“The Next Big Thing” asks writers
to self-interview about recent or forthcoming books with 7-8
designated questions, post somewhere in the blog-o-sphere, and then
“tag” five writers for the next week to do the same. I was tagged
by the inimitable Debra Bruce.
What is the title of the book?
Where did the idea come from for the
book?
My prior quartet of tomes (I Am Spam, About the Author, abbrev, and Basic Cable Couplets)
were all thematically-driven, which is perfect for the chapbook
format. It's a concept I used to eschew, but I had so much fun with I
Am Spam (poems based on spam email subject lines) that it added
fuel to that part of the creative bonfire, and I started thinking
more actively about other short-form ideas. I Am Spam was
published in 2004; in 2006, a number of things happened: I became an
owner, not a renter, for the first time in my adult life; I enrolled
in an MFA program twenty years after completing my undergrad
education; and my mother died. This all impacted my life in general,
but also my writing particularly. Thematic work I get into
feverishly, winding up with a draft rather quickly, whereas
full-length manuscripts are assembled after a specific period of
time, in recognition of writing done within those parameters, and
their cohesion is determined after the fact rather than as a part of
the process. The poems in Brief Nudity cover about three
years, and many are directly responsive to my mental state, though
perhaps not obviously so. There are vestiges of another series that I
toyed with comprising a separate entity – the Loma Prieta persona
poems – but I began to feel that too many of them would be repetitive or even oppressive, so they wound up being folded into the
scope of the longer book.
What genre does your book fall
under?
Poetry
What actors would you choose to play
the part of your characters in a
movie rendition?
I'm a big proponent of the merits of
popular culture, so part of this is easy to answer. Another persona
subject in the book is “Dracula's Daughter,” so Gloria Holden,
who assayed Contessa Zaleska in the 1936 movie of the same name,
would be a no-brainer, though if I could cast a contemporary actress
Julia Goldani Telles, one of the stars of Bunheads would be
better suited to how I visualize her. Jeff Goldblum, Evel Knievel,
and Tom DeLay appear in other poems; Goldblum and DeLay could play
themselves – well, DeLay after he gets out of the pokey – but
with Knievel kaput, unless CGI (which I dislike) is utilized to
insert the old Evel into new scenes, that won't do. George Hamilton
and Sam Elliott have channeled him in the past, but I'd opine they're
too long in the tooth to lively up the Evel I have in mind; George Eads (who plays Nick Stokes on CSI) was cast in a 2004 TV
movie, but I don't watch the show so I'll go out on a limb and say
that I'd enjoy seeing Daniel Day-Lewis as Knievel, mainly because he
would insist on remaining in character throughout the shoot and break
a few bones at least. Using animation – which is so popular with
the kids nowadays – Hercules, The Angry Whopper®,
Tweety Bird and Winnie the Pooh could all be realized quite easily,
though only after paying through the nose for the rights to
fleetingly use these vigorously trademarked icons.
What is the one sentence synopsis of
your book?
“Brief Nudity's poems are
concerned with the juxtaposition between elegy and irreverence.”
How long did it take you to write
the first draft of the manuscript?
As mentioned above, most of the book
was composed from 2006-2009. Leonardo da Vinci supposedly said, “Art
is never finished, only abandoned” (Paul Valéry is attributed with
switching out “art” for “a poem”), and while that sounds
thoughtful in theory, in practice I disagree. Writers have always
been historically, perhaps stubbornly isolationistic; that's endemic
of being creative. Writing-by-committee is not something I've ever
subscribed to, and I fear that having too many cooks in the kitchen
creates even more dilemmas – there's a time to dither and a time
to be done with it. However, I received some excellent feedback from
my MFA co-poets (Chris Collins, Pamela Johnson Parker, Karissa
Sorrell, Chet Weise, and Scott Woodham) and faculty mentors (Brian Barker and Ann Neelon) that proved invaluable to many poems
individually, as well as with envisioning the book as a collection.
Without all their input it would not be the same, and it may not have
been published.
Who or what inspired you to write
this book?
See above comments regarding pop
culture. I love movies and music, and don't distinguish between 'high
art' and what others may consider lowbrow; part one of Brief
Nudity is introduced by a quote from John Prine, who I think is
the ideal poster child for such tightrope-walking. My mother dying
was also an influence, though ironically enough it resulted in two
poems about my father, who died in 1980. The Loma Prieta earthquake
prompted four poems; I was in San Francisco at the time, and maintain
some vivid memories of that day (October 17, 1989). If you live in
the Bay Area for awhile, you become inured to earthquakes, which are
common, but this one was magnitude 7.1. Luckily no one I knew was
injured, and because I lived in the Mission, which is built on
bedrock, the worst that happened in my apartment is some books fell
off my shelves; we did lose power, but it was restored relatively
quickly. I do recall how everyone was outside, talking excitedly
about the quake, venting as a form of auto-therapy; my neighborhood
was abnormally dark, but it was oddly soothing, and I felt
disappointed when the lights came back on. The windows of a pizza
place up the street had shattered so they were making pies with their
gas ovens, and passing free slices through the opening before
boarding up. These memories instigated the Loma Prieta poems but it
was only after reading a New York Times article about some of
the victims of the I-880 collapse in Oakland that I was finally able
to write them.
What else about your book might
pique the reader’s interest?
I'm originally from Flint, Michigan,
and while I was still in high school I started working as a reporter
for The Flint Voice, whose co-founder and editor was Michael Moore. Michael was one of the first people who gave me a forum as a
writer, and the experience of working there was often chaotic, but
enjoyable as well as educational; it also cemented many of the ideas
I already had about my hometown. Since I worked for the Voice,
I was frequently called “pinko,” “punk rocker” and “fag”
by my less enlightened Flint brethren, epithets I wore as badges of
iconoclasm. Roger and Me also accurately conveys Flint's very
sad and strange, socially-suicidal tendencies. I came of age at a
time when the city still had some diminishing vestiges of culture,
which I craved, including a downtown with historical relevance and of
course its importance as a union town, but it was on the decline with
jobs being outsourced and people fleeing in droves. I wouldn't be the
person I am today if I had grown up somewhere that was more culturally
enriching and artistically endowed; living in Flint was a struggle at
a critical time and that continues to influence everything I do.
Will your book be self-published or
represented by an agency?
My tagged writers for next Wednesday
are:
