I first came across Frank Giampietro's name during an interview with Julianna Baggott last year. Since then, I just kept running into either his name or the title of his collection, Begin Anywhere. Finally, I decided to ask him for an interview (he's a Facebook friend--see the power of social networking?).

One of the things I personally love about this collection is that it constantly surprised me. Every time I thought I was going down a predictable road--one I didn't care to go down--the poem would take interesting side streets to get to our destination, which may or may not have been where I thought we were going originally. Eventually, I quit trying to predict our destination. Instead, I just let myself enjoy the ride.

Here's one of my favorite poems of the collection:

Juice

I'd like to begin with my addiction to heroin,
though I never shot it, I only sniffed it.
(Snorted is so, what? Crass?)
Once after seven years without it, I talked
to an Italian ex-junkie who was still smoking hash.
Because she shot it,
she claimed that she was more addicted to it.
Instead of admitting she was right, I went on
about the purity of American heroin
while she repeated no, no, no emphatically.
I found her sexy in a big-boned
Elizabeth Bishop sort of way.
If I were Elizabeth Bishop,
with my history of addiction,
I would have to write a villanelle
like "One Art,"
but my refrains would be
A1: I shared crack with a pregnant Dominican woman
A2: at the top of a five-flight walk-up on 109th Street in Harlem.
They say you can let the arms
of the repeating lines
wrap themselves around you
for comfort. It's a great form for subjects
that might otherwise be a threat.
I wish I could say that my best poems
are written when I'm afraid. Sometimes
when my four-year-old wakes up, he's afraid.
The first words out of his mouth are
I want some juice. Now I sleep with him,
and I wake up to the request
nearly every day. Honestly, there's no better way
to slip from my dreams. I worry I won't sleep at all
when he kicks me out of his bed.
When I sniffed heroin, whole parts of my body
would go completely numb as I slept.
One morning I woke unable to move either arm,
but after a minute or two, the feeling came back. It's not
that I'm afraid to write about addiction--it's just
that this is nothing like that.

*****

What are you up to?

This summer I'm working on a second book while teaching creative writing to undergraduates here at Florida State University. Otherwise I'm making video poems I call "voems" (very original, right?) and posting them to YouTube. You can see two of them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Wn_i0PezM.

Your website lafovea.org is rather interesting in how poets become nerves that connect to each other. Could you speak a little about how the site works and what the inspiration was behind the site?

One day after hearing the usual grousing about how nepotistic the publishing world is (an idea that doesn't hold much water, by the way), I had an idea to use nepotism productively, interestingly, as an alternative to publishing in the usual submission rejection sort of way. I thought why not have an internet site that publishes poems by invitation exclusively. And then I thought about how to do that and allow the largest variety of voices to be heard. I envisioned teachers inviting students and students inviting teachers. I also thought and hoped La Fovea might get poets from outside academia too. So I came up with the idea of publishing poetry nerves, nerves all extending from a giant poetry eyeball. I started with twelve poets with very different writing styles, all of whom I know and admire, all of them gathered around the eyeball on the homepage, and had them post two poems. Then they had to invite at least one poet. That poet then invited a poet and so on. We now have over 160 contributors. It's really working well and has been a lot of fun to see grow.

Your poems deal with topics such as being a father and husband. You are both a husband and father in real life. So, where do you draw the line between reality and fiction in your poems?

I guess I don't, in my poems that is. For instance, I have a poem about my son shooting me with an arrow. And knock on wood, he hasn't shot me with an arrow yet. But we have played with a bow and arrow, and he has scared the bejesus out of me a time or two pointing the arrow inadvertently at me or his sister or the cat. That's where I get the poems from, the possibilities for drama in real life rather than the life itself. Life itself is usually dull, as far as I can tell (maybe because I have no "inner resources").

Begin Anywhere is broken into two sections. How did you decide to organize the poems in this collection?

I had a lot of help from my editor at Alice James Books, April Ossamann. She showed me some ways of organizing the book that I just couldn't see on my own.  

Your poetry has been published in several literary journals. Do you have a method for handling your submissions?

I send in spurts, usually, and then wait for the rejections to come in. One day recently I got three in the mail at once. I think that might be a record.

When do you know a poem is finished?

After I've sat with it a week or two and shown it to one of my trusty couple of readers and gotten his or her feedback, that's when I know it's ready to send out. Finished is another story. I'm more of a poem abandoner than a finisher. I never feel like my poems are finished.

If you could begin anywhere, where would you begin?

Ha, ha, very funny. I like the 12-step program notion that one can begin one's day over at any time during the day. One can just say okay enough. Let's begin this day again. I do this with my kids sometimes when they are acting up. If things are getting hairy at the dinner table one of us will say "stop, let's start our day over." And then we have a little good morning ritual and then we start again. But even on my own, without the kids, I begin my day over lots of times as a way to keep my head on straight and my attitude and outlook rosy.

Who (or what) are you currently reading?

Right now I'm reading Joel Brouwer's new book "And So." It's really amazing. He's a poetry dude. I'm also reading Anna Karenina on my Kindle iPhone application. I have a house full of books and love paper books just like the next poet, but I have to say it's great reading on my phone because the phone is so much easier to hold than a book. Plus, since I always have my phone, I always have my book and can read while in line at the post office mailing my soon to be rejected submissions.

If you could offer only one piece of advice to fellow poets, what would it be?

Hmmmm, I like to take advice a lot more than give it. If I could take one piece of advice, I would like to be told to be more satisfied with things exactly the way they are. That's what I need to do, how I need to be.

*****

To learn more about Frank Giampietro and his collection, Begin Anywhere, go to his publisher's website at http://www.alicejamesbooks.org/

Also, check out his online literary journal at http://lafovea.org/.

Or read "Death by My Son" featured on Poetry Daily (and the one he references in the interview above) at: http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14198

*****

If you're a poet, editor, publisher, etc., interested in an interview on Poetic Asides, then click here to learn how to possibly make that happen.

Monday, June 01, 2009 11:53:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [8] 

A poem of mine appeared in the most recent issue of Ocho, which was guest-edited by Atlanta poet Collin Kelley. You can see his post on the issue here: http://collinkelley.blogspot.com/2009/05/twitter-issue-of-ocho-online-now.html

To check out the issue yourself, go to http://issuu.com/didimenendez/docs/ocho24

Apparently, hard copies will be available on Amazon soonish.

This issue of Ocho gathers poems by poets who actively use Twitter. Yes, I fall into that category. If you want to follow me there, my Twitter name is: @robertleebrewer

Thursday, May 28, 2009 9:06:20 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [15] 

There are so many things that seem obvious on the surface. But when you look beneath the surface, you may find surprises. Houses that are beautiful on the outside may be completely torn up on the inside; super athletes can be ticking timebombs for heart attacks; and even "happy" families have been known to eventually reveal dark secrets.

For this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem that looks beneath the surface. For extra effect, you could possibly title the poem after your subject. For instance, you could title the poem "Happy Birthday" and then look at how it's not happy; or you could title the poem "Self-made Man" and describe how that might not be such a good thing. There are lots of possibilities for this one.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Neighbors"

At first, I think these people don't know who
I am. But then I realize I don't know
who they are either. My hair needs cut and
my eyes need glasses if I ever want
to see. In the distance, I hear children
play their games in the dark. I walk
my dog and never see them. They surround
me with sound, and I wonder: Who are they?
Who will they become? Hopefully not just
another old man quietly walking
a dog in the rain and thinking these thoughts
while stepping on the moon in each puddle. 

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 2:20:33 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [319] 

On May 29, I'll be leading an online seminar on how to get your poetry published, including what not to do in your submissions. In the seminar, you'll learn how to submit your poetry (online and off), how to identify and study appropriate markets, how to write cover letters, and more.

As an added bonus, I will be providing feedback on one poem (of 20 lines or less) from each registrant--details included in your confirmation e-mail. So, you can learn how to publish your poetry and receive feedback on a poem for only $99.

But that's not all, my OPM just recently gave me a coupon code that'll take an extra $15 off, which would make it just $84. Just go to https://writersonlineworkshops.webex.com/writersonlineworkshops/j.php?J=683166157.

While there, don't forget to use the following coupon code: g1y3f1gq30

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 2:07:36 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [4] 

Sorry for the quiet on the blog over the past week and the lateness of the prompt today. I'm just glad to be able to deliver a prompt and poem today. On Saturday morning, I lost consciousness and quit breathing for a short period of time. Tammy and my (soon-to-be) sister-in-law called 911 and got me to safety. In fact, Tammy is the person who restored my breathing (apparently, I turned a bright shade of blue). I was hospitalized from Saturday morning until yesterday evening. In the process, I met several very nice doctors and specialists; had lots of blood drawn; was put through several tests; and ultimately am not sure exactly what my condition is or what caused my episode (though I have been given a prescription for Vitamin D, have more follow-up tests to do in the future, and am not allowed to drive for at least another week). I'm very thankful to be able to throw a prompt and poem up today and to have a wife who kept me alive and (by restoring my breathing) saved me from any brain damage. (I, of course, let her know how special she is to me, but I thought I'd share with y'all, too.)

******

Anyway, I was trying to think of a good prompt that might tie in with my recent "adventure." Sooo, for this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem about the unexpected. It could be something along the lines of the completely unexpected episode I recently experienced. Or it could be an unexpected act of kindness, an unexpected visitor, an unexpected gift, etc. There are a lot of ways you can run with this one.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Waking in our hospital beds, we think"

We are born without heads
and build space shuttles
in our laboratories and public parks;
we dream of what worries us
while wearing our tubing and bracelets;
the lucky ones
are rolled around on their beds.

The nurses will wake us
and ask us questions;
the doctors will wake us
and ask us questions;
even our visitors--
they will ask questions, too.

No one will walk away satisfied
with our answers; they
will look at us
as if we are liars
or idiots.

They will order more tests
and blood drawn,
more questions asked
by more specialists.

Maybe this or that;
nothing confirmed
by blood or tests.

They will ask us questions
again. They will sigh.

They will tells us we're lucky.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 6:42:31 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [230] 

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Don't you (blank)," fill in the blank with a word or words, and make that the title of your poem. Then, write a poem using that title. Example titles could be "Don't you forget to turn off the lights," "Don't you tell me what to do," and "Don't you laugh." There are many, many, many possibilities with this one.

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Don't you burn no bridges"

Plant a seed in the earth. Dream
of Beau Bridges; dream of Jeff Bridges;
dream of Lloyd Bridges; dream of everyone
with that last name: Bridges. Wonder
what it means when you do. Should
you gather up mashed potatoes, sculpt
a bridge? Beau won two Golden Globes;
Jeff won only one, though he had four Oscar
nominations; and Lloyd won nothing.
You don't need to know their successes
and failures. They are a family. They are
the dust of the earth. They reach and
toil. They burn and boil. They want more
than just an image burned on a disc or
saved on a server; they, like anyone
(like everyone) just want to find something
hidden and unexpected. A light, perhaps,
or a moment. When a seed enters the earth,
there is nothing if not possibility.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 2:46:52 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [334] 

Justin Marks' full-length collection of poems, A Million in Prizes, was recently released by New Issues Poetry & Prose after winning the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize. His latest chapbook is Voir Dire (Rope-a-Dope Press), and he's the founder and editor of Kitchen Press Chapbooks.

I enjoyed reading both A Million in Prizes and Voir Dire, which is a semi-long poem. Here's one of my favorites from A Million in Prizes:

Matter of Fact

I wanted to create the ocean, the sky,
the intricate structure of a leaf

and thought by now
I'd have come close.

What joy I have in knowing
creation of that sort

doesn't exist.
The world has little

use for me.
Its glare blinds.

How glad I am
for the orbit I inhabit.

A planet to the sun.

*****

What are you up to?

Enjoying being a new dad. Working. Doing some writing here and there. Lining up readings for the spring and fall.

An entire section of your collection A Million in Prizes is one long poem: [Summer insular]. How is writing a long poem different from writing shorter poems?

Writing a long poem, for me, is more comforting than working on shorter poems. Something about knowing I have a large space to work in puts me in a good place emotionally. I mean, I love writing shorter poems, but they generally don't take as long to write and if I don't have anything else I'm working on, I'll start to get real anxious. But lately my short poems are all part of a larger vision/conceptual framework, a book or chapbook, so even when I'm done with an individual poem I know I have a lot more to work on in terms of completing that particular manuscript. It makes me feel more like I'm working on sections of a long poem instead of isolated one night stands, as Spicer called them.

The end of your collection is packed with prose poems. What do you like about the prose poem?

Those poems were a real turning point in my writing. I could sense that I wouldn't be writing too many more poems like the ones from the first section. Not because I didn't like them. It was just that...I don't know...the straight-up, individual lyric poem was starting to feel limiting to me. I was and am proud of the work that’s in the first section of my book, and absolutely stand by it, but in terms of my development it was just time to move on. One of the things a book is to me is in some ways a chart of a person’s development/growth as a writer during the time in which the book was written.

To try and enable that growth for myself I decided that I needed to focus on not caring about the end result and (as much as I possibly could) turn off my inner-critic and just write. One way I was able to make that happen was to not worry about line breaks any more. At the same time, I found myself thinking more in sentences than lines—or maybe more accurately: Thinking about sentences as lines. So that was one thing I liked about prose poems. I was able to sort of pack a lot in and move about in a more relaxed manner than if I were trying to write lineated poems.

Since then I've returned to prose a good bit. A new chapbook manuscript I'm finishing up is all prose. What I hope will be my next book is a series of sonnets, but even with those I keep trying to work prose lines in there somehow to kind of break things up and build some variety into the manuscript.

The poems in A Million in Prizes are all first person narratives. Where do you draw the line between reality and fiction in your poems? Also, what do you like about writing in a confessional voice?

I don't think writing in the first person makes one confessional. My poems in this book—and in general—explore the lyric "I", certainly, but that's totally different than being confessional. I'm not confessing anything. Besides, there are so many problems with that term, even as it has been/is applied to poets like Lowell and Plath and that whole "confessional" crowd—it doesn't feel useful to me.

One of the things I try to do in my work is get an entire self (if such a thing exists) down on the page, so I don't really draw lines between fiction and reality. It's all fiction. And reality. I take from my life whatever is necessary for my work to progress/evolve/change. It potentially gets tricky when I start writing about other people from my life, but so far no one has objected or asked me to not write about them. If they did, though, I'd have to honor that.

Your collection won the 2008 New Issues Poetry Prize, and you're the founder and editor of Kitchen Press Chapbooks. What do you think makes a good collection?

I think about this a lot, and every time I start to approach a conclusion I'm reminded of some book I like that breaks the rules surrounding whatever conclusions I'm approaching. I guess, on a basic level, I think a good collection is one in which the poems become something more than individual poems that are somehow similar in feel and arranged together to make a nice flow. The poems in a good collection are in conversation with each other and form something greater than their parts.

But that definition, for me, is always changing. Over the last few years I've become way more invested in books that are projects or series/serial as opposed to more traditional collections, books that are more akin to Spicer's idea of the serial poem, or are a book length poem, etc. One of my favorite contemporary books is Claudia Rankine's Don't Let Me Be Lonely. The subtitle is An American Lyric. I don't know what that means, or how one might define it except to say, read the book. It's prose, but I'm not sure if it's prose poems. Maybe it's a lyric essay or memoir of some sort. It doesn't really matter. Martha Ronk's Vertigo is another book I enjoy immensely that I think is a little limiting to just call a collection of poems (though it does have individual poems). It's more like a series or cycle of poems.

It’s one of the qualities I look for when I read manuscripts for Kitchen Press. Take Hit Wave, by Jon Leon. I don't know if you've read it, but I'm not really sure what it is: a collection of prose poems? A lyric novella? I could only put it under the rather general category of anti-poetic. And writing I love.

But then there's Old With You, by Lily Brown. I don't think anyone would argue that that isn't your basic collection of somewhat thematically linked, individual poems. But I love that book too.

So I guess what I'm saying is: There are basic qualities that I think make a good collection, but I also really dig work that makes questions just what a collection of poems is/can be. (As an aside, Tarpaulin Sky Press is deeply invested in putting out work that others might not consider to be "poetry.")

Your bio mentions an infant son and daughter. Have they impacted your writing in any way?

They impacted my writing before they were even conceived. I wrote Voir Dire around the time my wife and I were getting serious about trying to get pregnant. There are lots of references to babies in that mini-chapbook. There are also a lot of babies in the two manuscripts I've been working on throughout my wife's pregnancy and since the birth of our son and daughter. In a sense, it's all kind of topical. I never mentioned babies in my work until we started trying to have one/had them. I mean, I'm not writing about my babies as individual people per-se. I don't really write "about" specific people or subjects. Though I suppose there are poems in A Million in Prizes that you could argue are "about" specific subjects. Generally, though, it's not my thing. Anyway. That I'm mentioning babies at all, to me, means my babies have had a significant impact on my writing.

You work as a copywriter. How do the demands of writing copy differ from writing poetry? Also, are there similarities?

Marketing copy has to be concise and to the point, say as much as possible with as few words as possible, and it absolutely has to get and maintain the reader’s attention, even if it is only for a few moments and all you're ultimately saying is "Buy Now". Poetry is like that. (Though there are certainly worthwhile poetries out there that are not at all concerned with the whole maximum-impact-with-minimum-words model.) But I think the most significant similarity is that marketing copy is pretty conceptual. You have to think about all the ways what you're saying can be interpreted and if that fits in with what you want people to take away. For me, with poetry, it's not that I necessarily have a specific idea of what I want people to take away, but I definitely put a lot of time into thinking about how any random stranger out in the world could interpret my writing. In that sense, being a copywriter has made me a much more conscious and aware (I guess "better") poet than if I were in some other profession.

This feels even more true to me when I think about the connections between putting together a marketing campaign and writing a book, or even an extended project that spans across many individual books. You have to really be aware of how each part interacts with the other, whether it's individual ads in a campaign or poems in a book (whether that book be a more traditional collection of individual poems or something more extended/conceptual).

There's also the fact that corporate and marketing lingo is some of the weirdest, most mind-blowing shit I've ever heard. Total goldmine.

But the biggest difference between copywriting and poetry, for me, is that I often feel restricted when writing copy. I may come up with an idea or a line, but so many people above me will have their feedback that I have to find a way to incorporate, and there's also the whole staying on brand and within the voice aspect as well. And that's cool. But poetry, for me, is in large part about freedom. I really don't have anything to lose or gain career-wise with poetry so I feel generally free to do whatever I want. Of course that feeling winds up compromised by various factors and circumstances, as it must, but I'd like to think that that sense of freedom that I try to start from still remains somehow at the core of my poetry.

Who have you been reading recently?

Joe Massey, Eric Baus, Rodrigo Toscano, Jack Spicer, Frank Stanford, Barbara Guest,

Mathias Svalina, Aase Berg, Zach Schomburg, Harper’s Magazine, Wired Magazine, the most recent issue of the Agricultural Reader.

If you could pass on only one piece of advice to fellow poets, what would it be?

I've been given such large heaps of bad advice over the years, I'm hesitant to offer any of my own. So maybe my advice should be, “don’t take any advice.” Then again, I've also gotten some good advice that has often helped sustain me: Trust yourself. Don't let anyone or thing stop you. Be willing to change. Persevere. Stuff like that. That’s my advice.

*****

Check out A Million in Prizes and New Issues Poetry & Prose at www.wmich.edu/newissues.

Check out Voir Dire and Rope-a-Dope Press at http://rope-a-dope-press.blogspot.com.

Check out Justin Marks at his blog: http://justinanselmarks.blogspot.com/.

*****

Are you a publisher or poet interested in a Poetic Asides interview? Then, click here for more details on how to be considered for one.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 3:45:07 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [3] 

On May 29, I'll be leading an online seminar on how to get your poetry published, including what not to do in your submissions. In the seminar, you'll learn how to submit your poetry (online and off), how to identify and study appropriate markets, how to write cover letters, and more.

As an added bonus, I will be providing feedback on one poem (of 20 lines or less) from each registrant--details included in your confirmation e-mail. So, you can learn how to publish your poetry and receive feedback on a poem for only $99.

But that's not all, my OPM just recently gave me a coupon code that'll take an extra $15 off, which would make it just $84. Just go to https://writersonlineworkshops.webex.com/writersonlineworkshops/j.php?J=683166157.

While there, don't forget to use the following coupon code: g1y3f1gq30

Monday, May 11, 2009 2:26:03 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [7]