#26 - Paul Hostovsky

How often had you sent out Bending the Notes before it was chosen for the Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series?

Not that often. Maybe half a dozen. It was runner-up in a couple other contests before it got picked up by MSR.

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

The title comes from the poem “Every American Child” in the first section of the book: “Every American child/ will be issued a blues harmonica at birth/ and taught to bend the notes because the notes/ are for bending.” As any harmonica player will tell you, bending the notes makes the song a lot more interesting. I’ve known that since I was 15, so I figured it was time to put it in a book. Also, a lot of the poems, especially in the second section, are a little scurrilous in their praise, a little prurient in their singing, the way most good blues songs are. So that’s another reason for the title. Also, a good many of the poems are about the writing of poems, sort of ars poetica poems, and I like poems that bend the notes, poems that are intoxicatingly interesting and have lift. Also, a lot of the poems in the book are about deaf people, not the deaf as metaphor (which is how most writers have treated them—and the blind, for that matter—throughout the history of literature), but deaf people as real people, who use a language with a music of its own, a very different music. Being Deaf isn’t about silence. It’s about that music, which is the most beautiful music the world has ever seen. So the title is also trying to get at that.

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 suppose one ought to do a lot of research, find out about poetry publishers and their guidelines and reading periods and all that. But I’m pretty lazy when it comes to just about everything except making poems. So I went the contest route myself. I’d already won several chapbook contests advertised in the back pages of Poets & Writers. And that’s where I found MSR. I didn’t win the MSR book contest though; I was a runner-up. But they offer publication to the runner-ups, too. God bless them.

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

Ted Kooser has said that putting together a book of poems is a lot like putting together a poem. Assembling the book was kind of like that. You know, the best poems in their best order. I played around with it pretty compulsively for a while, going through several different versions, killing more than a few darlings, though probably not enough. The book is probably still too long. But it’s published now, so I feel like I got away with it; my darlings are safe. And sound.

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

I chose the cover image, and the order of the poems. That’s it. And I supplied the photo and the blurbs and the bio. But I was not involved in the choice of font or paper or anything like that. There was some back-and-forth, I recall, about what to include on the acknowledgments page, and also in a few places where the poems ran onto the next page and I didn’t like where the page break occurred. I got my way in most instances.

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

Yes, I chose the cover image. It’s a painting called “Deaf Picnic” by a deaf artist, Ralph Miller. I love that painting. It’s a sort of deaf version of “Sunday in the Park” by Seurat. At first you don’t notice that the figures in the park are deaf. But if you look again, you’ll see that they are all signing.

What about the publication of the actual poems prior to the book being published? Most, if not all, of the poems have been previously published. Was there ever a concern for you to have the majority of the poems published before you were sending out your manuscript?

I submit compulsively, sending my stuff out like there’s no tomorrow, because there isn’t. The result is that most of the poems eventually get published. So by the time the book got put together, most of the poems in it had already appeared somewhere or other. Also, I don’t always trust myself about which ones are keepers. I may like a certain poem, but if no one else has liked it well enough to publish it, then I’ll take another look at it. On the other hand, if I like a poem, and an editor has also liked it well enough to publish it, well, I find that reassuring.

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 made very few changes to the poems after the manuscript had been accepted, but I went over all the poems probably ten times to make sure there were no typos or mistakes. And I think there was just one, finally, that got into the book, but it must have been very small, seeing as it got by me, and seeing as I can’t even remember now what it was.

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

I had a mixed reaction. It seemed smaller than I’d imagined, kind of like a famous person who looks shorter somehow when you see him up close. Of course I had to sniff it, and bite it, and go to bed with it, and I think I ate a few of the poems that first night after dinner.

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?”

I would say, well, it’s poems. Do you like poems? You don’t? Well, these poems are very accessible, so you will probably like these. Some of them are very funny. And they’re about all kinds of things: poems about childhood, poems about divorce, poems about poems, poems about breasts, lots of poems about deaf people and sign language, and also quite a few about blind people and Braille.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Did it become a factor in getting a future job for you? Also, another book, Dear Truth, has been released since Bending the Notes. Tell us about Dear Truth. What can we expect from it? How is it different from Bending the Notes?

My life isn’t different at all since the book came out. The only thing that’s different, I suppose, is how I’m perceived. I’m a poet with a book now. I’m a published poet, thank you very much. No, the book hasn’t helped me get a job. But the job has helped me sell the book. I make my living as an interpreter, and lots of my deaf friends and colleagues, as well as my interpreter friends and colleagues, bought the book. I’d like to think I changed some minds about poetry, converted some of the poetry-haters among them, winning them back from their unhappy places of exile. As for Dear Truth, the book is a kind of Dear John letter to Truth. There are lots of poems about pain, and illness. And there are more poems about poems, more poems about deaf people and blind people, and breasts, and God, and masturbation, and all that good stuff. Check it out!

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

Well, not a whole lot. I did a bunch of readings when it first came out, then I sort of burned out on those. I entered it in a few contests. I sent it to a few reviewers. I sold a few on the Internet. I gave a few to libraries. I gave one to the gas station guy. And I gave one to the girl working at the Dunkin Donuts who looked sad and overworked and beautiful in a tired sort of way.

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

Hmm. I’m very happy with the book and how it came out. I mean I like it a lot. I probably like it too much. I guess I wish someone had told me that hell is having nothing to read but your own poems.

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

Has it influenced my subsequent writing? Hmm. I don’t think so. Except, maybe, that I trust myself, my voice, a little more now. I have a poet friend who’s always working on the next book, thinking about the next book, writing toward the next book. I can’t do that. For me, it’s always and only about the next poem. Period. I never think about how the poems might fit together in a book, until I have enough keepers in the drawer that I start to think about a book. At that point, I sit down with the poems, and I hold each one under the light of its neighbor, and I try to make a poem out of the poems, which for lack of a better word, I suppose you can call a book.

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

Ooooh! Saved the toughest question for the end, I see. Well. What did Auden say? “Poetry makes nothing happen: it survives/ in the valley of its saying where executives/ would never want to tamper.” And Grace Paley said: “Poetry is not important. People are important.” And Szymborska says: “But what is poetry anyway?/ More than one rickety answer/ has tumbled since that questions first was raised./ But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that/ like a redemptive handrail.” As for me, I don’t think poetry can change the world, no. But I do think poetry can change your mind about the world. Which may be the only change there is in the end.

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Paul Hostovsky’s poems have won a Pushcart Prize, the Muriel Craft Bailey Award from The Comstock Review, and chapbook contests from Grayson Books, Riverstone Press, Frank Cat Press, and Split Oak Press. He has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, The Writer’s Almanac, and Best of the Net 2008 and 2009. He has two full-length collections, Bending the Notes (2008) and Dear Truth (2009), both from Main Street Rag. He works in Boston as a sign language interpreter.

• To read more, visit his website: www.paulhostovsky.com

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#25 - Steven D. Schroeder

How often had you sent out Torched Verse Ends before it was chosen for publication by BlazeVOX Books?

Not quite enough times for the odometer to roll back over to zero. On the other hand, I’m not that jerk who gets to say “It got picked up the second time I sent it out!” I’m jealous of that poet, if he or she exists.

Though it may be early to ask this question, it seems like there’s a possible misconception among some poets without books 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 and open reading periods?

If I win a contest, I hope it’s one that pays a little better than a poetry contest. I’m going to a poker tournament this weekend where they’re raffling off a wheelbarrow full of liquor (in bottles, not loose)—a poetry-appropriate prize. The last trivia night I went to, they raffled a complete pool table set, which would have been stupendous but which sadly I did not win. For advice on choosing presses, I will defer to my childhood friend GI Joe: “Knowing is half the battle.” Preferably both the books and the editors.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out? Tell us about your process of writing the poems that constructed the book.

Saying the manuscript had versions would be like saying a fog bank has versions. It went through at least three titles and had between one and five sections at various points. One of the titles was The World Folds Inside an Envelope, and the other one I can remember sucked, so I’m hoping it’s gone for good. The process itself was about as well thought out as these factoids make it sound.

What about the publication of the actual poems prior to the book being published? Most of the poems in the book have been previously published. Was there ever a concern for you to have the majority of the poems published before you were sending out your manuscript?

Not only were most of the poems in the book published by the time the book came out, many of them were published before I even said to myself “Hey, maybe I should put these here poems in a book sort of thing!” I didn’t just put the cart before the horse there—I pushed the cart down a steep hill and let it drag the horse. That last statement made a lot more sense in my head, I think.

Though not all of the poems in Torched Verse Ends are short, necessarily, looking at the Table of Contents, one can see that not one poem is longer than a page. However, there are many different forms the poems take on, and sometimes a poem can go from humorous to tragic with a flip of the page. What are your thoughts on the poem length and tonal shifts?

A very nice poet friend (let’s call him Jake A. Y.) suggested to me that a lot of my poems get readers primed to laugh but then punch them in the gut instead. He may have been saying this to allay one of my many insecurities, but it’s something I’d like to live up to. (Unlike many of my answers here, the previous was true and intended sincerely.) And my poems do tend toward the short, probably because I like to waste at least half of every sheet of paper, or because my attention span—bunny!

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 tinker so much you could put “Originally Published in Different Form” on my tombstone, if I didn’t want my body to be dragged out into the woods and left for the wolves. After book acceptance, I went through a fit of trying to make my hyphen use and portmanteau compound words consistent through the entire book. Cumulative effect the reader would notice: zero.

What do you remember about the day when you saw your finished book for the first time? How has your life been different since your book came out? What influence has the book's publication had on your subsequent writing?

I took a picture of the books in the box when they arrived because it seems to be the thing poets do. As much as I’d like to get the key to St. Louis or at least my weight in chocolate, I can’t say my book has had a huge effect, except that now I drop the phrase “my book” obnoxiously into conversations much more often. Actually, and again in all honesty, I’ve been very pleased with how many people have helped support the book and offered to publish my new poems and asked me to read. My writing, like the Dude, abides.

Did you suggest the image that was used on the cover? It seems like a nice change of pace to have an “action shot,” if you will, on the cover, instead of a painting or a photographic landscape. Why did you end up choosing this photo for the cover?

Yes, I did choose that image, a photo by Page Loudon, also known as the Giant Surfer Child to readers of poet Rebecca Loudon’s blog. It was originally part of an art submission for my journal Anti-, and I liked it for the action and the fire. My other top choice was a photo of the Coal Seam Fire from the Rocky Mountain News, but apparently Pulitzer-Prize-winning photos cost a wee bit of money to use as book covers. On a slightly related topic, there’s apparently such a shortage of poetry covers to choose from that a William Logan book recycled an Olena Kalytiak Davis cover image, and now a Tony Hoagland cover looks eerily like John Gallaher’s Map of the Folded World.

Pardon me for mentioning that I saw this on your blog, but you’ve referenced Zachary Schomburg’s The Man Suit in the past for how there’s an “Index of Selected Subject Matter” at the end of your book also. It seems like a nice addendum to the end of a book, and it certainly works well with Torched Verse Ends. That said, did constructing the Index actually help you better construct your book to your liking in the end? Was it constructed more as a novelty? Both?

No need to apologize: I had to check my blog to remember when I inserted the index (2007, I guess). I’d already had an Index of Fun Words in The Eleventh Muse when I edited that journal, but for the book I went a little more general to get a handle on the larger themes. Alcohol, falling, monsters—fun stuff. It was through building the index that I found out the book has a body obsession (both whole and parts) I hadn’t been aware of. Stupid subconscious and/or lazy metaphors!

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

All the usual methods: graffiti tagging, sponsoring UFC fighters, bitching about the death of poetry/reading/literature. Really, though, I’m glad I have a lot of friends and family, because those first few months it was almost exclusively them who bought the book. Once I started reading and getting reviewed, I managed to sell a few to people who haven’t had a drink with me or played basketball with me or parented me.

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

I have no good answer, flippant or otherwise, for this question. Probably “Slow down.” Which people tell me from time to time anyway. Sometimes they add “motherfucker.”

It seems like you’re currently writing your way to an eventual second collection. On your blog, most of your new drafts you post (though there are some in Torched Verse Ends that employ the same technique) have a “stolen” title. Poets do this, of course, but do you use this “stolen” title as the impetus to write the poem? Or do you try to find something fitting once the draft has been written? And are you looking for influence in particular places for these titles?

I worry too much about titles, so I figured it would save at least 10% of my poetic effort if I stole them all. I’d also like to be the first poet to rip off Emily Dickinson, George Orwell, Public Enemy, and Futurama in the same sequence. Or any four of my title sources. As far as which comes first, the title or the poem, I have as much consistency there as in any of my poetic processes. One out of every ten or so, the title and the poem content arrive completely organically. Oh for that poetic simultaneous orgasm!

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

I figure the mass of all that poetry will eventually spin the earth right off its axis. Or maybe that’s just what I feel like when I’ve been in the slush pile too long.

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Steven D. Schroeder’s first book of poetry, Torched Verse Ends, appeared in 2009 from BlazeVOX [books]. His poetry is available or forthcoming from New England Review, Verse, The Journal, Indiana Review, The Laurel Review, diode, and Verse Daily. He edits the online poetry journal Anti-, serves as a contributing editor for River Styx, and works as a Certified Professional Résumé Writer.

• Visit Steve's website to read his blog, read sample poems, and to get more information about Torched Verse Ends
  

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#24 - Clay Matthews

How often had you sent out Superfecta before it was chosen for publication by Ghost Road Press?

I’d sent out some version of the manuscript for a couple of years, probably to almost thirty different places. Some contests, some open reads, etc. Got some finalists nods, spent some dough, but nothing happened until I got the good news from the people at Ghost Road.

Tell me about the title. Had it always been Superfecta? What is a Superfecta? And why did you end up deciding that should be the title?

The title had changed a lot. It was Labor Lounge for a while, then Deal Gone Down, then The Deal, and even Psychobilly Cadillac for about two seconds, but none of those titles seemed right. I used to go down to Remington Park in OK City and bet on the horses a lot. Got my mind off grad school and it was a hobby, I guess you could say. Anyway, some of the smaller tracks like Remington allow you to bet a ten-cent superfecta. A superfecta bet is when you pick the first four horses in order. If you picked four horses, and boxed the bet, it cost $2.40 and the horses could finish in any order, so long as you picked the top four. I loved that bet—it was a long shot, but cheap, and would sometimes have really good payouts. I become obsessive about the superfecta bet, and there was a little pizza stand at Remington Park called Superfecta Pizza. One day I was getting a slice of pizza down there, and I saw the book in four sections, each section named after a horse, and it all kind of came together. One of my favorite things was naming the horses: Domingo, Mr. Jones, Countdown, and The Martian. I made all of them up except for Countdown, which was a horse my dad had taken in on trade for about a month. Once Superfecta came to me it just felt right. It sounded good, too.

Though it may be early to ask this question, it seems like there’s a possible misconception among some poets without books 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 and open reading periods?

I was. For one, it seemed like the only option for a while. Hardly anybody was reading, and I wanted to get the ms. out. I was also young and foolish and thought that if I got on with a big press, or won a big contest, I’d be famous and make some dough selling books. Ha, ha. Eventually, because I was a grad student and low on funds, and because I was tired of getting letters saying that someone else won this contest or that, and because I realized that poetry lives within a poetry audience, and they don’t care so much about who publishes something, but rather what’s actually published, I started to send to as many open reading publishers as I could, and whose books I enjoyed and liked the quality of. Contests are necessary for a lot of presses, so I’m not hating on them. I was broke. I just wanted people to read the work. I’d published a little chapbook online with Josh Hanson’s End & Shelf Books, and I was amazed at how many notes I got from people. The work was out there. It was free and in the hands of the people. It was being read. That kind of woke me up, and changed how I envisioned my own publication goals. I’m as likely to give a book away as I am to sell one, because in the end it came down to a question of what I wanted the work to be: distinguished or read. I kind of hate distinguished things, anyway, so I tried all options available to get the work out. I hope I’m not sounding holy here. I still send to contests, just as I still send to open reading periods. I send, though, to places where I think my work might fit, places I admire in some fashion or another, and places that spread the word. My advice to people: do what you want to do with your books. Whatever that is. If it’s contests, then send to contests. If it’s self-publishing, then do that. It’s your work, and it’s important to understand how you value it, in all kinds of different ways.

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

Lots of versions. Tons of structures, and I don’t know if any of them made any sense. As I mentioned in the earlier question, though, once I got onto the superfecta, it became easier. I had a lot of elegies, so I ended the book with that. Besides that, I just kind of made up some “thematic” categories in my head. I think we probably think about structures of a book more than might be necessary. Ultimately, the poems will speak to each other, and the smaller details of order don’t seem that important to me. I rarely read most books of poetry front to back, anyway. However, different books call for different strategies. My second book, Runoff, is just four long poems. They go in order of the seasons. That one was a breeze to put together.

What about the publication of the actual poems prior to the book being published? Most of the poems have been previously published. Was there ever a concern for you to have the majority of the poems published before you were sending out your manuscript?

I wanted the poems out there, because I wanted them read. I also thought that having a well-published book might give it more of a chance to get published. Once it was accepted, I kept sending the poems in there out, too, because not everybody is going to buy your book, but if you publish online, or in a journal, or wherever, there’s a greater chance you might find that reader who actually thinks your stuff doesn’t stink.

A few years ago, it seemed like every new issue of a journal had new Clay Matthews poems inside its pages. At what point in your poetic career did you become so prolific, and how do you think this came to be?

Prolific—that’s awesome. Am I prolific? I guess getting a lot of poems out there was a blend of hard work and luck. I was editing for the Cimarron Review, and I tried to trade journals with as many places as possible. In doing this, I was able to read a ton of journals, and I’ve always read as many of the online ones as possible. I sent my work to the places I liked. I used to read journals, front to back, and think to myself, “Everything in there was awful.” Then, the next day, I’d send them a packet, thinking “They’re gonna love this.” Rejection after rejection. It took me a while to realize that not everybody likes the kind of poems I write, just as I don’t like every kind of poem written. I was wasting my time sending to places whose work I didn’t enjoy because our aesthetics were different from the get-go. So I read a lot and sent to the places I liked. I still got rejected a lot, but I kept sending poems out, and sometimes they’d get picked up. I was writing a lot, so I had a lot of stuff out there. I was getting lucky, too.

Many of your poems in the book are often longer than a page. And many of them also employ the use of longer lines. Who are your influences? Were there poets you were primarily reading who helped you develop your writing and, finally, the book?

Whitman, Levis, Schuyler, Levine, Ginsberg, etc. I love long lines. And I love long poems. Something about the momentum they build up that just kills me when they kind of soar off at the end. I think sometimes we get into habits as writers, too. While I was writing a lot of poems for Superfecta, they’d roll along, and then just past one page or so, they’d end. I thought it was natural, but it was something I was drawn to. It became a habit, so my last year at OK St. I spent writing Runoff, a whole year on one poem. After that, I couldn’t write anything less than three pages. So, last spring, here in East TN, I wrote a collection of English sonnets in syllabics. I’m still learning, and I always want to grow as a writer. So, a lot of times I get into a habit, and then try to force myself to break it. I always come back to long poems, though, and longer lines, but I think my tastes are broadening some. I just like things that blow me away with some real emotion humming under language that could break your heart almost all by itself.

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 all that much. I changed some things. I cleaned up some proofreading stuff. I kind of edit a poem obsessively while I’m working on it, and then when it’s done, it’s usually done, and it goes out into the world or into the Microsoft junkyard. The junkyard is an interesting place to go sometimes, and I’ll occasionally find something I like in a clunker and clean it up. But, most of the time, if they didn’t turn over the first time, they’re not going to start running later.

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

You know, not much. I remember it came in a box. I opened it, and I thought, Yep, that pretty much looks like I thought it would. Then I went off for a walk or something. I’m not sure. It wasn’t monumental. It felt good. I remember it felt smaller than I thought it would.

Did you suggest the image that was used on the cover? It’s a photo by Shane Brown, though it seems like it could be a photo somewhere in the south belonging to the lens Wim Wenders or William Eggleston.

Yeah, Shane Brown is great. We’d had him do some covers for the Cimarron Review, and so I already knew I wanted to find something from him. He takes these fantastic pictures of the Mid- and South-west. Heartbreaking, real stuff. It was between the pool hall and this old beater parked in a field. I didn’t even have any pool in the book, which I was surprised about, but the image just resonated, anyway. Go Shane: http://www.shanebrownok.com/

How has your life been different since your book came out? Has the job market been easier to crack with a book out?

My life has been different. But life is always different. Because of the book, I’ve met people I never would have met, I’ve got something to pick up and look at sometimes, and I’ve got some closure on a lot of work I did. My life might be completely different if it weren’t for the book. Or the same. Only Robert Frost could tell.

Job market has not been easier. I think there’s a ton of us out there with books, and a lot of people with books that are probably better than mine (though I like my book, too). It’s hard times in the academic world, I think. It’s easy to move tenure jobs into adjunct positions, and it’s easy to fill those adjunct positions with writers like us who have books, because there’s kind of this waiting game to land a good teaching gig. The book does allow me to apply for a lot of jobs that want you to have at least one book. Besides that, though, unless your book won some huge award, from my perspective I don’t see it helping out all that much in the job market. It’s pretty competitive out there.

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

I tried to do readings wherever I could. I even read with a poetry class over in Tulsa. Wherever people would have me within a reasonable distance, I’d go, or e-mail and ask if they were looking for readers. Online stuff helps, too. There were some nice reviews in places like Coldfront Magazine, and Cutbank, and DIAGRAM, and I’m forever indebted to the people who took the time to do those. Friends posted things on their blogs. Word-of-mouth and readings seem to be the best way to promote books, I’ve found.

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

To work even harder at promotion, and don’t be embarrassed about it. It’s easy once the book comes out to say, Okay, it’s out, good deal, so proud, etc. But keep pushing it out into the world. Kick that baby out of the nest.

What influence has the book's publication had on your subsequent writing? I know your second full length collection, Runoff, was released at the end of 2009. How did you end up getting it published by BlazeVOX?

I mentioned some of the differences in an earlier question, but I think in a lot of ways finally publishing Superfecta allowed me to move on, and take some chances on something like Runoff. To be honest, Runoff was such a long and strange and kind of personal book I didn’t know if anybody would care to read it. It’s thick. BlazeVOX was the only place I sent it to because they seem to take chances on oddball books, and, luckily, Geoffrey Gatza picked it up. I couldn’t hardly see anyone else publishing it, so it worked out perfectly.

Tell us about that book. How is it different from Superfecta, and what can readers expect from it?

It’s long, thick, seasonal, moody, journalistic, and documentary. Superfecta was really about the individual poems, put together in a somewhat arbitrary fashion. Runoff for me was more about the poem as this ongoing thing, as life, as the small moments of days and trials and joys and all the strangeness and beauty just sitting around out there. I’ve gotten some good feedback on it. Superfecta is probably more informed and reflective of contemporary poetry and theory, so a lot of my family, for instance, might ask, “What does this mean?” With Runoff, there’s a certain prosy diary quality to it, and even though I thought nobody would ever make it through the whole thing, I’ve already gotten calls and e-mails from friends and family saying how much they liked a certain season, or how much they liked the book in general. I think I’m getting more comfortable writing what I want to write, whereas some of the poems in Superfecta felt like a performance for somebody. I don’t know who. Auden writes about “The Censor” that poets have, and I think as I get older I get to know my censor a little bit better, even if it becomes more demanding. I work hard to remain in touch with the reasons I started writing—because I wanted to say something, because I felt compelled, because I have a lot of junk and don’t know where else to put it. Runoff is probably overkill, and excess, and redundant, but it was a strange and important year for me, and the writing documents that. There’s something perfect for me in writing that engages life on the day-to-day level, the persona of the poet, the people that fill the streets and the back roads and the food we eat and the weather changing and the moon getting full and then thin. That stuff moves me. I want my writing to do something like that to someone else, and so I try. Over and over and over.

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

Does Elmer Fudd have trouble with the letter “r”?

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Clay Matthews’s first book, Superfecta, is available from Ghost Road Press, and his second, Runoff, was recently released from BlazeVOX Books. He likes to hear from folks. Drop him a line sometime: claydmatthews@sbcglobal.net

• Visit Clay's blog (where you can view reviews, buy books, and read other poems)
  

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#23 - Anna Journey

You hold an undergraduate degree in art. How has that background influenced your poems?

Well, for one thing, I’m obsessed with the image. I’m obsessed with lots of things, probably (Deadwood, long hikes, guys with beards), but I’m a sucker for imagery. I can’t stop myself. As it happens, I know my way around a potter’s wheel reasonably well, but overall I’m a terrifically untalented visual artist. A misanthropic painting professor once declared, during a critique, that an art project of mine belonged in the home décor section of Target. Ouch! After I considered the fact that although his estimation was probably true, an art professor who took pictures only of pine trees with elliptical holes that resembled vaginas and who kept bird bones in his pockets probably had it worse off than I did.

Anyway, while taking my first college-level creative writing class as an elective during my junior year as an undergraduate art student at VCU, I discovered poets like Charles Wright, Sylvia Plath, James Wright, and W.S. Merwin. I wanted to do what they did with imagery and sound and the lyric that wove in personal elements without sacrificing room for wild invention. I was hooked. I really wanted to propose to Charles Wright, actually. (Ahem, the offer still stands, my man.) So I took another poetry course at VCU—in which Gregory Donovan taught me pretty much everything I know about poetry—and one at George Mason University, and then began the MFA program in creative writing at VCU in the fall of 2004.

How often had you sent out If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting before it was selected for The National Poetry Series?

I’m fortunate to have met with that desirable combination of both timing and luck. During the fall of 2007, I sent my manuscript to six contests and finalized for three of them, one of which resulted in Thomas Lux selecting the book for the National Poetry Series.

Had it always been If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting or had it gone through different titles?

I agonized for a long time over the title. Although I enjoy inventing titles for single poems, I had difficultly drumming up one that spoke for the entire collection. The book went through two different titles. The first title, Carnival Afterlife, lingered for a few months, though it never felt quite right. As I sat in David Wojahn’s office at Virginia Commonwealth University one day, he leaned back in his swivel chair and, in that wily deadpan of his, drawled, “It’s too dactylic.”

Beckian Fritz Goldberg said, “Sure, who doesn’t like Carnival Afterlife? But that’s not your book.” Instead, she pointed to three poems in the manuscript that might make for stronger title poems, including “If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting.” I liked the idea of having a long, quirky title, as well as a mysteriously incomplete “if clause.” Also, there’s a motif that loosely weaves in and out of the poems—images of red hair—so introducing that image in the title felt important.

How many different versions did your book go through as you were sending it out?

The book took approximately three main forms. I began by gathering all of my favorite poems—my “book poems”—into one behemoth, unruly mess, without any section breaks. Trying to sequence the poems while staring at my computer screen drove me crazy! I felt cross-eyed and had trouble picturing the poems as a unified body of work.

The second version of the book came together during my two-week residency at Yaddo, in Saratoga Springs, New York (that was May through June, 2007). I slept in a third-floor former servant’s quarters in the gothic Trask mansion on the hill and worked during the day in a sunny, cornflower blue cabin called Meadow at the edge of the woods. I believe escaping my usual habits and forging new rituals helped me look at my work in a much more focused way. (I love my devilish cat, Jellybean, but she has a knack for ambling across my poems, books, and sitting in my special chair.) Each day I’d get a fire going in my woodstove, then blast the Grateful Dead from my laptop for the first half an hour or so while I drank an entire thermos of black coffee. I’d watch for white-tailed deer or squirrels in the lilacs. I’d lounge in the upholstered rocking chair by the stove, reading through some of my favorite poetry collections—particularly ones organized into multiples sections, like Norman Dubie’s Groom Falconer, and Beckian Fritz Goldberg’s Lie Awake Lake and In the Badlands of Desire. I’d also been reading a lot of Sylvia Plath and Larry Levis.

There was a bare single mattress across the room from my wooden desk. I’d spread all of my poems across its quilted surface into four horizontal rows (one row for each of the four sections). Organizing the poems in such a manner helped me see with clarity the entire book—what worked, what didn’t—and encouraged me to physically manipulate the poems, which was an incredibly satisfying experience.

On each poem, I circled its first few lines and last few lines. I did this in order to highlight the manner in which the piece began and ended, sometimes writing a single word next to the circled lines that briefly sketched the image or tone (like “devil” or “sassy”). I used the circling technique to help me fine-tune transitions between the poems. For instance, maybe I’d end with a devil image and then segue into another kind of malevolent figure, like a would-be serial killer, or something. Or, if I’d ended one poem on a note of trash-talking bravura, maybe I’d follow it with a poem that began with a starker, or more vulnerable tone, to provide a kind of counterpoint. All in all, I viewed the challenge of sequencing the book as if I were constructing one long poem.

A few weeks after my stay at Yaddo, I graduated from VCU during the summer and then left Richmond to begin the PhD program in creative writing at literature at the University of Houston. During my first year in Texas, I wrote about ten or so poems that ended up replacing others in the manuscript, which resulted in the third and final shape of the collection. I’d say, though, that I found the soul of my book while I worked in that rare state of solitude at the colony. And what a pampered solitude it was! I remember calling a friend one night to complain about a dinner option that seemed overzealous, even for the most committed of carnivores—some kind of poor little beast stuffed inside another poor little beast (maybe veal stuffed with lamb? Is that even a real dish?). She laughed and told me to shut the hell up.

Was there ever a concern for you to have the majority of the poems published before you were sending out your manuscript?

You know, reaching new readers always excites me, and appearing in literary journals and anthologies that I read and admire is an effective way to do that. I don’t think, though, that I wrung my hands about placing every poem in a journal as if the unpublished ones would spontaneously combust into some sort of shameful obscurity. Talk about pressure! Writers already nourish so many self-loathing ticks and inventively neurotic ways to punish themselves. Do we really need another reason? It’s important to cultivate a healthy and generous attitude toward your own work.

Though I don’t think the quote exists anymore on the website, before Ausable Press merged with Copper Canyon, I was floored by Chase Twitchell basically saying that a thesis is not a publishable book. Do you think those graduating MFAs, with their theses completed, should take heed of that advice? How much did your own thesis develop before it turned into your book?

An MFA thesis is not necessarily a publishable book, but I believe it can be. It really depends on the author: whether you’ve developed a distinct poetic voice, whether you’ve accumulated enough works that speak with confidence and authority, whether your poems are sequenced in such a way that they create rich arcs in emotion or narrative. Each poet’s work evolves at a slightly different pace. My MFA thesis certainly contains some embarrassing poetic attempts (like a lapse into gothic overdrive featuring a guy with glass eyeballs and a train wreck), though the bulk of the work and the sequencing are more or less the same as they appear in my book.

You’ve been a managing editor for Blackbird and a poetry editor for Gulf Coast. I wanted to know what your opinion is on the proliferation of online journals as venues for writers to publish their work. You’ve published in online journals yourself, and they seem to be becoming just as valid a venue for publishing work as print journals these days.

I’m a great believer in online literary and arts journals, and I think most writers are, or at least they should be. Poets & Writers published an essay by Sandra Beasley, “From Page to Pixels: The Evolution of Online Journals” (May/June 2009), for example, and T.R. Hummer writes, in another issue of P & W, that online publications are “an unstoppable force, and one that will do enormous good for the visibility of the art.”

You’d have to be a real dinosaur not to recognize the difference between, say, Grandma Tiffy’s blog posts about sunsets and a reputable literary journal like Blackbird, the latter of which is a university-funded publication and whose senior genre editors are permanent staff members (creative writing professors, presidents of nonprofit arts organizations, etc.) with an editorial policy committed to upholding literary excellence. When I worked at Blackbird, I saw contributors win Pushcarts for poems (Linda Bierds’ “Meriwether and the Magpie” comes to mind, for instance); I saw an entire poetry collection of Norman Dubie’s, The Spirit Tablets at Goa Lake, published serially online; I saw the online publication of “Ennui,” a previously unpublished sonnet by Sylvia Plath. We even scanned and published copies of her original typescripts with doodles, with permission from her estate.

I think there’s a lot you can do online that you can’t get away with in print: Listening to audio files of writers reading their own work, for instance, is an amazing gift. I remember when I first started reading modern and contemporary poetry how often I listened to recordings of Plath’s crisp gutturals, Eliot’s anglophilic warbles, and Ginsberg’s nasal exaltations. I want more! Also, publishing online can increase your presence by making your work available to a wider audience. If people “google” your name, some of your poems will come up. (This, of course, can also backfire should folks send their second or third tier work to online publications; so it’s always smart to be judicious and discerning about where to send your work, but especially since online poems will float around the internet forever. And yes, I do have one early poem I wish I could make go away. It involves a vomiting cat.)

Has being an editor helped shape your own writing in some way?

Oh, yes, very much so. I think being an editor has encouraged me to become a more omnivorous reader. Sometimes I surprise myself by admiring work that’s, say, incredibly elliptical or disjunctive, which differs from the kinds of poems I usually seek out to read or to write myself. Reading and appreciating a variety of work keeps me on my toes.

Editing also allows me to advocate for poets whose work I find exceptional. Supporting poets in the earlier stages of their careers can be especially rewarding, I’ve found. You know, soliciting National Book Award-winners and Pulitzer Prize-toting folk is always a real thrill and a pleasure; but what I consider even more exciting—and necessary—is calling attention to poets who may be less familiar to most readers. Some of my favorite younger poets, for instance, are Sarah Vap, Kara Candito, Joshua Poteat, Sandra Beasley, and Nicky Beer.

Do you have any advice for writers as far as how to get their work published and avoid being another rejection from the slush pile?

Well, I suppose my first piece of advice would be something along the lines of, “Don’t beat yourself up over returned SASEs covered with only your own handwriting.” Rejection happens a lot and it happens to everybody. Rejection from a journal doesn’t automatically mean your work isn’t any good.

I think what makes a poem stand out from the slush pile is a combination of qualities: its distinct poetic voice, inventive turns of phrase, balance of both sound and sense, music and mystery, and surprising images and metaphors. Poems that stand out in the slush pile all exhibit a heightened sensitivity toward language and a willingness to take bold risks with it—with syntax, with enjambments, with varying levels of diction, with unusual yet urgent metaphorical associations—but without imploding under the weight of mannerism, under easy irony, or under the period style: that jumpy American Surrealism Lite. I get bored with poems that are overly ironic, or deadened with theory, or lazy toward language, or play it safe by fracturing themselves into a tedious kind of highfalutin obscurity. Sometimes editing means reading a piece that looks like a poem and sounds like a poem but that has no heart. Sometimes editing means saying, “The emperor has no clothes.”

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

Let’s see, I received a single advanced copy in the mail a few weeks before the motherload arrived. I checked my mail as I rushed toward my car, headed to teach two classes in a row. Recognizing the University of Georgia Press on the return address, I tore into the package, squealed, did a vague sort of jig à la the Lucky Charms elf, ran back upstairs to show my boyfriend the cover, and then carried the book with me to campus, clutching it periodically like the Holy Grail. I showed it off to my students, lest they think I developed some kind of maniacal eye-and-lip-twitch overnight. Oh, and I think I slept with the book perched regally on my bedside table.

Did you suggest the image that was used on the cover?

I’m fortunate to have incredibly generous, encouraging editors at UGA Press who gave me lots of creative control during the whole publishing process. They actively encouraged my participation on all fronts: cover art, font, blurbs, you name it. My first choice for cover art was Les feuilles mortes, a painting by the surrealist Remedios Varo. The painting features a red-haired woman in a floor-length green dress, seated in an eerie, monochromatic grey room, with a decaying, jagged carpet made of grass beneath her. She’s winding a ball of blue yarn from the hollow chest cavity of a stooped, faceless apparition, from which a white bird and a red bird fly. Also, some autumn leaves have blown into the room from an open window. We worked hard to gain permission to reprint the Varo painting, but it turned into a dead end, as the painting is privately owned and the last owner on record, according to the most recent catalogue raisonné, is now dead. For weeks I sent letters and emails to a long-dead French airline heiress! I don’t recommend doing that. It’s a bummer.

The good news, though, is that another favorite surrealist of mine, Leonora Carrington, has an incredible painting, Grandmother Moorehead’s Aromatic Kitchen, housed in the Charles B. Goddard Center for Visual and Performing Arts in Ardmore, Oklahoma. I love the whimsy and the darkness at work in the painting. The warm-toned piece evokes a scene in an alchemist’s red kitchen, with a tottering, bloated, white goose in the foreground. What more could a girl ask for, you know?

How has your life been different since your book came out? Tell me about your recent first review of the book in The LA Times.

Well, I’ve received kind notes from readers and solicitation letters from editors previously unfamiliar to me, which is absolutely wonderful. I’m continually surprised and grateful to hear when people enjoy the poems. Last summer, I had my reservations about joining Facebook, but a good number of these kinds of communications have been facilitated by the social network. Also, I get other surprises, like The LA Times review you’ve mentioned. Besides The New York Times, next to none of the big newspapers review poetry anymore, so it’s especially encouraging to notice when venues other than literary journals pay attention to first books of poetry.

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

I’ve been giving more readings than usual, which has helped me grow less shy and wretchedly muckle-mouthed when I’m behind a podium. I’ve also participated in some interviews. But, really, Regan Huff, my excellent publicist at UGA Press, has been doing the lion’s share of publicity work—booking many of the readings; sending out review copies to literary journals, newspapers (including The LA Times), independent bloggers, and even to students (both graduate students and undergraduates who express an interest in writing about the collection). I’m lucky to work with a university press that advocates so strongly for my work.

What influence has the book's publication had on your subsequent writing? Are any new books or other projects on the horizon?

I don’t know if my crippling, yearlong writer’s block sprouted directly from my comparing new poems to those in the published collection—which is an unfair yet entirely natural thing to do—but giving my new work such a hard time certainly didn’t help me out much. I’d beat myself up about it: “I’m never going to write anything worth a damn ever again!” So dramatic. Then I’d go watch another episode of The Sopranos.

Of course, it also didn’t help that for my first two years in Houston my “office” was technically a large walk-in closet (with a couple of windows that looked out on a tar roof but without vents for A.C. and heat). I resented having to sit in that stagnant box. Go figure.

Since then I’ve moved to a new apartment and have begun work on a second manuscript, although it took me nearly a full year to arrive at a place where I’m writing work that seems like it’s doing different things than I’d done in my previous book—work that excites and invigorates me. I’ve written probably a fourth or so of the new material and a whole pile of false starts and abandoned drafts. I take some comfort knowing that many writers feel a similar sense of post-book ennui and often take a year—or more—to gear up for the next important phase in their writing lives.

Do you have any additional advice for poets sending out their first books to contests and open reading periods?

Only send to places where you’d be thrilled to have your book taken, otherwise you’ll feel deflated and cheated. Wait until the manuscript feels ready and then send to six to ten of your top choices. Want the best for your work—not just for your career, but for those poems that arise from a place of urgency and necessity, and in which you faithfully believe.

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Anna Journey is the author of the collection, If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting (University of Georgia Press, 2009), selected by Thomas Lux for the National Poetry Series. Her poems are published in a number of journals, including American Poetry Review, FIELD, and Kenyon Review, and her essays appear in Blackbird, Notes on Contemporary Literature, and Parnassus. She’s currently a PhD candidate in creative writing and literature at the University of Houston. In 2006, Journey discovered the unpublished status of Sylvia Plath’s early sonnet “Ennui” and the influence of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby on it.

• Buy If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting from Amazon
• Read three poems in 42opus
• Read six poems in Blackbird
  

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#22 - Andrew Kozma

How often had you sent out City of Regret before it was chosen in the co-winner (with Leigh Anne Couch) of the Zone 3 First Book Award for Poetry?

I sent the manuscript seventy times in total, including Zone 3 and the four contests I withdrew from as a result of winning that prize. So I suppose the answer (correct!) is sixty-five times over the course of four years.

I know you’ve touched upon this previously in other interviews and such, but what was your feeling when your book was chosen to be published by a press whose first book was going to be yours, essentially making it a kind of guinea pig? And as an extension of this question: with so many micro-presses and presses being started these days, many of them branching out into contests, is it a good thing for poets who are looking to get their first book out to do voracious research on these more unknown presses before they stuff an envelope with their manuscript and a check? Or should they just try and stick with “established” contests?

Rough and mixed. I was excited (excited!) to have won a contest, but it was (and still is) my first book, my first emergence on the published poetry scene (journals are a different sort of beast). The literary journal Zone 3 had published a poem of mine, which is how I knew about the contest, and the experience was good, though the design of their journal was somewhat bland at the time. I was afraid.

But I was also excited because it would be (with Leigh Anne’s Houses Fly Away) the press’s first real foray into the publishing market. They had published a book already (David Till’s Oval) but it was a test run to see if a press would be viable and doable, yet they were still (and still are) at the beginning.

So, in short, the press had no history, so they could either be amazing or horrible, either respected or laughable. But I talked to friends who knew the people involved, talked with the staff at Zone 3 Press, and realized that taking a chance on them had the benefit of carrying me along with their rise. If I had chosen a more well-known contest but associated with a larger press, I may have gotten lost in the shuffle.

As for submitting to contests, I do think that research is helpful, and not only for the small presses. No matter how established or new, you want to make sure that you’ll be happy if they publish your book, and one way to check that out is to look at what they’ve already published – not just in terms of the poetry, but in the book production and design. I’d say apply to both established and new; the worst that happens is that you win a contest, you think it over, and you say no to the offer.

What was the process like assembling the book? How many different versions did it go through as you were sending it out? Was it essentially your PhD thesis at Houston, or had some or many of the poems been written prior to starting that degree?

The manuscript went through at least three main versions and four different titles (the others being, in order, Disappearances, Debating the Air, and Beneath the Skin). To go back to your first question, each of those titles went out to a season of contests – a year’s worth – except for Disappearances which I only submitted once.

I put the first version of the book together during the summer of 2003 and used my MFA thesis as a base. About half the poems in the book were originally written during my MFA program – only one comes from before I entered grad school (“Acropolis”). It was my first time trying to put a book together; my MFA thesis was around forty pages, but it was simply all the poems I had written during my two years at the University of Florida – those that my advisor approved of. There was no real order.

For City of Regret I struggled the most with order and shape. The first version simply had the poems divided into their basic groups: poems about my father’s death, poems about relationships, and poems about everything else. I had no idea what I was doing, except that the father poems were the book’s anchor. They started in the front, then I moved the section to the back, then, on the advice of Mark Doty, I split them to bookend the manuscript. You can still see that in the finished book.

I still have a lot of problem with individual poem order. I get so frustrated, unable to keep all the poems in mind at once, and end up just shuffling randomly to see what resonances are produced. Fifty-two page pick-up.

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 tried to get all my poems published before City of Regret was published, though not really because I thought it would help in getting the manuscript published. I’m not sure that a hefty list of acknowledgements weighs much in your favor; if the first readers don’t like your poems, it doesn’t matter how many others did in the past.

My goal for individual poem publication revolved around the fact that once the book is published, you can’t publish those poems in journals, and part of my drive in publishing is to get my work in front of as many eyes as possible. Also, I look at the poems and the book as different works of art, not just two versions of the same thing. Once poems are put in a book, they are influenced by the poems around them and the book as a whole. In a very real sense, their meaning changes.

How much work did you do as far as editing the poems from the day you knew the book won to the day the book was in its final proofing stage? I guess this is a question of galleys and their help and impact in the completion of the final stages.

There are really two different answers here: The first is that I changed only a little in the book… I added two poems and removed one. I changed a few lines, but nothing major. The second is that we went through six or seven different galleys, fine-tuning the font and layout and correcting minor errors that kept slipping in. I think I really annoyed Zone 3 here, but it was my first book and I didn’t want anything to go wrong, especially if it was an aspect I had some control over.

I always find the poet’s choice an interesting one if he or she decides to lead the book off with a poem before the start of the actual sections. It seems dangerous in some way—that it could be misleading, since the assumption is that poem’s supposed to set up some kind of way we’re introduced to the book. Though “Dis” seems very fitting, was this a poem you always knew would serve as that poem, or was it a longer process of discovery?

I definitely didn’t know “Dis” would serve as the poetic introduction to the book. It was only in the last version that it took that place and mostly because it sets up the metaphor of the city. That, and it also establishes the “quest” of the book, the narrative that draws the whole together and, hopefully, makes some sense of it for the reader. Also, the poem acts as a sort of litmus test, warning the reader about what sort of imagery they’re in for.

I can see what you mean about an introductory poem being a dangerous tactic, but if “Dis” fails in that regard for a reader, then the book as a whole is going to fail them.

Richard Jackson, in his introduction, does a fairly thorough reading of the poem, “Agoraphobia.” Because your poems seem so tightly constructed, I wanted to ask 1) What you thought of his reading of the poem, and 2) If that’s one of the reasons you, like many, are drawn to writing and reading poetry: the vast interpretations one can find a legitimate argument for in how they read and study the words.

I think his reading is a perfectly valid one. And now I sound like a professor. What I mean is that his interpretation is supported by the text and makes sense within the poem and in context with the rest of the book. However, that wasn’t what I imagined. For example, in my mind, there are two people at the table, there have to be because the poem is about a relationship. That said, Jackson sees more in the poetic imagery that I ever noticed consciously.

Like you said, I’m drawn to that wealth of interpretation, but I’m drawn to it in all my writing, not just poetry. One reason I love plays is that they can be endlessly redone and each time will be new in blunt or subtle ways. Some writers I’ve heard speak say that what they’re interested in is conveying a specific idea to the reader; I’m interested in conveying a specific idea to the page. The readers will fend for themselves.

One thing I noticed upon a few readings of the book is that not one poem (not counting the few poems with sections, with each section on a different page) is over a page long. This seems to be a testament to the power of the poems—you seem to get away with so much conveyed in so little time, yet the poems feel expansive in their power and meaning. Do you feel you’ll stick to this kind of poem-scribing in the future, or are willing to branch out and see how longer lines and longer poems work out for you?

Thank you for the compliment. I do try and make my poems packed with detail, but that’s also largely the end result of trying to cut out everything that’s extraneous. At least that’s what my poetry writing has turned into. I’ve always written short poems, though over the past few years I’ve been working against that, exploring longer works. Longer lines I don’t like so much… after I’m done writing a draft with long lines I always feel as though they’re clunky, unpleasing. Long poems, on the other hand, I’m still trying to woo. I wrote a poem a few years ago that’s only four pages long, but it’s a single stanza and takes twelve minutes to read. That’s my only triumph so far, though I’ve thought about working on a book completely consisting of long(er) poems.

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

I was stunned, almost in the literal sense of the word. Emotionally, I was excited, but subdued. The day went like any other, except that the book was in my backpack, and when I ran into people I knew, I pulled it out to show them. Closest approximation: It was like being a secret millionaire.

Did you suggest the image that was used on the cover? Or were you offered choices?

Yes, I found the image. My friend Kelly Moore (another fine poet) showed me the work of a former professor of hers. This was after looking for months with a concept in mind but nothing physical to show for it. Zone 3 was really receptive to and eager for my and Leigh Anne’s input. There wasn’t a choice offered because they wanted to work with us, make sure that we were pleased with the finished book, make us proud to show it off.

Before the day you ripped open that box and saw your book for the first time, did you imagine that your life would change because of it?

Yes, I did imagine that, though I had no ideas how. Even vague ones. Really, I knew that the main difference – and it’s a big one – is that I’d have a book. People would be reading it (hopefully), people I didn’t even know. My words would exist without me. The strangest thing to come about in this regard is googling myself and finding via MySpace a girl in New England who lists me as one of her favorite poets and I swear I have no idea who she is.

Also, I thought it would be easier to get a teaching job.

How has your life been different since your book came out? Were there things you thought would happen that didn't? Surprises?

Well, I don’t have a teaching job. That hasn’t happened (yet).

The largest difference in my life has been the lack of pressure. Oh, there’s still pressure to publish another book (maybe that’ll get me a teaching job), but the pressure is lessened. I have a book already, so I feel, in a way, more free to do what I want with future manuscripts, make them full of odes to cottage cheese, or write them in binary. Those manuscripts have yet to be taken.

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

Mainly, I’ve done readings to promote the book. Luckily, Zone 3 has been able to help out with this, setting up a number of readings for me and providing support – in terms of shipping books – to those that I’ve been fortunate to arrange on my own.

The only bad experiences in this process have been readings as part of a regular series where the featured reader is followed by an open mic. This is because, in my experience, the people who show up are there to read and, because they’re reading after you they’re nervous, tense, and not so focused.

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

Don’t worry so much about it. Writing is what makes you a writer, not publishing (although the latter makes you a writer in the eyes of others). And, in fact, someone did give me this advice: Robert Boswell in a fiction class, though I thought he wrong at the time. The thing is that a book can’t change your life as a writer. The book is static. It’s not going to change, however many copies it sells, however much acclaim it wins for you. The thing is, you still have to write, and the book isn’t going to do your writing for you.

What influence has the book's publication had on your subsequent writing? And are any new books or other projects on the horizon? You also write plays. What else should we anticipate from you in the future?

It’s made me more aware of books as books. Like I said earlier, poems change when they are put in the context of a book, and so what I’ve found myself doing for my two manuscripts after City of Regret is looking at them, from an early point, as cohesive wholes rather than disparate poems stitched together by a desperate surgeon.

As for new books, there’s nothing forthcoming. I’ve the two poetry manuscripts – though only one’s being sent out at the moment – and a fantasy novel as well as a small collection of plays that I’m just now exposing to the air. I helped start a theater company in Houston – Barefoot Theater – and I’m working with them, which makes writing new plays more immediate at the moment. Lastly, I’m starting on a young adult novel. Sans vampires.

Do you have any additional advice for poets sending out their first books to contests and open reading periods?

Don’t be afraid – after you’ve won a contest or have an offer for publication – to compare and really look in detail at the press who wants to publish your book. Of course you should do this before you submit, but there’s a great deal of difference between a possibility and an actuality. Don’t rush. Don’t be afraid to say no.

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

Yes, though as with most things I believe that important change occurs on a personal level. But change one person at a time and eventually you’ll change the whole world.

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Andrew Kozma received his M.F.A. from the University of Florida and his Ph.D. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. His poems have appeared in AGNI Online, Zoland Poetry, Smartish Pace, and Subtropics, and his non-fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review. His first book of poems, City of Regret (2007), won the Zone 3 First Book Award, and he has also been the recipient of a Houston Arts Alliance Fellowship and a fellowship to the Sewanee Writers' Conference. He currently lives in Houston.

• Buy City of Regret at Small Press Distribution
  
• Visit Andrew's website
• Read Andrew's blog
  

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