Tell us about yourself and what inspired you to start writing.
Ah, Dr. Seuss! And later, prowling the gloomier corners of used bookstores for obscure art and esoteric philosophy, antiquated science and forgotten poets. And always writing. We all need something to break through the factual surface of our lives and deepen the contours of human experience. For me it’s writing and reading — novels and poetry.
Describe your writing process? Is there anything unique about it?
As a poet and novelist, I’d compare writing poetry to acute pain and novels to chronic pain. Either may start with character, a setting, or just pondering how little moments of human contact can end up framing an entire life. Then with poetry, I drop into an intense silo with enormous pressure on every word; with novels, there is more rational planning but still a lot of spontaneity as things develop and character start taking me where THEY want to go instead of where I had planned.
Have you published any books or do you have a desire to do so?
There are many threads in my poetry, from intimate bonding to cosmic contemplation to the images in themselves. But I suppose — especially in the new book, Schematics and Assemblies of the Cosmic Heart — that transcendence is a unifying element — how does one brittle image or one small moment in an intimate relationship break us through the surface of life to the infinite beyond. My novels are “literary fiction,” by which I don’t mean better than anthing else, but a certain style, where it’s not about following a series of plot points to see how it ends but rather a circling deeper and deeper into the subjective spaces within and between characters, and playing with language and structure along the way.
Do you have any favorite poets or authors?
Mostly classics. Plato and Boethius, Shakespeare and Dickens, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, the British Romantics for poetry. More recently (i.e., within the past half-century), Toni Morrison and Latino writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes. And I still dip into all the tributaries to the hippie world view, the Beat poets, Baba Ram Dass, Gandhi, Richard Brautigan.
Do you have a favorite book of poetry or poems?
I read and re-read from the classic authors list above. I could read Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse” once every 5 years and find whole new threads of meaning running through it every time. My forthcoming novel is a post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale, so I’m leaning a lot on Richard Brautigan’s beautifully poetic short novel, “In Watermelon Sugar.”
What are you reading now?
I’ve been reading Latino works in Spanish most recently — currently “La Tregua” (The Truce) by Mario Benedetti (Uruguay), “Aura” by the Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), and “Juego de espejos/Arroyo frío” (Game of Mirrors/Cold Stream), which includes Spanish translations of the Tang dynasty Chinese poet, Meng Jiao, along with original works by Mexican poet, Gaspar Orozco.
What do you like to do when you’re not writing? Full-time job, pets, hobbies?
I’ve hitchhiked through 14 countries in the past 5 years, picking up short-term university teaching jobs and technical writing jobs online along the way. After hitchhiking Mexico a bit, I’ve settled in a lovely town in central Mexico to ride out the pandemic. Stuck in paradise for now, I guess you could say. Life is good.
Are you working on a current project?
My new book of poems is just out, so I’ll be marketing that. I have a rough draft of my next novel completed also — that’s the post-apocalyptic adult hippie fairy tale called “Alice.” I expect a lot more revision on that one though.
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