John C. Erianne
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An Interview With Cindy Rosmus
Published August 8, 2006 | from “Calpurnia Window
The door opened. Panthene shampoo, she smelled of. He saw wet blonde hair, a white bath towel wrapped loosely around her body. Broad shoulders to hold up those luscious tits. When he shifted uncomfortably, she smiled. “Tony? Callie’s friend?” She adjusted the towel. Was he dreaming, or had she made it looser? Moonlight made water beads gleam on her skin. Silvered her tan lines from different bikinis. Revealed a blood-red nipple. His shorts felt tighter. “I was.” For a while, they just stared. Even without make-up, Calpurnia’s mom’s eyes were gorgeous. Wise. One look told her what he was about.
– Cindy Rosmus, © 2005.
Cindy getting inspired.
CINDY ROSMUS is a Jersey girl living in Bayonne (Remember Mortal Thoughts?). Weekdays she works as an English Language Arts editor at the same Manhattan textbook company where she was a customer service rep for years.
Much of her “cutting edge” fiction has been seen in “noir” magazines such as Hardboiled, her horror stories in Black Petals and Thin Ice. Her more literary pieces have appeared in the North American Review. One story, “Mikey’s Dad,” which first appeared in the NAR, was later anthologized in Sleeping With Dionysus: Women, Ecstasy, and Addiction. “Angel of Manslaughter” won the 1986 Margarita G. Smith Award for Short Fiction from the New School For Social Research. Cindy has also been a part-time porn writer, with regular featured stories in Just 18, Fox, and Oui.
Cindy makes friends easily, and enjoys socializing as much as solitude, both essential to fiction writing. She’s both a Dark Shadows and X-Files freak. She’s also a thrill-seeker, a Gemini, and a Christian.
John C. Erianne: What prompted you to begin writing?
Cindy Rosmus: I’ve been at it since I was five. Back then, my whole life—my main source of fun—was writing, drawing cartoons. My childhood sucked. I was your classic misfit, smothered by weird parents, tortured in school, by nuns, but even worse by the other kids. When you hurt that much, you’ve got to channel it. I just had to get away, somehow, some way, even if just in my head. But two things I learned about writing from Day One: it’s a great escape, and the best form of revenge.
JCE: Who are some of your favorite writers?
CR: Carson McCullers, and Chekhov, ‘cos, hey, they’re the BEST! Also Shirley Jackson and Salinger. My favorite book is Catcher in the Rye. As a kid (and adult) I loved Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Theology-wise, I’m big on C. S. Lewis.
JCE: What have you learned from them, and how have they influenced your own writing?
CR: Back in ’89, I met Joyce Carol Oates, and never forgot what she said. How a writer has the RIGHT to just sit and stare out the window and DAYDREAM, because that’s all part of the writing process. If your friend calls you up and says, “Am I disturbing you?” the answer should be, “YES!”
JCE: Hardboiled, hardcore literature, whether it be noir, noirish horror, or some variation in between, has long been dominated by male writers. There are notable exceptions, of course—writers like Kathy Koja, and the late Kathy Acker to name just a couple. However, such writing is not the typical milieu for female writers. What attracts you to such stories?
CR: Freedom of expression. You don’t have to watch your language, or aim to please anybody. You exert control: over the lives (and deaths) of your characters. Now, with porn, it’s formulaic, with actual rules. It’s boring. In the end, la-la-la, everybody gets laid. But with noir, somebody gets to DIE!
JCE: Fair Enough. I guess what I’m getting at, and why it seems odd to me is that, during my years as editor of DEVIL BLOSSOMS, I’ve had numerous occasions to publish material such as your story, “Calpurnia’s Window,” and have been labeled a misogynist for doing so. It has long been a stock charge against noir literature from feminist literary and film critics that such material promotes the objectification and victimization of women. Do you think this is a fair criticism of noir?
CR: No way. In noir, the only “victim” is the corpse. Hardboiled females are in control, call it like they see it. They don’t pull any punches. They’re too many killjoys out there, who expect you to think their way. The whole world has gotten too “politically correct.” Like on TV commercials, I don’t need to be told the doctor is really an actor, or that the guy driving his car off a cliff is a stunt man. It’s all on you. God gave you the talent. God knows your heart. You have to write what you feel, what makes you proud. If you’re worried about offending somebody, why write? Get drunk, instead.
JCE: Do your own views of the genre inform your approach to story writing?
CR: I write from my heart, and my ass. It just happens to be a chick’s ass. I’ve been told I “write like a man,” and I’m proud of it. But I love being a woman. Correction: a “hardboiled female.”
JCE: It’s been my experience that no two writers share the exact same creative process. Tell us about your creative process. Are there any special rituals you go through before sitting down to put words down on paper?
CR: Oh, yeah! First of all, a period of isolation. Phones shut off, dead silence, unless I need a special song that inspires the piece I’m writing. No partying the night before, just good reading: McCullers, Chekhov. And, right before I “put words on paper”: reading Isaiah 40. With serious fiction, anyway.
JCE: Isaiah, huh? “Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.” Okay, you mentioned that you are a Christian. Given the subject matter of your writing, this would seem to be a contradiction. Care to share your thoughts on this.
CR: I’m an Episcopalian, & very liberal, as far as “traditional” Christian values go. But, like I said in answer to that other question, I believe God knows our hearts. I love God, & Christ, & feel very close to both. LOVE is the thing. I’m a lot better at doing things I’m asked TO do, vs. asked NOT to do. Like C.S. Lewis, I believe that hell is locked from the INSIDE!
As far as “contradictions” go, my whole life is a contradiction in some way or another. I would never deny the Christian faith to people who’re anti-Christian & anti-religion in general, nor would I deny the other, “contradictory” sides of me to Fundamentalist Christians. Once again, GOD KNOWS YOUR HEART!
JCE: Explain Pat Robertson.
I can’t explain Pat Robertson. I’m not sure what he’s been up to, lately. Is it “anti-abortion” stuff? I happen to be “pro-choice,” because if I ever got pregnant accidentally — the ONLY way I would ever get pregnant! I would NOT want to be stuck having a baby against my will.
JCE: Okay, let’s move on. Obsession is a recurring motif in your stories. What are your obsessions? Do any of those obsessions creep into your fiction from time-to-time?
CR: And always extremes! Two perfect examples. I’ve always been crazy about the actor, Christopher Lee. So if you see a sexy, intimidating, “older” guy, you’ll know where he came from. And, as far as the hot, young guys I write about, well, you know who YOU are!
JCE: William S. Burroughs once defined reality as a “constant scanning pattern.” How do you define reality and what is its relationship to the fictional worlds you create?
CR: I’m not good at “defining” it. Just at creating my own. I bring you real people, with real emotions and perversions, who make real big messes of their lives sometimes. Really!
JCE: Recently, James Frey has come under fire for abusing his artistic license in his memoir, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. What do you think about this? Has he committed some unforgivable literary sin, or is this too much ado about nothing?
CR: Key word is “memoir.” If he hadn’t called it that, would this whole mess even have happened? What a jerk he must feel like, now! The point is, there is “fiction” in fact, and “fact” in fiction, sometimes with just a thin line between. But you have to be clear which is which. Maybe he was scared the book wouldn’t sell, if it was “just another novel.”
JCE: You are a fairly prolific short fiction writer. Any book-length projects in the works?
CR: I once wrote a novel that was rejected so many times, I turned it into a screenplay which is now up for grabs. I’ve written other screenplays, also up for grabs. But I just love the short story form. I feel I’m ready to get a collection together, maybe a chapbook.
JCE: What, in your opinion, is the biggest challenge facing beginning fiction writers today? What advice would you give them?
CR: Three easy pieces: One, don’t expect to get RICH! Two, don’t ever let REJECTION frustrate you! Three, don’t let other writers tell you what to do. Like, when they say, “You MUST write something every day.” That’s THEM. If you force it, it won’t come out right. You’ll hate it, & maybe start to hate writing, period. Don’t ever let THAT happen.
JCE: That about does it. Thank you, Cindy for your time.
CR: Thanks … I really appreciate this opportunity.
Posted in Interviews, poetry, poets | 
Cindy Rosmus, Hard-boiled fiction, Interviews, noir, Short Stories | 
Leave a commentAn Interview With Frances LeMoine
Published July 7, 2003 | Excerpt from “Jose and the Jaws of Death”
The hamster, José, squeaked in a small, high, voice, as if to chastise Michelle, saying, “Michelle.my paw.it is caught..I fear I will lose the paw if you do not act immediately.” His tone also implied that had Michelle cleaned the wheel earlier in the week, as she had intended, this state of affairs could have been avoided altogether. His small voice chided, “Ahh.the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
“Oh, no,” Michelle cried when she saw José’s predicament. “What shall I do?”
José could only look up in irritation with his grease puddle eyes and hope to somehow, without words, appeal to what little common sense the child had.
The pain had become excruciating, and it took all of the discipline José could muster not to wriggle and further entangle his paw, or quite possibly his right flank.
After a few moments of raising her eyes left, then right, Michelle squealed, “I know! The ice tongs!”
– Frances LeMoine
![PICTURE_115[1] (13K)](http://asteriusonline.com/Interviews/images/frances.JPG "Frances in her writing room.")
Frances in her writing room.
John C. Erianne:Gertrude Stein once said that “Poetry is concerned with using with abusing, with losing with wanting with denying with avoiding with adoring with replacing the noun.” Do you think this is a fair statement?
Frances LeMoine: I’ll go along with that. Sounds like a description of life, as well.
JCE: How do you approach the use of language in your own poetry?
FL: In my work, my approach to language in poetry is one of trimming the fat, removing all the excess that detracts. Poems die easily. The weight of an extra word is all it takes to drown a piece.
JCE: What are your strengths as a poet? In what areas do you feel you still need improvement?
FL: My major strength is imagery, or so I’m told. I see poetry as more of an art than a craft. I’m not what one would call “technically proficient.” I don’t know if that’s necessarily a weakness or if I need improvement. It’s something I need to think about. I read a review of The Moon recently that had a couple of criticisms from a technical vantage point. I didn’t even understand the terminology the critic used!
JCE: Who is your favorite poet?
FL: My favorite living poet is Jim Carroll. Big influence.
JCE: How have you been influenced by Carroll’s work?
FL:Similar New York sensibility. I read his “Book of Nods” as a young woman and just sank into it. His work gave me permission to write, or so I thought at the time. It was as if his writing validated my own. Our syles aren’t similar, though. I’m also a big fan of Brautigan, whose directness and purity have influenced me tremendously. I think he’s peerless.
JCE: You publish the literary journal Flash!Point. How does your role as a poet influence your role as an editor?
FL:I have a loose “wish I’d said that” rule. If I read something I would like to have written, it gets in.
JCE: What are some of the things that irritate you about reading submissions?
FL: I’m impatient with writers who don’t bother to proof what they send. I’m irritated by the trite and the obvious. I’m also annoyed by the absurd over-use of certain symbols and metaphors. Blood, bones, blah, blah, blah. It’s like a virus.
JCE: Last year, your first full-length collection was published. What advice would you give younger writers about getting their own books published? What do you think about self-publishing?
FL: This may sound strange, but I’m too vain for a vanity press. If I have to pay to have my work published, I’d rather keep it to myself. Guess I still need that outer voice telling me the work is good. As for advice to younger writers trying to get their books published — a few years back I wrote to Charles Simic asking him how to do it. He wrote back advising me to continue getting individual poems published and hope they get noticed. There’s no real method, unless you publish yourself.
JCE:Last summer, John Martin pulled the plug on Black Sparrow Press. In making this decision, Martin as much as admitted that he didn’t think the small press was a viable mechanism for writers or publishers. What do you think of the small press? In the wake of big media sprawl, what, if anything, will keep the small press vital?
FL: There will always be those who want to read and see and hear what’s outside the sprawl. Hopefully there will be enough of them to keep the small press afloat. I’ve yet to make a dime on Flash!Point, but as long as people want to read it and it doesn’t cost TOO much, it’ll be around. I read a lot of the “little” magazines. Others do, too. Looking for the pearls in the oysters.
JCE: I work part-time as a substitute teacher. I understand that you also recently did a tour in a public high school as a sub. Any thoughts on that?
FL: Well, I was less than kind to substitute teachers when I was in school. Instant karma.
JCE: Where do you do most of your writing? Describe your writing space.
FL: I carry a notebook and pens with me all the time and I’m always writing down ideas, snippets, snapshots. I don’t have a writing space, per se. I tried that route and it didn’t work. Made me feel like I HAD to produce something. When I have a poem or short story pretty much together in my head and my notes, I’ll sit down at the kitchen table or on a chair in the living room and write it up. When it’s done, it goes into the PC.
JCE: What are your passions?
FL: Writing, reading, film. I used to really love watching movies and then I stopped for a while. Now I’m getting into them again. Reading is like breathing for me. Writing is the greatest passion, and I need to do more of it. Always trying to find time to write more. I’m also crazy about my dog, Pippi.
An Interview With Roibéard Uí Neíll
Published April 11, 2003 | SPURIOUS PURSUITS
Ghandi despaired we would
eventually let guns do
our talking. Thoreau
foresaw pines, ponds, & peace crushed
under tons of concrete.
would Aesop, here & now, be
saying I must really care
compromised by consumer culture?
Isha, the last of his race, which god carried him
away? & what are
the rest of us doing with
our time? we eat, we
fuck, we fight, we find
ourselves swinging through leafless trees.
– Robert O’Neal
Robert O'Neal contemplating his universe.
Robert O’Neal is of Dutch-Irish extraction. He was born in Alexandria, Loiusiana in 1959. An Air Force brat, he’s had opportunities to reside in many places, including Arizona and what was once West Germany. This is why he enjoys extremes — Apaches and desert, castles and forests. He’s lived in Southern Indiana for 28 years. A paint-tech by trade, he’s worked the past 13 years at a small custom cabinet shop located, ironically, in the Harrison Co. Forestry. He can’t recommend the trade, but it’s kept him solvent enough to pursue passions which include imported & domestic stouts, traditional world music (as opposed to “fusion”), theology and philosophy, and a subscription to Scientific American. Bird-watching and star-gazing are free. When he isn’t dissatisfied with his writing, he ponders the implications of having elbows sharp enough to be a gargoyle’s wing-spurs. His first collection was published by Asterius Press in 2001. His second collection, Pinfeathers, Primates & Paradoxes, was published by Pitchfork Press in 2003.
John C. Erianne: So, what prompted you to begin writing poetry?
Robert O’Neal: Well, John, that’s still a mystery to me. I didn’t wake up one morning, stretch, yawn, smack the floor with my feet, and decide, “Yep, I’m gonna write poetry for the rest of my life!” I’ve been a prodigious reader since I was five years of age, and have always loved the written word . . .
JCE: Then why not some other genre?
RON: Poetry crept up on me — it really wasn’t a conscious decision. Of course, I was exposed to “fairies & flowers” concrete verse, but when I first read e.e.cummings, it was like having the wind tear my map along crooked perforated lines. Nothing left to do but follow my ugly muse. I may never find my way out of this labyrinth.
JCE: Who is your favorite poet?
RON: The aforementioned e.e. cummings, of course. Baudelaire, Etheridge Knight, Sylvia Plath, W.B. Yeats, Jim Carroll, the haiku of Basho, the Sufi mystics Rumi and Hafiz. I believe in stirring the pot. Also, freaks of metaphor, dark humor, & satire rate pretty high on my list.
JCE: What do you think makes for great poetry?
RON: Great poetry? Hmmm . . . guess I’ll have to bore you with the same old answer — I’m not a critic. Much like everyone else, I know what sparks my cerebral cortex when I read it. I’m quite comfortable with the raw as well as the sublime. Isn’t that what anyone who dares to create, hopes for? You pluck a string and spend the rest of your life waiting to harmonize with the hearts, minds, and souls that echo in empathy. Negative peptides or positivism, but we find our own kind.
JCE: How has your own life experience shaped your poetry?
RON: Surviving Da’s unhappy brand of religion, burying a daughter, a divorce early on, being locked into the workaday world since I was sixteen years old, the ensuing lifelong struggle to prevent my inner children, imagination, curiosity, a sense of wonder, from being sodomized, how indifference is becoming more attractive everyday is all there, explicit or implicit. Not that it’s been all bad. It’s what my muse prefers to contemplate. Basically, all of us in the underground are comparing scars until we’re called upon to fondle eternity.
JCE: Do you believe it is necessary for a creative artist to suffer for his art?
RON: Damn it, John, what does that mean?
JCE: (grinning) Shit, I don’t know. I guess what I’m getting at is . . . well, I know writers who have actually lived relatively comfortable lives and their writing is . . . well, it’s really kind of awful. I find myself wondering, is it awful because they simply have no talent or is it awful because they simply lack the kind of life experience that they can draw from, that can shape their talent? So, do you think your own tragedies have made you a better writer than you would have been had you not gone through all that?
RON: No doubt there are a multitude of well-adjusted artists who are no less valid simply because they weren’t keelhauled, or nailed to a tree. I’m not sure I want to read them. Those who have gone through their travails and are speaking from a core of peace, I have more respect for them. Having said that, I can’t recommend depression approaching critical mass, or disillusionment, hypersensitivity, alienation. There are days I believe poetry is the most pathetic rationalization for one’s existence. There are days I understand it’s the only justification for one’s existence. I know there’s a pill out there that will cure me of my malaise, but I’m not ready to poison my muse just yet.
JCE: Even though the Internet and digital media technologies have revolutionized publishing, many writers and publishers are still skeptical. What do you think about the “new media” and what it means for the future of literature.
RON: Being someone who’s had to rely on hand-me-down manual and electric typewriters, you don’t know how grateful I am to Larry Bilbrey, an auto mechanic who, as a sideline, reconditions computers and gives them to the economically-challenged. Hurrah! The Internet is a wonderful tool. I’ve filled some gaps in my book and music libraries with it. Look at this interview. Online poetry and home pages are great. Nothing wrong with having your ass hanging in an electronic wind. Even the service from Xlibris, books published on demand. But that’s what it boils down to for me — books. Maybe it’s my generation — nothing can hope to replace the weight, the smell, the “steady friendship” of these material repositories of thought. And, albeit, e-mail is good in a pinch, letter-writing is a dead art. Yes, here I am, an advocate of the space program, and nothing can supplant the time, care, expectation of those envelopes sealed with human saliva. Flashback to these same issues in Ben Bova’s science fiction novel, Cyberbooks.
JCE: You read a lot of science fiction. What science fiction writer has had the biggest impact on your thinking?
RON: Wow! Since I was eight years of age. I was living in Arizona at the time. A neighbor who knew how much I loved reading gave me an omnibus of H.G. Wells (I still have that book). It was also the same summer I saw Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and watched Neil Armstrong put the first boot print on the moon. It’s a passion that shows no signs of waning. Although there’s a surfeit of Americans who take no pride in being a space faring civilization. Oh ye of little imagination! And despite reading a lot of “hard” SF, James Morrow has assuredly influenced me a great deal, due to the religious and moral/ethical issues he addresses in his fantasy and science fiction. Only Begotten Daughter, if you read nothing else of his work, is a futuristic look at what would happen in this country if circumstances pushed the Christian Right into power. science vs. theology. For the same reason, Octavia Butler and Sheri S. Tepper complete my holy three, because I resonate with their political/social/theological viewpoints.
JCE: Not so long ago, in the Small Press Review, critic and poetic gadfly, Tim Scannell called into question the validity of political poetry as a legitimate art form. What do you think about that?
RON: That’s ludicrous. Mr. Tim must be living in a world where Pablo Neruda was never exiled for his poetic grumblings against the Chilean government, where e.e. cummings never put the words “…I will not kiss your fucking flag. . .” in the mouth of Olaf Greatheart, where Seamus Heaney never received the Nobel, disqualified because he wrote some poetry dealing with The Troubles in Northern Ireland. I recently perused a collection of Russian poets from the 19th and 20th centuries, who protested in verse. You know they took their lives in their own hands? Does this same attitude extend to, say, certain paintings of Man Ray, even the music of Woody Guthrie?
JCE: Do you think it’s even possible to be a poet without occasionally delving into the political climate of the times, especially in light of current events, 9/11, the war in Iraq?
RON: Just as all mediums are obligated to capture the temperament of the times, poetry should be no exception. Having said that, I believe there should be a balance, room for nature poems, poems about heartbreak and loneliness, daffodils and star-gazing. Poets should write what they’re compelled to write. Writing out of a sense of duty or obligation is self-defeating. There are occasions I wish I could spend more time hugging trees, rather than tripping off to have my ass npped by dragons. This is an exercise to check my own pulse, not out of any foolish notion that it will change things.
JCE: While we’re on the subject of politics, any thoughts on the current election year?
RON: Yes, well, Kerry seems more and more like a career politician, but I must be part of the “anybody but Bush” contingent. I don’t believe I despised Reagan as much as I do Georgie Porgie. I think we should have stayed out of Iraq, or at least worked with the U.N. instead of against it. Certainly not this jump in and start kicking without forethought King George has us embroiled in. Any intelligent human knows you don’t disband an army without giving its members other work for their hands, and now the death toll grows incrementally as Iraq slips towards possible civil war. I’m not a bit apologetic — the issue of civil union for homosexuals will distract a majority of Americans from the underhandedness now transpiring. The Christian Right will literally let the world go to hell in order to keep “marriage” sacred. Well, I tell the Fundys that if Gobshit George is the paragon of Christ-like behavior, Hell can’t touch the rest of us.
JCE: Many of your poems have an anti-religious theme. What is it about Christianity that bothers you the most?
RON: Anti-? Perhaps. More like grimly amused. I’ve always disdained fundamentalism in all its permutations. And in light of 9/11, well, what’s below disdain? Having lived in the bible-belt since 1974, you can imagine all the nonsense I’ve heard: everything from a minister who was happy to assure me Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. we’re burning because they worked towards “secular ends”, to a woman who informed me that if those early tribes of Jews had listened to God and exterminated the Canaanites, we wouldn’t have the current crisis between Israel and Palestine. One must conclude that the “supernatural agent” informing their lives is a hate-mongering pyromaniac who endorses genocide. Give me a break. Much less the rabid, cross-climbing preacher who convinced Andrea Yates that her depression and post partum psychosis were attributable to Satan. A notion so medieval, it staggers me. I don’t see much difference between these people and the individuals who piloted jetliners into the Trade Towers. Intolerance? Ignorance as a prerequisite for Heaven? What I find most amusing is moral terrorism. You know, those Chick comics advising me I’m a heartbeat from Hell, the churches in the area posting their roadside witticisms: my current favorite is “Proper exposure to the Son will prevent burning.” I don’t know what satisfaction these fools possibly derive from consigning a world of people to eternal damnation. You can have all the love and compassion imaginable, provided you kiss the buttocks of a particular celestial entity. As far as that goes, I find punishment without spiritual advancement to be non-sequitur. Guess it’s easier to control people with guilt, fear, the threat of punishment. No thanks, I will remain one of those individuals who love people regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, who will continue to be concerned about us as a species, without expectation of thanks in this life, or hope of reward in the theoretical next. I eschewed fideism many years ago, and since then have stuck my thumb into many theological pies, including Druidism and scientific theism. There is much beauty here. Unfortunately, the people who would do well to temper their worldview by reading comparative theology/history/literature/poetry, are the ones least inclined to do so, as if their tenuous faith would evaporate if they opened their minds. Until a rational deism becomes the norm, John, I’m afraid all of us are in the cross-hairs.
JCE: Hmm . . . Is it possible Robert is a hypocrite?
RON: No doubt, but I refuse to glorify my hypocrisy with wings and a halo.
JCE: Speaking of hypocrisy, what do you think about the pedophile priest scandal rocking the Catholic church over the last couple of years?
RON: Oh, it’s nothing new. I recall other incidences. The Church has simply been adept at hiding and protecting their malefactors. Now they’re enjoying the blowback. John, you and I would already be sitting in jail for lesser offenses. Proof once again that if you have money/power/position in this country, you’re above the law. Yes, one must lament the human toll, but I would suggest a bright point in all of this – it’s been delightful to see Cardinal Ratzinger, who (if I’m not mistaken) heads the papal office empowered to investigate these, and other, clerical abuses. Yes, the same pompous bastard who said non-Christians (me!), and Christians who aren’t Catholic, can’t possibly enjoy the level of spirituality The Church bestows. As if they had a monopoly on The Infinite’s ear. Spare me.
JCE: Okay, one more and I’ll let you go. A Goth kid comes up to you at a poetry reading and shoves his latest volume of vampire love poetry in your face. How would you respond?
RON: Grow out of it, for fuck sake! We have an administration that’s seeking to further polarize West and East, rich and poor. We have patent-hoarding pharmaceutical companies, the same racism/sexism/homophobia, an ever-burgeoning world population and its attendant environmental woes, avaricious CEOs – these are the real monsters, they will impact your life, and you can bet they’re harder to kill than some old, musty bloodsucker. John, it’s sad to think, at last tally, that there is a mere twenty-percent of us in this country who give a damn about what’s happening in the rest of the world. As Harlan Ellison said, “America – change it or lose it.”
JCE: Okay, Robert. Thank a lot, man.
RON: Anytime. . .
Posted in Interviews, poetry, poets | 9/11, Baudelaire, Bush, e.e. cummings, Etheridge Knight, H.G. Wells, Interviews, Jim Carroll, Man Ray, Poetry, Poets, Politics, Religion, Robert O'Neal, Sylvia Plath, W.B. Yeats | Leave a commentAn Interview With Ryn Gargulinski
Published November 23, 2002 | UNDER THE STAIRS
trolls dwell
under the stairs
on 62nd Street
haunting the hall
with child’s echo
bouncing the ball.
saying I must really care
- because I am crying.
- Ryn Gargulinski, 09.01.00.
Ryn Gargulinski in front of Nathan's Hot Dog Stand
RYN GARGULINSKI is a poet, journalist, cartoonist and humorist. Her work includes a thesis on the Folklore of New York City Subway Workers that she wrote while earning her MA in English Literature from Brooklyn College, where she also received a BFA in Creative Writing and the Donald G. Whiteside Poetry Award. Her poetry, illustrations and articles have appeared in a number of publications; she writes a monthly Brooklyn column for 12gauge.com. She has made appearances on television, radio, at Stand Up New York Comedy Club, and as featured poet at NYC venues.
JCE: What are your obsessions?
RG: I am currently obsessed with hats and the lunch special number 77 from the Vietnamese restaurant across the street from my job. I am frequently obsessed with collecting treasures – even if they are treasures in my mind only. I am eternally obsessed with expressing myself — through writing, artwork, a wrought-iron watch, you name it.
JCE: What’s the worst experience you’ve ever had at the hands of an editor?
RG: An editor for a local paper where I worked made me cry. I was day one as an intern doing a little write-up on an old man celebrating his 90thbirthday and the editor ripped the piece to shreds. I hated the old man, I hated the 90th birthdays — I even hated writing, if only for an instant. Never in my life have I felt like that — like my writing abilities were totally worthless (although my mom tells me a first-grade teacher said something similar). The editor’s version of the old man birthday story ran with my byline in the next issue of the paper.
JCE: I’ve never found a satisfactory definition for poetry. It seems we all have our own ideas about what is and is not a poem. What’s your definition?
RG: Poetry is a translation of our thoughts, a glimpse into our own reality. Poetry is a slanted sidewalk (often warped, sometimes broken).
JCE: Who are some of your favorite poets? What poet, living or dead, do you think you’ve learned from the most?
RG:My favorite poets are Emily Dickinson, Charles Baudelaire, William Blake, Charles Bukowski and William Carlos Williams (not necessarily in that order). I have learned something from every one of them – Dickinson taught me flies are poetic; Baudelaire and Bukowski taught me even drunks can be poetic (and even more so when they sober up); WCW taught me the beauty of brevity. I will forever thank Blake for awareness of the “mind-forg’d manacles” (and how to write beyond — or even because of them).
JCE: How old were you when you wrote your first poem and what inspired you to write it?
RG: I wrote my first poem when I was about seven years old. I wrote an entire book of poems when I was eight. I don’t remember an exact incident that may have inspired me but I was always writing about cats and dead things (sometimes one in the same).
JCE: Have you ever been to a poetry slam? Would you ever participate in a poetry slam? Why or why not?
RG: I have not yet been to a poetry slam. From what I have heard about them, I am enticed to participate but not before I am ready. My exoskeleton must be further developed before I venture into that territory (still recovering from the editor at local paper — ha, ha).
JCE: How do you feel about the Internet as a venue for literature and how do you see the Internet literary scene evolving in the future?
RG: The Internet is an excellent venue for literature — both for research and for writing. Words are accessible to millions of people at the click of a mouse. I see it evolving even further than it has to include every imaginable form of literary expression. I see the definition of literature expanding to fit the possibilities.
JCE: What do you think of poetry newsgroups?
RG: Poetry newsgroups can be very beneficial but they also tend to be too overwhelming. There is so much information coming at all angles it is sometimes difficult to extract just what you need from them. I have had to cancel my subscription to one after a day and a half after my e-mail was clogged with over 80 messages (with messages arriving as I was sending the mail to cancel).
JCE: POETRY magazine. . . thoughts?
RG: I have just bought my first copy last month and I love it.
JCE: What advice can you give our younger writers who are struggling with the word?
RG: Keep writing. Every voice is important. YOUR voice is important, no matter how you say it.
JCE: Thanks, Ryn, for taking the time.
RG: Thought-provoking questions. It was a pleasure.
Posted in Interviews, poetry, poets | Baudelaire, Bukowski, Editors, Emily Dickinson, Interviews, Poetry, Poets, Ryn Gargulinski, William Blake, William Carlos Williams | Leave a commentAn Interview with Shane Allison
Published March 23, 2001 | HE SAID HE WANTED TO GET NAKED WITH ME
He pulls me like a gun, point blank to his lips.
His mustache is a cactus pricking skin.
he gropes my nipples.
“Show me those titties,” he whispers.
He strokes me in the restroom mirror.
His ass angles over assuming the position.
A peeking red rectum gives me the eye
and I grimace in disgust.
He crouches to my crotch.
Saliva trickles to the base of sensitive skin.
Just when I’m about to explode like a Texas oil rig,
he zips up, washes hands and never looks back.
I thought he wanted to get naked with me.
Shane Allison’s poems have appeared in Axe Factory Review, Devil Blossoms, The Doomed City, Gnome, and 13thWR, among many others. He is currently studying creative writing and film at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
JCE: When did you start writing and what was the catalyst or inspiration for your first piece?
SA: I have always been a writer. Whether it was scribbling my name on my mother’s furniture or writing a poem. I wasn’t always into poetry. In junior high, I was more into writing essays and writing was something I liked more than all the other subjects. I didn’t start writing poems until my tenth grade English class when Mrs. Kanu made us write one for an assignment. I thought she was nuts. I didn’t think I could do it, but I went home and wrote out a poem about the moon. I turned it in and she loved it and wanted me to read it to the class. They didn’t believe I had written the poem, but that was like a compliment because they were really saying that the poem was too good to be my work. After that, I was bitten by that poetic bug and have been writing poetry ever since.
JCE: Who is your favorite writer and what is it about this person’s work that you like so much?
SA: I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me this question. In high school, when I was writing, I wandered into the bookstore and picked-up a book of poems by Langston Hughes. I was bothered, bewitched and bewildered by his attention to detail and this awesome ability to say so much in short poems. I like the down-hominess of his work when he talks about beauty parlors and big, black women in red dresses. Many of his poems on politics and race relations are phenomenal. One of my favorites of his is a poem called, “Cross,” in which the speaker in the poem is bi-racial. I used to try to copy Hughes’s style. This is a poem I wrote in my teens: Sleeping ….. Wake up wake up you sleepy head, the dawn is up, the dark is dead, wake up wake up you sleepy head… Along with Hughes, I started reading Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Alice Walker and Allen Ginsberg. I’m still recovering from Ginsberg’s work. I love the freedom and repetition in his work. Like Hughes, I would copy his style. Now, I’m reading a lot of work from anthologies. I use anthologies as a reference for discovering new poets and writers. There are some wonderful artists in anthologies.
JCE: We just had a presidential election awhile back. You live in Tallahassee; what’s your take on the whole mess?
SA: A whole mess is right. A lot of people from Tallahassee loved the attention and the publicity and others just saw it as nothing. I think it’s interesting that we have become part of political history. It was interesting to have the rest of the nation’s eyes glued to our behinds to see what Tallahassee was going to do. It didn’t really affect me. I just went on with my everyday duties.
JCE: Do you believe poets have a role to play in the political arena?
SA: I believe as artists we have the freedom to choose what we want to take part in and what we believe in. In my opinion as an African-American gay man, I can’t live in this country without being political. There are so many issues that have everything to do with my future and me. Racism and homophobia are political issues to the extreme and I love to tackle these issues in my work. We all have been in a situation where we say, “enough is enough. I’m tired of this shit. I’m going to write about it. I have something to say.” I don’t see how we cannot be political in a country like America. I know writers who live life through rose-colored glasses and write about flowers, trees and summer vacations. That’s all well and good, but that’s just a one-sided piece of self-expression. How can a writer, no matter whether they are straight or black, white or green, not write about Matthew Shepard or about a Texas black man being dragged by a truck to his death? Our problem is, we don’t want to see this stuff. We thank our lucky stars that none of it happened in our neighborhood, town or community. That is not the issue. The issue is that it can happen in our town, community and neighborhood.
JCE: Poets in my experience, tend to be viewed with suspicion by average Americans. As a poet who is openly gay, to what extent has your experiences been a burden? A source of strength?
SA: Some editors I’ve encountered from one magazine or another, have been very receptive to my work and there have been some that have been downright rude and never want to hear from me again. I like to be open in my work and about my life. When I put it out there, there’s nothing to suspect about me. I don’t know what non-artists would be suspicious about. I channel my negative experiences with people into my writing. Suspicious people make for great poetry. I use the happenings in our society to create and write. When I write about something or someone, I say, “Now take that and that.” It’s very therapeutic for me. Some have viewed me as a shock poet. They confuse being out and open with shock. People think if I use the word “dick” in my poetry — which I do a lot — I’m trying to surprise them or get a rise out of them. I don’t see anything wrong with shocking people, but it’s important to know the difference between being open and shocking someone for the sake of doing it.
JCE: What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses in your writing?
SA: Good question, John. My strength is the fact that I can be myself and tell my readers what is on my mind. I love how I have come a long way from writing about the moon to writing work that people want to read. I know I’ve done something right when people debate over the content of the work or if I make them laugh or cry. That is an artist’s greatest triumph. My weaknesses are all the grammatical errors and misspelled words.
JCE: The Academy of American Poets … thoughts?
SA: I think it’s a place for the mainstream academic poets mostly. They cater to the fucking Robert Pinsky’s of the poetry world. I think we are all just as capable of crossing over. The question is, do we want to?
JCE: If Whitman, Ginsberg and Bukowski entered a poetry slam, who do you think would win?
SA: Ginsberg — hands down! Bukowski would run a close second. Actually, I would like to see all three of them in a circle jerk.
JCE: Actually, I think the 3-minute rule might cost them some points.
JCE: A lot of poets are still reluctant to get online. What do you think of the Internet?
SA: I admit that I was a bit reluctant to have my work published online. I had this thought that someone could print it out and use it as their own. I haven’t had that problem yet. I’m cool with it as long as my work is protected under the copyright law. I think online publishing is becoming more and more popular as people have become more accessible to the Internet and new technology. I think for writers and poets, online journals are another way to get the work out there to people and, most importantly, expose it to other editors and publishers who might be cruising to look for some new, groundbreaking material. What I like about your online journals, John, is that you have a number of them and there’s no telling where I might end up. I like the thought of that. I love the anticipation.
JCE: If you could give one piece of advice to a young poet just starting out, what would you tell them?
SA: I would tell them to know how important they are as writers and poets. Be aware that you have a gift and embrace it with arms wide-open. It takes years of bad writing to get good. It’s wonderful to go back to that work and see how far you’ve come. I do that and I just laugh at the work i used to write. Always keep a journal handy. I have several blank journals and I buy them when I’m done with one. Keep them everywhere. One in your car and one at home. I sometimes go where the poetry is. Like malls, parks and so on. There’s great poetry at those places. The trick to becoming good is to write all the time. Everyday. I try to write two poems a day and I always have a little pocket-sized journal handy just in case I come up with a great line for a poem. Reading writers you love is great for inspiration. If you are looking to see your work in print, there are three books you should own and treat as your bibles: The Poet’s Market, The International Book of Small Presses and Magazines and Zine Guide. These are the best. I started out sending work to Poet’s Market and I have had a lot of success with it. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or an established poet; Poet’s Market is the best. The magazine, Poets and Writers is another great resource. If you’re serious and want to publish, be prepared to spend a lot of money on stamps and envelopes. Immerse yourself equally in writing well and the acceptance letters will flow in. Don’t take rejection to heart. One editor’s rejection is another’s acceptance. Don’t get discouraged or allow yourself to be discouraged by others. Always read as much as you can. Anthologies are good because they expose you to new kinds of poetry and new poets. Believe in yourself because, if you don’t, no one else will.
JCE: Well, Shane… that’s certainly sound advice. Thanks much for your time.
Posted in Interviews, poetry, poets | Amiri Baraka, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Interviews, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Poetry, Poets, Shane Allison | Leave a commentAn Interview With B.Z. Niditch
Published November 15, 2000 | TO OUR CONTEMPORARIES
Soon a century
will have us written off
as worn-out bones
but we will speak
even if words are silent
in long parables
and short reputations
change in a whirlwind
we cannot be still here
they will say
even among the devouring ones
who take us for the untimely.
published in Crucifixion Times, 1998
B.Z. Niditch, poet, playwright, fiction writer, and aphorist is published widely throughout the U.S. and abroad. His work has appeared in most of the leading literary journals around the world, including ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN VERSE & YEARBOOK OF AMERICAN POETRY:COLUMBIA: A MAGAZINE OF POETRY & ART: THE LITERARY REVIEW: HAWAII REVIEW: DENVER QUARTERLY; INTERNATIONAL POETRY REVIEW: and most underground avant-garde magazines. He is the founder and artistic director of The Original Theatre, in Boston, which has presented original, experimental plays on contemporary social and political themes since 1990. He is the author of over 20 collections of fiction, plays, aphorisms, and poems. He has recently completed writing a journal, WHAT I THINK OF YOU.
JCE: Tell us, when did you begin writing and what was the catalyst or inspiration for your first piece?
BZN: I began writing in 1972. One of the catalysts was when I visited Tennessee Williams after his own acting performance in his play "Small Craft Warnings" on Broadway. After reading one of my one act plays, Tennessee told me that I had the gift of a poet, and encouraged me to have courage, no matter how long it took to receive recognition; there would someday be people in my life who would come to appreciate my work. After that, I continued writing one act plays, but poetry was my first love. Then I began writing a journal and a diary, aphorisms and novellas.
JCE: What do you believe are your strengths as a writer? Weaknesses?
BZN: My strengths as a writer can be summed up as a self-conscious invocation of mood. Beginning a new life with each poem, which takes on an explorer’s existence of its own. With different norms, and states of feelings, pointing to the next poem, as a sign of rebirth. It’s a continual process, a gift which is always on the precipice of a new moment. One which reflects language and never has a repeat performance of an older sensibility. My abilities for dialogue are reflected in my poetry, fiction, and,obviously, in my plays, which offer my readers insight into the life of this traveler and visionary. My weakness may be a focus on heavy-weight topics, which can be an uneasy read. Or a bold surrealism, which has a subconscious text in mind.
JCE: What do you think the role of the poet should be in society?
BZN: I believe the poet knows that he, himself, cannot change the world, but can change the way we look at the world. And, of course, the poet can be revolutionary in terms of language. I often write of the horrors of the fascistic mentality in which the
individual must serve the state, not only in a Platonic sense, but that his or her soul, must serve the political correctness of the current age, which is something I am not about. I prefer to explore that which makes society and individuals move in different directions, and to discover ways in which the individual can have an important role, even in the vastness of the cosmos.
JCE: What has most influenced your writing?
BZN: The need to experience life at an ironic distance has kept me writing, also the influences of other writers I have personally met,like Robert Lowell, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, and Anne Sexton, also influenced me to explore the prospects of my own imagination.
JCE: How important is it for poets to perform their work in public?
BZN: I have preformed my work by being an actor, in the background, in my own plays. I always do an ‘Alfred Hitchcock,’ being the ham I am, by making a ‘cameo’ appearance on stage. I have also read from my published poetry collections, so as to be part of the oral tradition, from Homer to Bukowski, which plays an important part in our literary culture.
JCE: What do you think of the small press scene and do you think the Internet has helped it or harmed it?
BZN: The small press scene has been of great interest to me, by corresponding with editors and other writers on-line, who share my love for language. The internet can only enhance writers’ work, for academic publishers seem to publish their own professors of poetry, those who teach at their schools, and share their philosophies. Our libertarian voices must be heard by a new generation, especially those whose only means of cultural communication may be the computer.
JCE: What do you do with all your contributors’ copies?
BZN: I give my contributors copies to fans and friends around the world. As a result, I’ve received mail from over 30 countries, in which my work has been published, or acknowledged.
JCE: The New Yorker . . . thoughts?
BZN: I have a subscription to "The New Yorker," given to me by an admirer. The fiction and poetry always surprise me if I find that they lack pretension. So much of modern poetry is chopped-up prose, which lacks musicality, so essential to me.
JCE: What books are you currently reading?
BZN: I am currently reading Borges’s short stories, John Ashberry’s "Some Trees," and Frank O’Hara’s lunch poems.
JCE: What advice do you have for the younger generation of poets coming up now?
BZN: The younger generation must read aloud and perform their own work:to hear their own words and not just see them on the page. The Beat poets, the Black Mountain school, and even today’s Formalists, have opened their poets’s voices to speak aloud to their audiences.
JCE: Well, thank you for taking the time for this interview.
BZN: Thank you for featuring me.
Posted in Interviews, poetry, poets | Alfred Hitchcock, avant-garde, B.Z. Niditch, Bukowski, Interviews, John Ashbury, Poetry, Poets | Leave a commentSponsors
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