not obligated to publish anything. So I focused on the contests as my first choice. I never submitted to an open reading period, but it all happened fairly quickly for me. I probably would have, if my book hadn’t been taken almost right away.

Among my close friends who have books, one won a small-press contest, one submitted to a commercial press, one submitted to an academic press, two won larger contests. So I guess my advice is this: Honor your hard work and talent by being honest about where it fits in the larger poetic conversation and then have faith that it will find a good home.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

I think I said earlier that there were two versions—one that I knew was not done, and one that did feel done. The difference between those two was huge, but did not encompass a huge number of revisions or new poems coming into the manuscript. It was more about me doing the hard, critical work of understanding what the book was insisting on being. We sometimes try to impose an order or an idea about what the book “should” be, because we don’t want to be writing about that, whatever that is. I didn’t want to be writing “about” the disintegration of my marriage, and I had to stop getting in the way of what the book was. Once I did get myself out of the way, I read the book again and again and again and it taught me its shape and arc and order. I also had a very, very smart reader in my friend Sasha West, who had read all the poems, and earlier drafts of the book, and who remains the most thoughtful, insightful reader I’ve ever had. She made some critical late-stage observations about the final section and again made me step back and consider it from a new angle.

How involved were you with the design of the book—interior design, font, cover, etc.?

I am a book designer by trade. So of course I was very concerned with how the book would look. I actually sent 5 cover comps—sample covers—as ideas for the designers before they really started. In the end, they didn’t use any of the suggestions, but all their sample covers had the same overall design concept—full bleed photo, very simple, clean text. They gave me back five comps too, and the one I loved the most is the one they went with. They did a great job. I love the cover and interior of my book. This is the great blessing of working with a large commercial house—they have extraordinary designers on staff, access to every font imaginable, and people who know what is available for images.

They sent one interior sample, and I loved the font and the small decorative elements they’d chosen. I think they made my book a really striking, beautiful physical object, and I’m incredibly grateful.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

No. They sent the five comps, and their favorite comp was a very summer-feeling image—very green and with pond lilies. I felt like it didn’t suit as well as the image I preferred, and they agreed and went with the one I liked the best.

I have always been a terrible submitter. I hate the process. And I have always had three or four jobs and have had to write in the interstices of a busy, complicated life, so the submission process was pretty far down on my priority list. I did send poems out, and I had had several taken for publication, but when the book won, there really were only a handful published in journals.

Houghton Mifflin never seemed to care how many were published. In fact, if anything, I’d say they had a slight bias against publishing a lot of the poems in journals. My concern, prior to the book coming out but after it was taken, was that I had published exactly zero poems online, and I wanted people to be able to Google me and find poems. So I made a real effort to find online journals I liked, like Memorious and diode, and submit to them.

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?

Relatively little, I think. I remember working on one poem that I had never been satisfied with, but which seemed necessary to the narrative arc of the book. After that, I had a brilliant manuscript editor who made sure the styles of various things were consistent, and she queried some titling and other structures that existed to clarify things in my mind, but didn’t clarify anything for a reader, but that was about it.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

I freaked completely out. I don’t know what I expected to feel, but when the box came, I opened it, confirmed what it was, and then I dropped it and had to rush out of the house. It was cold. Really, really cold. And the box of books was inside. And I couldn’t share the house with the books. I was standing in my yard in the cold freaking out. So I went in, grabbed the box and hid it in the car. After a couple of days, I brought the box in, but hid it under the coffee table, where I could not see it.

I still don’t understand my reaction. But it seems to me that I am really focused on the writing of poems, the ways they fit together, the next poem, the one after that. It is an extraordinary pleasure to write. And it happens here, in my little house, on my couch, with the dogs and the laptop. And my experience had been that very few people commented on or critiqued poems in journals. So getting a poem published in a journal was like dropping a pebble into a lake, or tucking a poem into the rafters. I could pretend my poems did not have a public life, or if they did, it was remarkably discreet.

I think I wanted a book because that is what we are supposed to want. It seemed, before it actually happened, like some official stamp of approval saying, yes, you are a poet. And it seemed like the next step to take—first we write, then we get an education in writing, however that happens. Then we start to publish in journals. Then a book.

And as the book was coming together, I was taking the same pleasure in the work that I do in writing poems. The book seemed like a long, intricate poem. But the idea of having a book was, for me, somehow completely distinct from the actual physical object that arrived on my doorstep.

Then, suddenly, it existed in a way it never had before—totally separate from me. And everybody could read it, and everybody could have an opinion. It also seemed like the most gross hubris to have dared to believe I could create a book, hubris that my work would appear —literally on the same shelf—as the work of my heroes.

I think I’ve made my peace with the public aspect of being a poet, at least to some extent. After all, we all write to be read, to find an audience, to communicate. I want, always, the next poem. I publish because that is the way to earn the chance to write the next one. And the one after that. I put books together because I love books and because I love the challenge of assembling a book of poems. And I hope someone notices, someone cares.

And maybe, when the next book comes along, I’ll handle it with a little more grace.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

I do want to teach, so I suspect it might become a factor—having a book seems to be one of the credentials that opens the academic door. But that has not happened yet. In other ways, though, it did change my life. The book helped me get a scholarship to one writing conference, and of course it came with an invitation for a fellowship to Bread Loaf. Both of those things brought some of my best friends into my life. I am grateful, every single day, for the amazing friends and colleagues who came through the door the book helped open. Before the book, because I did not work in academia and did not go to AWP or write a ton of reviews or in other ways seem to be a part of the po-biz, I didn’t know a lot of poets beyond my friends from grad school.

After the book, I have a lovely, amazing group of friends who are toilers on the same path. That, I think, is the best thing the book did—it brought wonderful people into my life and, to a lesser extent, brought me a little bit more into the public aspect of poetry in this country. And, as I give readings, and continue to meet other poets, it continues to bring talented, kind, remarkable people into my life.

Oh, this is funny. First of all, for whatever reason, I am not someone who gets chatted up on airplanes. Ever. Mostly, when I admit I write poems, people cough politely and pretend an urgent need to be elsewhere. So I’ve never gotten this question, especially not in this venue.

I think I’d say the book is about the ways we think of ourselves as belonging in certain specific places —not just geographic, but also places like the inside of relationships, in certain states of mind, in myth and literature. For me, it really is about being displaced—moved out of a place you thought you belonged.

And if I made it this far, the person on the airplane would have nodded off or found a different seat long since. See? I really am not the sort who gets chatted up on planes.

What have you been doing to promote Displacement, and what have those experiences been like for you?

I’m even less good at promotion than I am at submitting. When asked, I do readings. I let the press know when I’m doing a festival, working with school children, giving a reading or panel, or doing something else interesting. I have no idea what they do with that information.

I’m not comfortable at all with the more public aspects of being a writer. I lead a very quiet, very private life. I give readings and do panels and other things because I feel like I owe it to the work and to the press to spread the word as much as I can, but I am really uncomfortable putting myself forward like that. This year (2011) I’m going to AWP for the first time, and I’ll probably spend the entire time with my name-tag on backwards or hiding in my room watching TV.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

I don’t know. I think one thing that might have been helpful, would have been a crash course in promoting your book. Does such a thing exist? I don’t know, given my personality and economic circumstances, how much I would have done differently, but I would have liked to know something about getting the word out.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing? Are there any new projects in the works?

I don’t think Displacement had any influence on my subsequent writing beyond the enormous freedom and gratitude I felt that it was done and in good hands and I was free to move into another project. It cleared the decks.

So yes, I’m working on a second book. Which is to say I have a large stack of poems and I still am not sure how they go together. But I’m really excited about them, and about the poems still to come.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Absolutely. How could I believe anything else?

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Leslie Harrison’s debut book of poems, Displacement, won the 2008 Bakeless prize in poetry and was published by Mariner Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. New poems will appear in upcoming issues of Antioch Review, Kenyon Review Online, and FIELD. She was the 2010 Philip Roth Resident in Poetry at Bucknell University and, when not at Bucknell, resides in a small town in rural western Massachusetts. On the web, you can find her at http://www.leslie-harrison.com

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#35 - Brent Goodman

2011-02-15T10:20:00.010-05:00

How often had you sent out The Brother Swimming Beneath Me before it was chosen for publication in 2009 by Black Lawrence Press?

Thank you, Keith. The short answer is, as it was published, just once.

The slightly longer answer is Black Lawrence Press had been considering a previous draft for the St. Lawrence Book Award when I completely overhauled the manuscript and emailed them to withdraw my name from the contest. Instead they kindly asked to consider the newer version, and that's the one they published as a finalist.

The longest and most realistic answer is I had been sending out drafts of The Brother Swimming Beneath Me on and off (mostly off) since 1995. It's been through 50+ arrangements, revisions, incarnations, and considered for over 30 contests.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been The Brother Swimming Beneath Me? Did it go through any other changes?

I wrote the title poem in grad school and it's always been the center of the manuscript, though 95% of the book now differs from its original genesis as a creative thesis. The title became the groundwater for the book - the landscapes may change, but no matter where you take a drink, all the poems sip from the same source.

Strong, surprising manuscripts will always get published . . . eventually. It's tempting to believe that the only important books being published are those seen advertised as contest winners in Poets & Writers, but this is not the case. Do you want to be the poet recognized by the imprint, or the poet who earns the imprint recognition? It's the living manuscript that ultimately finds its readers, so the circumstances surrounding how the book gets published shouldn't concern us much.

The up side to sending to contests is response time, as the press has a schedule and obligation to keep in announcing each year's finalists and winners. Outside of that, during open reading periods (as I'm finding out with my second manuscript), you may not hear anything for over a year! Editors are very busy, and sending to open reading periods requires exquisite patience.

What was the process like assembling the book?

The Brother Swimming Beneath Me came together into three sections: opening lyrics, central elegies, and finally a series of concrete prose poems. Within each section, I tried to arrange the poems like one jazz soloist nodding to the next, with the opening notes of each poem riffing off the scale and rhythm of the last.

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 trusted Black Lawrence Press 100% on the cover design, font, everything, because I knew Steven Seighman (Dzanc Books Art Director) was large and in charge.

Inside the book, my only regret was not insisting (or even mentioning!) that the final prose poems be published in the justified 2"x5"concrete nonce form that gave them their shape in the first place. Instead they orphan like prose paragraphs, and appear "slack" to me, when in fact they are the most formal poems in the book! I held my tongue, but you shouldn't. Honor your poems, not how fast the big box arrives on your porch. It's my intention to publish a future edition of the book retaining the intended format of the final series.

I love sending poems out, love getting rejected, and rejoice to see revised poems find homes after months of tinkers and tweaks. When a certain number of those published poems hit a critical mass, it felt like a solid manuscript taking shape. I wouldn't say that getting a poem published in a journal qualified it to make the final cut, as I dumped several "credible" publications for brand new poems that made better fits.

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?

One's vision dilates when you realize you're now staring at a manuscript that must catch more than an editor's eye, but a reader's inner ear. The book is going to print, so let the most important revisions begin! I cut, shuffled, rearranged, and got excellent advice from poet friends. I'd suggest (trusting your editor is as open and accommodating as mine!) to send your accepted manuscript to a critic friend and ask them for feedback, then listen to most of it.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

I remember being so worried that UPS wouldn't deliver without a signature, I taped the note "OK to Leave on Porch" to my front door in big black Sharpie scrawl. I remember opening the box for the first time, and pillars of light shooting out like the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones. My face melted.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?

The only difference is now I get invited occasionally to give poetry readings, and sometimes to visit colleges and teach. I still enjoy the same 8-5 day job as before, and feel no pressure to publish poetry as criterion for career advancement.

I'd hand them a free copy of the book.

What have you been doing to promote The Brother Swimming Beneath Me, and what have those experiences been like for you?

Initially I organized a book launch at a book store in Madison, WI, sold signed copies from my blog, and was happy to see several online critics and journals take interest in writing reviews.

Though looking back 2 years later, time has collapsed, but I do remember a good 4-6 months where I felt like I was holding a handful of multi-color balloons for myself but no one else was showing up to the party, no matter how many invitations I sent out.

It takes a while for momentum to build, but trust that it will.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Being an overweight, burger-eating, hard-boozin' smoker will lead to a heart attack sooner than you might expect.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing?

Confidence. And the pledge not to mention my brother in my second book.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world?

Every creative thought changes the universe.

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Brent Goodman's first full-length collection The Brother Swimming Beneath Me (2009 Black Lawrence Press) was a finalist for both a Thom Gunn Award and a Lambda Literary Award. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Diode, No Tell Motel, Barn Owl Review, Zone 3, Gulf Coast, Diagram, Pebble Lake Review, Verse Wisconsin, and elsewhere. He lives and works in Rhinelander, WI, where he's a professional copywriter, a poetry instructor in the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions, an assistant editor for the online journal Anti-, a Certified Reiki Master, and the dad of three cats. He can be found online at http://www.brentgoodman.info

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#34 - Traci Brimhall

2011-01-25T12:12:00.004-05:00

How often had you sent out Rookery before it was chosen for the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award?

I checked my Excel spreadsheet and it was rejected sixteen times before it won the Crab Orchard prize.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Rookery? Did it go through any other changes?

My MFA thesis was titled The Rookery and contained many of the poems that are found in the book. When I started to send it out, I changed the title to Asleep in the Rookery, thinking the manuscript needed a heftier title. It was actually the contest judge, Michelle Boisseau, who suggested I cut the excess and just keep Rookery.

I don’t know that I felt I had to win a contest, but I am really grateful that I did. It also seemed to be the main way most other poets were getting their work out. I certainly would have been open to sending to open reading periods, but I was less aware of them as an option at the time.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out?

I suppose the first version of the book was actually my MFA thesis. It wasn’t close to a published manuscript at that point, but the sense of organization stuck, and while some poems came and some went, the thematic premise for the sections remained. Although I don’t believe the MFA will ever remove the requirement of a thesis, I think it was too early to conceive of my poems as a book. On the other hand, it’s probably great, guided practice in ordering for many people, but I ended up unable to imagine my poems in a different format.

Did you suggest or have any input regarding the image that was used on the cover?

Shortly after the book was accepted, I was sent several links to image galleries and got to look around and send images I thought would work. They also asked what covers of other poetry books I liked and what tone I would like the cover to convey. It was many months later before I saw several cover mock up options for me to choose from. They were all beautiful (as SIU Press books always are), but I cast my vote for the one they ended up using. I liked its ominousness, and I liked how one of the birds ended up on the spine.

What about the publication of the actual poems 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 don’t know if concern is the right word, but I definitely wanted to see my work appear elsewhere before the book was published. I really enjoy the submission process. Perhaps that makes me sound like a masochist, but rejections don’t usually bring me down, and I like the sense of possibility I feel when I send out my work.

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?

Not really that much. Jon Tribble gave me a few line by line edits in terms of punctuation and formatting, but other than deciding whether or not to cut or include some poems in the 11^th hour, I felt ready to let go of the work.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time?

When I got the call that the book was accepted I was on a road trip crossing the country. I’d been living in my car for four months at that point, and I was driving from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe. I finished my drive, bought myself a ridiculously expensive dinner in Tahoe and slept in my car in a grocery store parking lot.

When the book showed up, I didn’t even get it back to my apartment from the manager’s office before I cut open the box. It was lovely and surreal but also strange to encounter my poems in a different format. I knew it was my work, but the poems had become strangers to me somehow, or at least no longer wholly mine.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you?  

I’m not on the job market yet; I’m currently working on my PhD. I guess the only difference is that I feel like my poetry energies have to go eight directions instead of one. Now I have to send out press packets, book readings, follow-up on interviews, find people who will review the book, etc. rather than just writing poems.

I feel like the question I most often get from people is “What kind of poetry do you write?” as if I said post-confessional lyric narratives that often border on the surreal would satisfy their curiosity. I think it’s more of a polite question than a real question, so I often say “the kind of poems that don’t rhyme” in order to avoid really answering it. I’m kind of intimidated by it actually. Fortunately, there is an answer. The SIU Press catalog copy says:

“Fraught with madness, brutality, and ecstasy, Traci Brimhall’s Rookery delves into the darkest and most remote corners of the human experience. From the graveyards and battlefields of the Civil War to the ancient forests of Brazil, from desire to despair, landscapes both literal and emotional are traversed in this unforgettable collection of poems. Brimhall guides readers through ever-winding mazes of heartbreak and treachery, and the euphoric dreams of missionaries. The end of days, the intoxication of religion that at times borders on terror, and the post- evangelical experience intertwine with the haunting redemptions and metamorphoses found in violence. These tender yet ruthless poems, brimming with danger and longing, lure readers to “a place where everyone is transformed by suffering.”

So if I could memorize that, I’d be set.

What have you been doing to promote Rookery and what have those experiences been like for you?

Promoting a book has been a really mixed bag of experiences but mostly positive. I really don’t like a lot of aspects of self-promotion, but I also don’t want to bury my books in the back yard and pretend it never happened. I’ve only done a few readings so far, but people have been incredibly receptive and kind. It’s been nice to go to cities I might not visit otherwise and meet new people. I’ve also really appreciated all the amazing emails and texts I’ve received from friends and strangers who’ve read the book and have nice things to say about it. People I haven’t seen in years have found me again, and it’s been great to restart those friendships.

What advice do you wish someone had given you before your first book came out?

Two words: Marketing Questionnaire. I wish someone had even whispered this to me before I had a book. The day after I got the call that my book had been accepted, I received the marketing questionnaire in an email. It may sound terribly clueless, but I had no idea how to go about getting my work reviewed, who would be interested in reading it, or how I would sum it up. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the basics of promoting a book of poetry, and I didn’t feel prepared to weigh in on where I’d like copies of my book sent.

The other thing I wish I knew before my book was accepted is that sometimes it’s a very emotionally complicated thing. I thought I was supposed to be elated and proud, and while I was initially, I spent a lot of time in doubt. I think I expected to feel satisfied or successful somehow, but I didn’t. Although I haven’t been able to pin down a single source of my disillusionment about the book, the chief culprit seems to be that I’m not sure I wanted it or was ready. To be very clear, this has absolutely nothing to do with SIU Press. They have been amazing to work with and really helped me at every stage of the book and I am extremely grateful to them, however shortly after it was accepted I asked myself why I wanted a book. Silly, perhaps, but I’d never asked myself that question before. The only answer I had was that I thought I was supposed to want a book. Since realizing this I’ve asked myself the question: What do I want from poetry? And the only answer I can come up with is that I want to write more poems. The book didn’t make me feel satisfied or successful, but writing poems has often made me feel both of those things. I want to write more poems and be a part of a community of writers. Beyond that, I want to be grateful for any and all opportunities or publications that this allows, and to remember to continually ask myself what I want in case the answer changes.

What influence has the book’s publication had on your subsequent writing?

Unfortunately, it means that I haven’t been writing lately. I’ve tried to put my energy into school and doing what I can to promote the book. However, the book had a decent gestation period (a little over a year between the acceptance call and the box of books on my doorstep), and I was able nearly finish a second manuscript which I’ve slowly started submitting. I’m actually glad to have the silence right now. Most silences in the past have made me really anxious, but this one feels comfortable. I know that silence needs to do its work and when I return to the desk something new and unexpected will happen.

Do you believe that poetry can create change in the world? 

There’s a really lovely line in Jennifer K. Sweeney’s poem “Poetry Lessons” that says: “poetry…only saved you for a little while.” I don’t think poetry can change the world the way the Industrial Revolution or Columbus changed the world, but I do think that poetry can save us for a little while, and perhaps that’s exactly the kind of change we need.

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Traci Brimhall is the author of Rookery (Southern Illinois University Press), winner of the 2009 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award. Her poems have appeared in Kenyon Review, Slate, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, The Missouri Review, and elsewhere. She was the 2008-09 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and currently teaches at Western Michigan University, where she is a doctoral associate and Kings/Chavez/Parks Fellow.

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