Interview With Poet Stephen Cushman
This week at the Poetry Blog of 32 Poems Magazine my interview with poet Stephen Cushman was posted. He’s a contributor to the magazine and was a delight to interview. His answers are very short and to the point, but I'm intrigued by those who play Frisbee golf.
First, let me tantalize you with a bit from the interview, and then you can go on over and check the rest out for yourself.
Without further ado, here’s the interview.
How would you introduce yourself to a crowded room eager to hang on your every word? Are you just a poet? What else should people know about you?
People should know I play a mean game of Frisbee golf, am fluent in Maineglish (ayuh), am told I can make anything naughty with the lift of one eyebrow, and am the go-to person for old school drinking songs.
Do you see spoken word, performance, or written poetry as more powerful or powerful in different ways and why? Also, do you believe that writing can be an equalizer to help humanity become more tolerant or collaborative? Why or why not?
If I am elected Miss America, I vow to work for world peace, mostly on the written page, although I’m happy to perform or do spoken word, if I can wear my overalls. Poetry is 4,300 years old; if it could help humanity become more tolerant and collaborative, it would have done so by now. And perhaps it has. Who knows? If it weren’t for poetry, we might be even worse than we are.
In terms of friendships, have your friendships changed since you began focusing on writing? Are there more writers among your friends or have your relationships remained the same?
As a writer I fly least turbulently below the radar. Luckily, therefore, my friendships are not related to or dependent on my writing life.
How do you stay fit and healthy as a writer?
I’m currently co-editing the new edition of the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, so hoisting the page proofs of that around keep me pretty buff.
He also included a poem, originally published in 32 Poems, for readers to check out:
Supposing Him to Be the Gardener
Supposing this to be the sun And this to be the rain, Supposing clouds to be caviar And wind to be champagne, How can one tell divinity From a tree turned red Or Do not hold me from what else Its leaves might well have said? About the Poet:
Stephen Cushman is Robert C. Taylor Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He has published four collections of poetry, Riffraff (LSU, 2011), Heart Island (David Robert Books, 2006), Cussing Lesson (LSU, 2002), and Blue Pajamas (LSU, 1998). He is also the author of Bloody Promenade: Reflections on a Civil War Battle (University Press of Virginia, 1999) and two books of criticism, Fictions of Form in American Poetry (Princeton University Press, 1993) and William Carlos Williams and the Meanings of Measure (Yale University Press, 1985).
Also find him at Public Poetry, The Writer's Almanac, Drunken Boat, interLitQ.org, The Cortland Review, University of Virginia Department of English, Amazon.com, and Archipelago.
Please check out the rest of the interview on 32 Poems Blog.