poetofthemonthintervfeb3

ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM

Home

Submit

I've never written in a workshop setting. I took writing courses in college, but learned nothing from them. I did learn a lot about life and literature from drinking beer and hanging out with my fellow students and professors, and from reading the poets I enjoyed. I probably have too much pride to participate as a writer in a workshop. I'm okay with having editors judge my work, but other writers? I don't think I'd subject myself to that. It sounds risky to me. Someone is going to get their feelings hurt. Someone is going to give bad advice. I may be dead wrong on that. A good editor always has the final word because they have the power to publish you, and their money is on the line, and they understand what their readers get off on. I trust good editors. I'm not sure even good writers know what they are talking about when they offer advice to other writers on what is wrong with their work, or right with it. I know some writers live for workshops, but I suspect it's more a social thing for them. There's nothing wrong with that.

What invokes my muse? Little things that piss me off. Odd things I notice that puzzle me. Aspects of life that sadden me. Flashes of luck against all odds. Forces over which we have no control and that have the power to wreck our lives. My own foolishness and the foolishness of others. The tragic flaws in all of us. I often attempt to write on a universal level, to say something that will be true for people other than just myself. There are millions of sad, lonely, frustrated, stressed out, harassed, oppressed, beaten down, depressed people out there. They work at banks and in fast food restaurants and in metal fabrication shops and in dental offices.This is one seriously fucked up world we live in. None are untouched, undamaged.The deck is stacked against each of us. And no one seems to give a rat's ass about anyone besides themselves. Just carrying on from day to day can be an act of tremendous courage and faith, an expression of hope without reason. This is the context in which I write. If this seems melodramatic to you, perhaps you're right. It's just how I see things.

Writing rituals: I usually go upstairs to the lunchroom in the building where I work, make a cup of green tea in the microwave, talk for a minute with whoever is up there, then go back down to my desk, stick in a floppy disk, and write on my computer. The radio is always on. Doesn't matter what's playing: news, music, talk. I avoid looking out the window because if I do, I'll have an urge to go outside. I often mumble to myself as I
type. I probably sound deranged to anyone listening. I'd love to say I always lick the petals of a yellow rose, or prick my finger on the cactus on my windowsill before I write, but it wouldn't be true. Maybe I should start doing these sorts of quirky things; my work might mysteriously improve. As for poems jotted in notebooks, this can happen anywhere, any time. On the bus. At breakfast. In the middle of the night when I get up to take a leak. I scribble them as fast as I can.Writing in small notebooks gives me great pleasure. I only wish I had discovered this decades ago.

6) I understand you just recently had a poetry reading in Salem, Oregon. What's the poetry and small press scene like in Oregon?

The poetry scene in Oregon, and especially in Salem, has changed dramatically over the years. When I first lived here in the 1970s, there was a scene in Portland, a little activity in Eugene and Corvallis, but nothing going on in Salem. I read a few times in Portland, but living in Salem, I was too far from Portland, Eugene and Corvallis to really get involved deeply in whatever was happening in those cities. We moved back to Southern California in 1978, and I returned to the very active poetry scene down there. In 1982, we moved back to Oregon for the second time. This time, I made no effort to get involved in any local literary activities. I pretty much became a recluse, leaving home only to go to work or the grocery store. I kept writing, but made no attempt to publish locally, and I stayed completely unknown in Oregon.

Not long ago, about 1999, I finally came out of my shell, looked around, and found that there are now many good, serious poets and fiction writers in Oregon, and, surprisingly, even in the Salem area. I did a reading in Salem about three years ago. The opportunity to do another one here came just last week. I go to a number of readings, and I've been listening to some very fine writers read their work and discuss their craft.I'm not sure why I had this change of heart, but I seem to have gotten off my high horse and decided maybe I could learn something from these other writers around me, and I have. There are some exceptionally talented and accomplished authors in the Salem area. Poet Clem Starck lives in nearby Dallas. Gina Ochsner (a short story writer), lives in Keizer, which is next to Salem. My recent reading was with these two incredible authors, both of whom I am awed by. We had a strong turn out of 65 or more people. The week before, poet Marilyn Johnston gave a powerful reading from her new book, RED DUST RISING. There are other good poets in the area whose work I am less familiar with, so I won't mention them by name. This in now a hotbed of poetic activity. What caused that change? I don't know. Maybe poetry is more valued in the culture at large. You got me. I can't explain it. But I'm glad for it.

7) What's next for David Barker? Anything we should look out for?

While working on the LUNCH-HOUR POEMS, I wrote a long story, tentatively titled "Everything was okay at first but it quickly went to hell." It's a follow up to a story called "Shopping for George" which is in my collection STORIES FROM THE BRINK. I plan to put the finishing touches to this new story soon and maybe something will happen with it and some other, as-yet-unpublished stories that I've written over the past few years.

I have two groups of poems in little pocket notebooks that are not yet typed up. One is a travelogue, a mix of short, haiku-like poems and prose snippets, about a trip I took with my family to San Francisco last summer. I feel very good about the writing I did on that trip, and I'm hoping to get that work typed soon. Another pocket notebook is full of poems written during a big snow storm we had in January. I might be able to do something with those. And then, I'm always writing lots of unrelated poems like the ones in LUNCH-HOUR POEMS, so maybe those will form a book at some point. Recently, Bill Roberts and I have been talking about doing a collection of my poems that were originally published in the legendary WORMWOOD REVIEW, edited by the late Marvin Malone. None of my WORMWOOD poems have been reprinted, because I felt they were some of my best work and I didn't want them scattered. Having all of these poems in a single collection has long been a dream of mine. My tentative title for this book is MARVIN'S PICKS, but that could change.

Of course, anything that happens will be at the discretion of an editor. I've self-published many chapbooks during my writing career, and I feel that is a perfectly valid thing to do. However, I can see a definite advantage in having a good editor acting as the gatekeeper, deciding what's worthy of being in print and what's best left in the file. So, to the extent possible, I'd prefer a good editor make those decisions. I've been working with a great editor, Bill Roberts, the genius behind Bottle of Smoke Press, for some time now, and I trust his judgment completely. Bill will get all of these manuscripts first, when they're completed, and it'll be up to him to decide what happens to them. Knowing Bill, I trust good things lie ahead for me. I've been having a freaking ball the past three years, working with Bill. Sometimes I have to ask myself if I died and went to heaven. It's
been that much fun. And the man has me working hard at my writing. I'm enjoying every minute of it.