RATTLE Conversations

Introduction

Introduction Terrified. That’s the word which best describes how I felt more than ten years ago as I knocked on the front door of the home of Charles Webb to conduct my first conversation with a poet. To be sure, I had prepared a list of a few questions to ask, but my only journalism training was in the ninth grade, more than forty years before. Charles opened the door and led me to a sofa in his living room where I nervously set up my single tape recorder and began to ask my questions. I wanted to listen carefully to his answers, which hopefully would suggest more questions. That was easier to contemplate than to accomplish. The hour or more which we spent together was and is a blur in my mind. I do remember that the final question I asked was, “Are there any other questions which I should ask you?” Charles looked at me quizzically, then shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. At that point I realized that our conversation was over, and even though the role of the poet was more demanding than mine, I still had to initiate the questions. He (or she) only needed to respond. Through more than thirty subsequent conversations, I have never asked that question again. Now, after more than a decade of conversations with poets, I have become fairly comfortable with the process. In my recent conversation with Jack Kornfield, who is also a friend, I showed up with just my tape recorders. (I now use two, because in earlier days I lost part or all of at least three conversations.) I hoped that Jack would carry the day, and he certainly did. (My editor, Tim Green, told me that this particular conversation was transcribed by his girlfriend. He arrived home to find her sobbing at her desk, and he was sure that tragedy had struck—perhaps Megan’s mother had died. But no—she was deeply touched by Jack’s stories.) And that brings me to the purpose of Rattle, which was first published in 1995 as the chapbook for a poetry writing class that was taught by Jack Grapes, a caring and talented writing teacher in Los Angeles. I hasten to say that I love some poetry, and only some—maybe ten percent of the poems I read. I say ix “some” because many poems bore me silly. In the United States most of us are first exposed to serious poetry at age twelve or older. We quickly learn that only the teacher knows how to interpret a poem, and that we know nothing. Since poetry is something, we learn, that we can’t understand without a guide, many of us never read another poem after we graduate from high school. The primary mission of Rattle, and the conversations with poets which you will find in this book, is to present poems and poets that are accessible, alive, and interesting. When you read any of the fourteen conversations that follow, you are in for a treat. In the next few hours, or over the next few days or months if you like to extend your pleasures, you will meet fourteen of the finest American poets of our generation. You will meet them, as I did, in their homes, sometimes in their hotel rooms, but always sharing the thoughts of a curious mind, the depth of a fearless soul, and the emotions of an open heart. MyconversationwithAlanShapirotookplaceinhishomeinNorthCarolina while his son was in a hospital room recovering from severe depression. Alan was extremely candid with me and talked about intimate details of his life. My conversation with Sam Hamill was in his office at Copper Canyon Press, which he founded, in the beautiful settlement of Port Townsend near Seattle. I met with Diane Wakoski on the sofa of my office in Sherman Oaks. The most satisfying ending to a conversation was at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Marina Del Rey, California, where I enjoyed talking for an hour with Yusef Komunyakaa. At the end of our time together Yusef stood and said to me, “You’ve asked some very interesting questions. Now I have to meditate on them.” He walked into the garden of the hotel where, I presume, he meditated. The biggest impact on me (and my wife who was with me) was in the New York City apartment where Daniel Berrigan had lived for thirty-five years. He told us that the neighborhood had changed over...