1. What is your opinion of poetry? Do you love it, hate it, can't live without it, or wish all poets would be stranded on a desert isle? Love it. Love it, love it, love it. There have been times in my life when I avoided it, because I couldn't deal with it, because it opens up too much of that with which I cannot deal. But I always, always, always love it.
2. What is your favorite poem? Copy and paste it here in your answer (and yes, if your favorite poem happens to be a dirty limerick, so be it- share away). There are too many, really, to have one favorite. But if I had to choose one to share...
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish - and men do -
I shall have only good to say of you.
3. Do you have a favorite poet or a favorite collection of poetry? Along the same vein, is there a particular poet that you don't really care for? Why? Favorites: Charles Bukowski--especially What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. Louise Glück--particularly First Four Books Of Poems. Orval Lund, whose Casting Lines: Poems includes one of my very favorite poems--well, really, one of my favorite works of art--ever.
As for poets of whom I'm not fond, there are few. Those whose attachment to form is more stringent than their [apparent] commitment to emotion. Am I allowed to be horrid in this format? The M.Dorners of the poetry world--the sellouts.
4. Do you consider songs to be a form of poetry? Why or why not? Yup. Had a major philosophical discussion/argument about this with someone recently. Led to my interlibrary loan request of the CD Good News for People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse. [He claimed that the music that I like is crap, and that his preferred music, e.g. Modest Mouse, is lyrically challenging and musically advanced. Whatever--I liked it.]
So, as to "why," I'll just say that it's not universal, but much of great importance has been said through the seemingly-innocuous format of music, particularly the popular, over the years. And I'm a happy consumer of it.
5. Do you write poetry? If so: 1) would you consider posting one of your poems with your answer so we may all read it; and 2) what inspires you to write your poetry?
- Yes
- Fuck no
- Right now, I'm only writing about one thing. That's how it's been for most of my [poetry] writing life. Not that my subject's the same as it was when I was, say, 12, but the idea's the same: I fixate. It is, however, wonderful--blissful--to be back in the writing mode again, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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