You had a question?
I have two.
Yeah.
Have you ever written a poem that completely amused you,
even when you go back and reread it two weeks later
that nobody got the humor in?
Oh yeah.
And that's really just sad.
Once the amusement fades, you're just alone in your room.
My second question is, what's the last book you read?
What's the last book I read?
Well I don't know.
I can't tell you the truth for that question,
because I'd rather tell you--
I read a book of poetry by Chelsey Minnis.
It's called Zirconia.
That was it.
It was pretty good.
It had funny punctuation.
Yeah?
Do you ever eavesdrop?
And how do you feel about gossip?
How do I feel about gossip?
Is that what you said?
Yeah.
Do you ever eavesdrop?
Yeah, absolutely.
Gossip is literature.
Really, I'm glad you asked that question.
What is your name?
John.
John?
I'm glad you asked that question because really the progress
of mine growing up to the extent that I've grown up as a poet
has really been to listen less to myself and more
to other people.
Which seems to me to be kind of the normal maturation process.
I was afflicted by my own psychology for a long time.
And so my poems tended to be located around the family
and around the self.
And then my life settled down and I calmed down a little bit.
And I began to realize that sort of my personal joys
and sufferings were actually part of my context.
And we're actually culturally representative.
And the people I was eavesdropping on
were also in some way both generic and wonderfully
particular and flavorful.
And that this self was not a discrete
closed off system, but actually a system
in which all kinds of things are constantly participating.
And that's really the kind of poetry
that I like now as a reader and that I attempt as a writer.
Is to make poems in which many systems are
sort of expressing themselves and sort of manifesting.
Because it all seems like a big swirl to me.
That seems to be what it truly is.
As opposed to sort of the swirl of personality
and personal grievances and stuff like that.
So the big world.
So now I want to get snipers and wars.
I don't understand why there are not more poems
with Saddam Hussein in them.
I don't understand why they're not
more poems with the World Bank.
And just why isn't there more money in poems?
Why don't people talk more about money?
It's so weird.
It's green.
It has the faces of presidents on it.
It carries disease.
And sometimes the presidents looks sad.
And sometimes they look cruel.
Isn't that odd how they change?
Why isn't that in more poems?
I was just reading a book where it
said that literature doesn't really come alive
until people read it.
And I was wondering what you think of translated poetry?
And good poetry, you'll never gain anything
from a translation.
I think that's not true.
I think some poetry actually improves in translation.
I think translated poems are American poems.
If they're translated into American as opposed to English.
It's for my own benefit that I don't
think less of translated poems.
If there's something to get from it I want to get that.
So I think some poetry--
I mean I have heard people, native speakers
say that some poets are better in translation in English
than they actually are in their original language.
We're all sort of scavenging for what we're looking for in poems
anyway.
We're reading those poems for what we need.
I think about eating clay.
Pregnant women eating clay in the South.
That's where we are.
We're pregnant women.
And sometimes the clay you want is a Polish poem.
Yeah.
That was so [INAUDIBLE].
A lot of writers say that a lot of times
they just sit themselves down and force themselves
to write a [INAUDIBLE].
Do you wait until something just pops in your head
or do sit down and write [INAUDIBLE]??
I mean like to write as a neurotic activity.
I like it.
It makes me feel like a writer.
It's weird.
But you know I know people who are very good writers who
proceed the other way.
But that seems like a dangerous operating method
to wait to be inspired.
Because all of a sudden you know you could be 65.
That could be really disappointing.
So thank you so much for your attention to your questions.