AS/IS 2

If you could model a writing program based around any famous teacher, real or imagined, whom would you choose?

I would probably have to choose Pai Mei. "Your braying poems hurt my ears! Now I will pluck out your eyeball with my deadly Lotus Poke! Be happy I am still leaving you with one!"

And Ol' Man Quietude blabs on and on and on...

We can only hope she never decides to publish...

"I spend more time on my hobbies. I do a lot of photography and write poems." - Meg Ryan on her divorce from Dennis Quaid

When is poetry a dangerous threat?

1) What inspires you to write poetry in both the short- and long-term? In other words: what gets you started, and what keeps you going?

I can only plead a nausea towards inertia. What keeps me going is not all that different from what keeps sex going.

2)Is poetry the primary genre that you work within? If so, why? If not, why?

What is genre? What is work? I suspect that I have what would now be called "ADD", which I simply consider to be an attention span that is on a differing track from most teachers, thus poetry suits my purposes quite well. I prefer to concentrate intensely for short periods, which is nearly a definition of poetry.

3) Do you believe that a poet has any special sort of social responsibility?

To not behave as a total beast, at least until people start behaving far too civilised. To maintain the integrity of the individual vision. To be fearless.

4) What does writing poetry do for you? Why does poetry matter?

Much like my sex, my race, my DNA, at times it means everything, at other times nothing at all. Poetry matters because it is the last bastion of true play possible in the literary arts.